this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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Fediverse

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Fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".

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@fediverse Let's face it. When talking about the Fediverse, it is very hard to sell interoperability between different types of instances as a major advantage. (hachyderm.io)
submitted 1 year ago by RookieNerd@hachyderm.io to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
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@fediverse Let's face it. When talking about the Fediverse, it is very hard to sell interoperability between different types of instances as a major advantage.

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[–] ShellMonkey@lemmy.socdojo.com 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Given the way this is tagged up with the @ and # throughout the comments I'm venturing it originated on Mastodon, yet here I am commenting on it from a Lemmy instance. Some of the inconsistencies of the federation between different platforms are going to come down to them each having different focuses, and that's plenty good. Trying to jam every functionality into a single platform is likely to result in it doing none of them well.

For my part having the ability to see one from another is a neat bonus, but not the main driver of use. The format and style of interactions leads me more towards things like Lemmy/K-Bin where some find Mastodon, Pixelfed, or any of the Friendica/Hubzilla style page base ones to be their thing. It's even possible people like more than one. I host both a Mastodon and Lemmy instance, and have toyed with others but didn't find them compelling enough to maintain.

So no, the notion of talking across platforms isn't so much the huge point of the fedi in my mind, but toss that in with the ability to do what you want to do similar to any of the big social platforms (they all pretty much have some kind of fedi counterpart now) without selling your soul to the corporate overlords is pretty fn awesome

[–] RookieNerd@hachyderm.io 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@ShellMonkey To be honest, I totally agree. Again, it boils down to the type of needs you have as a user. I want to have a personal profile where I can post stuff I've written, doing campaigning, share stuff about events I've participated to, and so on. That would be a profile I hand out on business cards and such.

At the same time, I love content/link aggregators, as that is the way of interacting online I find most interesting.

TLDR; I'm still in the search of the best software for my needs.

[–] ShellMonkey@lemmy.socdojo.com 2 points 1 year ago

In those two cases I'd think the Friendica/Hubzilla apps and the Lemmy/K-Bin apps would fit those two needs respectively. I've also bookmarked this thing called Fire fish that seems to have potential as a sort of all-of-the-above effort that could prove interesting, just don't want to see something that tries to be too much at once and fails at all of it as a result though.

A big part of the problems in anything on the fediverse as a professional presentation is that very little of the software is really well polished. Mastodon is probably the most 'pretty' of any of them right now that I'm familiar with, but there's always the balancing act with new software between working well and looking good/friendly that takes some time to hammer out, particularly if there isn't a massive development team backing it.

[–] RookieNerd@hachyderm.io 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@fediverse The point is that, given the current characteristics and limitations of the Fediverse at large, how should we recommend software to people interred in joining?
Should we aim to have them use only one software/instance given their interests? i.e. I'm interested in having the most similar experience to Instagram, so I should use ONLY Pixelfed? But what if, like me, I want to have an official presence online and still want to interact with other communities online that are thread-based?

[–] root_beer@convo.casa 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@RookieNerd

@fediverse

>recommend software to people interested in joining?

What would be more useful is a _reliable_, _independent_ reviewer of currently available software that works within the Fediverse to point people to Something that compares and contrast the different solutions. eg: Voyager v Mastedon v Thorium v Pixelfed.

#fediverse #software

[–] RookieNerd@hachyderm.io 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@root_beer @fediverse I understand the point, but what if there are different needs and use cases? Like a network of schools in a specific region that want to coordinate, interact and share events among them?

[–] SamXavia@kbin.run 1 points 1 year ago

@RookieNerd I think most instances have there place when it comes to what users may want there user experience to be like;
Mastodon - a more Twitter / X like experience where you can microblog
PixelFed - a more Instagram like experience where you can share Images without the META data collection
Lemmy - more towards a Reddit like experience
ext.
The good part of the Fediverse is that we can join together through different parts and interact from our own instances (including ones we run ourselves). The main reasons people seem to not want to move over is because they are used to the social media they are already one, the main people they follow don't want to move across and Instances are somewhat confusing at first.

My thoughts are that if META does actually make Threads federate then it will not only open people's mind a bit more when it comes to the Fediverse but maybe other social media's will follow including METAs Instagram and Facebook making it so you no longer have to worry if you are on 'X' website / app instead you just ask for there username and you can chat and see there posts.

[–] root_beer@convo.casa 1 points 1 year ago

@RookieNerd @fediverse @SamXavia

The specific use case is why I think a reliable, independent review of each is useful.

What differentiates these Lemmy clients:
* #Muffed;
* #Voyager;
* #Eternity;
* #Lemmy Redirect;
* #Jerboa;
* #Thunder;
* #Combustable;
* #Liftoff;
* #Lemmur;

There are almost as many clients for each of #Pixelfeed, #Mastedon, #PeerTube, and the rest of the #Fediverse, for a single platform.
Switch platforms, and discover a plethora of other clients.

