It’s different, it’s not that difficult, only mildly annoying with some compatibility issues for platforms that are still basically in their alpha phase (like kbin).
It’s incredibly annoying, and pushes people right back to centralized systems.
Yet the community of active users continues to grow.
Honestly like, the dude you’re responding too is referencing BBSes and using the web before tabs. If a user like that is expressing some confusion, disorientation, or irritation, you should regard it the way you might your grandfather critiquing your home. He could be cantankerous, but he probably does have some insight stemming from decades of experience. NTOG and I have been on opposite sides of almost every thread I’ve encountered them in but it’s pretty clear they know their way around message boards, so if something is confusing them it might be a bit confusing yet.
I’m just as old as he is, maybe only a few years younger. I started to learn computers on a Commodore VIC 20 and 64, used tape drives for storage. I entered into BBS near the end of its popularity, however I used chat boards, AOL, and Geocities…old forums as well. I also moderated a forum for a few years on a Star Wars fan site before the admin shut it down and I moved to Reddit.
I have a lot of experience navigating forums as well…Fediverse sometimes takes a little bit more digging to find what you want. The point I was also trying to make is that these platforms are also in their infancy, their alpha programming state. So things will change, the platform will develop. This kind of thing isn’t built in a day, yet IMHO it’s so much nicer not having ads forced down my throat on desktop every five posts.
If this person doesn’t like the experience here, then there’s nothing saying he can’t go back to Reddit.
You and I will have to agree to disagree on this. Yes, active users continues to grow - on already dominant platforms. And by that I mean KBin.social as a platform, not all KBin instances; or Mastodon.Social, or even Lemmy.ML. Yes, there’s not a singularity yet, but even this limited plurality shows that it’s a pain in the neck to deal with the Fediverse as a whole, so pick your local poison and go for it.
Frankly, you’re incorrect. It’s an incredible pain in the neck to try and deal with the Fediverse beyond local content.
What issues have you specifically noticed with this? I’ve only seen a few - the main one is sometimes it’s hard to find magazines from elsewhere unless you already know the name of it and the instance it is on (but folks are creating websites to help others find this, so this is a problem being solved right now). The other one is that sometimes federation is slow, so posts and comments on the hosting instance can take hours to show up on another one. But there are technical fixes to this as well (I’m thinking that maybe the next version of activity pub should include a pull action, so other instances can ask for the latest content on behalf of their users from the hosting instance).
Without better community merging or centralization, browsing instances becomes no different than dealing with having mail on three or four non-multiplexed BBSes,
I wasn’t around this far back. Can you elaborate on this a bit? What’s the issue with “having mail on three or four non-multiplexed BBSes” ?
or talking on forums before we had tabbed browsing. It’s incredibly annoying, and pushes people right back to centralized systems.
This I remember well. Sounds like you are trying to create an account on each instance and are constantly logging out of one and into the next to keep up on the latest posts and comments. This … is not really the way to do it.
Yes, active users continues to grow - on already dominant platforms. And by that I mean KBin.social as a platform,
Don’t confuse terms. kbin.social is an instance, the platform is kbin the software.
not all KBin instances;
Actually it’s well understood that kbin.social is getting too large and it’s not good for instances to get this big in general - so it’s kinda a good thing that other instances haven’t exploded as much. See https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/122067/Jim-is-invading-the-finer-things-club-aka-kbin-social-is and
or Mastodon.Social,
I’d argue that this is a technically a different platform - microblogging vs what reddit/lemmy do. But by the magic of federation we get both in kbin.
or even Lemmy.ML.
There are problems here with this instance that go far beyond what you are saying. But that’s the nice part of federation - even problematic owners can be dealt with. Can’t say the same for a centralized service.
Yes, there’s not a singularity yet,
Why use this term? What does it even mean in this context? A singularity is a term from physics and represents when the existing rules break down, like in a black hole (collapsed star).
but even this limited plurality shows that it’s a pain in the neck to deal with the Fediverse as a whole, so pick your local poison and go for it.
Again, this suggests you don’t really understand federation. Barring one problematic instance, there aren’t any serious issues accessing all the instances you mentioned from, say for example, kbin.cafe
You and I will have to agree to disagree on this.
Certainly.
Can you guys stop with the civil discourse and the well thought out responses? We’re trying to replicate reddit here!
What issues have you specifically noticed with this?
The issue I’ve noticed first and foremost is that there is more than one identically named group. Don’t tell me that rpg@kbin.social, rpg@lemmy.ml, and rpg@foo.bar are different communities. They’re identically named communities. I’d rather have as false positive of a gun user’s instance with threads about rocket-propelled grenades, rather than having to go to each group to browse. Don’t tell me to just use the “subscribed” view. That doesn’t pick up everything in a topic, nor does it help me to find those - again, identically named - communities on other servers. Whenever a new server comes online with an RPG community, they’ll be in their own corner. They can participate as foreigners with another group, but that’s not theirs. There’s no central place for hosting these communities. If there was a server set up just to host groups, and the rest were for users, that would make sense. I immediately grew tired, trying to find all of the communities related to my interests so I can subscribe to all. I did that back in the day, joining forums and setting up a personal homepage with frames. In theory anyone can join any group, but they have to find it first.
If devs and leaders of the ActivityPub community are going to continue pushing the idea that everyone can talk to everyone else, we absolutely need some form of community merging for identically-named communities. For instance, a kbin.social user should be able to subscribe to cooking and see posts from cooking@*.* , not just cooking@kbin.social. That’s a UX issue just as much as a technical one.
I wasn’t around this far back. Can you elaborate on this a bit? What’s the issue with “having mail on three or four non-multiplexed BBSes” ?
Back in those days, BBS mail was less “email” and more “text stored on server”. To get all of your mail from multiples, you had to connect to each of the servers in sequence, download your mail, and then read it offline and reply (any good BBS software would remember where itwas from, and offer to call back and send each message). Multiplexing meant that you could have a BBS in the NYC area, it would be able to contact and download from one in, say, PA or wherever, and they could each download threads and messages, aka federated content. The pain has been massively reduced over time, and I’m glad. My next point bounces off yours:
This I remember well. Sounds like you are trying to create an account on each instance and are constantly logging out of one and into the next to keep up on the latest posts and comments. This … is not really the way to do it.
You’re right, except in cases where I want a different psudonymity; my choice. In this case, I can’t check for new posts in, continuing with the same example, rpg@*.* without checking the group from each federated server. Posts are neither mirrored nor transcluded. That’s the point I’m getting at. I should be able to just open up m/rpg and have it cover all compatible groups.
Don’t confuse terms. kbin.social is an instance, the platform is kbin the software.
Actually it’s well understood that kbin.social is getting too large and it’s not good for instances to get this big in general - so it’s kinda a good thing that other instances haven’t exploded as much. See https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/122067/Jim-is-invading-the-finer-things-club-aka-kbin-social-is and
I disagree with your latter point. kbin.social has hit a reasonable mass of users to have a strong local community and become a platform unto itself, running on kbin software. I’m not interested in a smaller community. I joined Reddit because it was the largest single-site community on the Web. I want the monolithic community, and I accept the costs that incurs, including ads or ad-first design. Right now, the fediverse is just fragments at the foot of the tower of Babel, each speaking a separate tongue, even if some are intelligible to others.
I don’t care about the difference between Mastodo, kbin, & Lemmy. They’re web software which are trying to replace a monolith, and have seen imited success. I don’t care about political leanings. I’m talking about a UX issue. If you want to defed from a site, and receive no more content, then so be it, that’s the right of an Admin.
{1/2}