[–] youronlyone@c.im 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@RookieNerd @fediverse

Do not recommend one software and/or one instance.

Using your scenario, would you recommend photography instances based on #Mastodon knowing Mastodon only allows up to 4 “attached” images? Not only that, Mastodon will only display 4 images even if there are more than that?

Or, are you going to recommend #Pixelfed designed for images. Or, maybe #Firefish, #Friendica, #Hubzilla, #Streams, which all allow more than 4 images and will display all the images even if it exceeds their software's attach limit?

Quite frankly, in my opinion, with the image display alone, Mastodon is highly not recommended. So, the number of users and instances Mastodon have does not make it the best #Fediverse software, as you have mentioned earlier, “Mastodon is the level of UX other projects should aim to”. It's not.

The best approach is we understand what the user needs and suggest to them the appropriate software and instances that will suit their needs.

Let's forget about the Fediverse for a while.

We have to remember that not everyone is on Twitter or Facebook. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals who only have an Instagram account. Why? They don't need Twitter and Facebook.

In Korea, for example, they have their own culture and platforms for communication Twitter/Facebook-like, so they don't need those. But many of them have Instagram accounts.

Now, let's go back to the Fediverse.

If those are the users we are reaching out to, then there should be no problem recommending Pixelfed. Because for these target market, their only concern and type of use is to share, well, photos or their latest digital artwork. They don't care about a Twitter/Facebook-like experience or use.

That brings us back to the features of #ActivityPub. It is an “added benefit”.

  1. Users who want to follow this content creator can do so using their existing account.

Okay, you can't do this with #Lemmy, the last time I checked, however, you can do it with #Kbin. That's a Lemmy limitation, not the fediverse.

  1. For the content creator who migrated to the fediverse, in particular, Pixelfed in our scenario, they have a greater reach because they're federated.

(Extra: You can actually turn Pixelfed into a regular Twitter-like software if you are using the web UI. Although, last time I heard it will be removed eventually.)

(Extra 2: BookWyrm also allows Twitter-like feeds and interaction, it's not restricted to just books.)

[–] RookieNerd@hachyderm.io 2 points 1 year ago

@youronlyone @fediverse This is a great suggestion. So, as you correctly are saying, there must be a focus on the user and their needs. I think a wizard could be useful (but not like https://distrochooser.de , because options are limited, same results).
This hypothetical wizard should allow the user to choose between software and instances, based on a set of characteristics.
I think we lack something like this. Am I wrong?

[–] RookieNerd@hachyderm.io 1 points 1 year ago

@youronlyone @fediverse Thank you for pointing that out. You expressed it way better than me. I agree. That's why probably we need to recommend different software to different users.

[–] RookieNerd@hachyderm.io 1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

@fediverse From my experience I am having two main issues when talking with people about the Fediverse:

[–] RookieNerd@hachyderm.io 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@fediverse Again, maybe I was only very unlucky with the instances I chose to let my friends sign up for the Fediverse, but we really need to think on how to make this as effortless as possible for new users. Changing paradigm is not easy, making everyone grasp the underlying concepts of the Fediverse is not easy, increasing adoption is not easy. We can not rely on another Xpocalypse.

I'm interested in discussing more about this.

[–] youronlyone@c.im 1 points 1 year ago

@RookieNerd @fediverse

Hmm… There is a misconception on what the #Fediverse is and what is the goal, which unfortunately is what the press are telling people.

  1. The Fediverse is about bringing down the walls (silos / walled-garden).

  2. It never had the goal or objective or vision to replace Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr, Blogspot.

The Fediverse software available today are the materialised ideas of developers who believe in a federated SocialWeb, which by the way, is the original #Web3 (not crypto). It goes all the way back to 2005 (probably earlier, I don't have my notes).

The goal was to get existing silos to open up and federate.

It just that, there are more developers who are excited about it, so we started to see serious projects related to the Fediverse. If I remember correctly, Misskey was not a Fediverse project when it first started. So, one would say Misskey was the first non-federation project that joined the fediverse network.

If these silos don't federate, it's fine too, because there are existing software and instances available.

And it has always been about choice.

If users want to stay with silo #SNS by all means. The fediverse is not here to replace them, the fediverse is here as an option and as a solution to the issues plaguing silo networks (like ads, privacy, content license, to mention a few).

That's what the fediverse is about and always have been to this day. It is never about replacing this and that, or recruiting people to switch over and encourage them to delete their silo SNS accounts. These other things were simply the passion and convictions of the users who migrated and some of the developers who developed fediverse software, it's not part of the fediverse itself.

It's just a protocol. Again, I'll use email here. If you have a server, you can choose to install your own email software. The protocol is there. Various email software are there. OR, you can just use Yandex or Gmail or Zoho and use the custom domain feature (or use their email hosting services).

If Twitter and Facebook implement the protocol, hooray! Mission accomplished. If they don't, that's fine either.

So, yeah, people are hating that Instagram will implement the #ActivityPub protocol and join the #Fediverse network. They have valid reasons and it is understandable. However, the fediverse started to be a #WebStandard protocol to allow federation and bring back the #SocialWeb as it was intended to be.

For us who were there in 2005 already, and when the first Fediverse software and instance came online in 2008, that is still our vision and goal, to bring down the walls of silo SNS.

[–] RookieNerd@hachyderm.io 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@fediverse 2. In most of the cases I have experiences, Mastodon is the only one that has a good level of stability that allows for active consume of content present on other intances. "Content is almost instantly federated", and I guess this is because Mastodon has a lot of users and therefore a lot of instances federated. In my opinion, this gives more value to the local timeline, as it correctly reinforces the idea that instances should be the community of your own choosing.

[–] youronlyone@c.im 1 points 1 year ago

@RookieNerd @fediverse

#Firefish #Pleroma (and its forks) #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #SocialNetwork to mention a few, fits your description. ^_^

[–] RookieNerd@hachyderm.io 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@fediverse Mastodon is the level of UX other projects should aim to. Unfortunately, others like Pixelfed and Lemmy are still not as adopted, and profiles can not communicate that well. This makes the on-life experience of making a friend create a new account and adding you very painful, because different servers might not be synced and the content of your profile might not appear in their client. This makes people to join large instances so they can have everyone in their local timeline.

[–] youronlyone@c.im 1 points 1 year ago

@RookieNerd @fediverse

Not being able to sync'd has to do with the hosting and how the admin set up their instance configuration.

Depending on the software, there is usually a feature for “polling”. This is the part of the #fediverse software where an admin can set how frequent the software will push and pull content and check profiles.

They also check how active an account is, be it local or otherwise, because believe it or not, polling an less or inactive account is also taxing on the server host.

These backend features or settings allows an instance to run. Imagine having 100 users who follow 100 users each. And the server is polling those 100 local users and the 100 users each.

Different fediverse software have done a different way to manage this. Some moved to other database instead of using mySQL. Some are using a different programming language instead of Ruby.

And a lot of other things we will never know about unless we look into their respective source codes.

I'm going to use the overused email analogy here, believe it or not, you don't actually receive every email sent to you. We're talking about legit emails here, they're just lost.

No technology can be perfect. Polling, sync'ing, there will always be something that will not reach you. However, developers and engineers are doing their best to minimise this (like in email land).

The way I see it, people were spoiled by silo or closed-network or closed-garden #SNS. Of course, within your own, it is easier to ensure everything is received. Like, again, in email, sending to the same domain there's a 100% guarantee it will be received. So, people expect it will be the same.

And if you explain the technical side of things, most people will run away and say, “just fix it” or “not ready for primetime”. But they never did that for the web (HTTP/S) and email (SMTP). When Chromium / Google Chrome was very buggy, everyone continued to migrate to it anyway. When developers were calling to kill IE6, corporations still use IE6 and were only forced when Microsoft seriously killed it.

Most people accept the flaws of software and services they recognise and already using but will not accept the flaws of the fediverse. I think that's what we should understand so we can change people's minds and have a better approach.

[–] RookieNerd@hachyderm.io 1 points 1 year ago

@fediverse

  1. People are interested in communities and content. The idea of using one single client and being able to access all types of content from any kind of instance sounds great, but it's still a dream. Let's say that I am interested in memes and the communities I know of are most active on lemmy.world. Realistically, with my Mastodon account I am not going to have the same experience that I would have with using Lemmy just for that. I need to register a new account on lemmy.world.
[–] RookieNerd@hachyderm.io 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@fediverse So, these problems break the whole idea of having one profile for accessing all the available content on the Fediverse. In general, this can be described as one major problem: even if my chosen instance is federated with some other where the content I am interested in is available, I will still have some issues in accessing.

[–] youronlyone@c.im 1 points 1 year ago

@RookieNerd @fediverse

It's just the way it is. Different hosts, different host configurations, different fediverse software, different software configs, and all that.

Few people are aware today but when Google Mail was first beta tested (very early invite days), we did experience a lot of issues. Mails from Y!Mail not arriving. There was also one time when a mail from another server arrives garbled.

Apologies for using the email analogy again.

Let me use the mobile analogy as another example. Here in the Philippines, I don't know in other countries, we've had interoperability issues a decade or two ago. The Philippines is the SMS capital of the world, so imagine our frustration because the two major (and only) SMS providers cannot interoperate reliably.

Two different networks. Two different systems. Trying to federate to each other.

There will indeed be interoperability issues.

They haven't really solved it, but it was at least minimised.

So, yes, we have to accept that it is going to be a long road until we achieve the level wherein these challenges you have mentioned are minimised in the fediverse as well. I'm sure, politics aside, the #ActivityPub developers are finding ways. ^_^