I moved from Lemmy.ml because I liked the name of Lemmy.world and it ran a newer Lemmy version which meant I could make communities.
I moved from Lemmy.world because they defederated from piracy communities they didn't even host (but for some reason still kept the small piracy community they DID host)
From thelemmy.club because I couldn't see the Hackintosh community from there (probably defederated)
Now I spent some time looking on join-lemmy.org and checked out some instances and this (lemy.lol) instance seemed good, so I chose that.
I'll say it again and again, decentralization needs to be something the end user doesn't notice, signing up to Lemmy should be like signing up to a centralized service with the servers running things being decentralized and the info redundant so servers can go down without having any effect on the service.
Let the admins decide if they don't want to host content from certain communities, let the users decide if they want to block communities and users.
I don't think that'd work, with Lemmy being a federated model, not a fully decentralized one.
How do you handle the actual login? Does that mean every server has access to your password hash? Or do you overhaul the account system to use something like a private and public key, with the user needing to store and transfer the private key to every device they use?
And what happens if two people register with the same username on two instances that aren't federating? Do they somehow need to still communicate with all other instances in the network they operate in, to prevent that from happening? Because the alternative I see is the login being random in some way or tied to the instance, in which case you still lose the impression of a single service.
If I'm not mistaken, right now anybody could host a non-federating Lemmy instance, if they just wanted a small private community in this style. To my understanding, that's the idea behind federation, and a founding concept of Lemmy - it's not a giant service distributed across trusted servers, but a network of smaller communities that communicate with limited trust.
There are no instances anymore with this system, it's the data hosting that's decentralized, the front-end looks like a centralized website so you would go to Lemmy.com instead of whatever instance you signed up on.
Imagine Reddit but there's no central authority and instead of using a service like AWS it's just people providing storage space and bandwidth and they can decide not to host content from certain communities on their server, but from the user's point of view they wouldn't know where they're pulling the data from.
So no, you couldn't have two users with the same username. The user database could easily be shared by all storage providers or the database could be randomly split and you would have to mention what part of the database your info is stored on when logging in. When creating your account (where it checks for doubles on the whole username list hosted on all servers) you're given a random third credential that you need to mention when logging in so the service knows which servers host that part of the user database (all info including the database would have triple redundancy).
Right now a website's data might not be stored on a single server so that's already how things work, the difference is that all the different servers are owned by the same company (like Amazon or Google). In the backend the servers communicate together to provide the data to the users so it feels like everything is hosted in the same place.
TL;DR: The best way to fix things is to make it work like it does for any other websites but to only decentralize the hosting instead of also decentralizing the communities.
You're still dependent on a single point of failure, what I'm talking about is doing like any other website but instead of using a provider like AWS, you've got a bunch of people all over the world providing storage space and bandwidth and all data is stored on three servers in different locations at all times so there's basically no reason for the website to ever crash.
If you were to access Lemmy from a web browser you would need to remember what server you're signed up to because that's the website you would need to go to, you wouldn't be going to "Lemmy.com" or whatever.
You're right, but there's more to appreciate about needing to choose an instance.
It's like email. All email services work with all others, but the end user still needs to choose a good one. There are more than one "good one"s, and part of the decision is about personal taste.
And sometimes you have to leave a bad provider for a better one. Look at my account, it's brand new. Because lemm.ee has had one too many federation issues for my taste.
Ok, so your argument is basically "Look at this unrelated service, that's how it works too, so nothing wrong with the current service except that I had to do the thing that proves that what you're talking about would be better."
Eliminate the central authorities altogether, let people curate their feed so they don't have to worry about someone else making choices about their experience.
Someone could join Lemmy today and have no idea they're missing out on a big part of the available content because they joined the wrong instance, they would then turn around and just go back to Reddit where they know everything is available and they're in control of what they're subscribed to and what users they want to block.
Some instances are running on better servers than others, have staff that fix issues quicker and attend to updates sooner.
For example, .world is still on v18 while the rest of the threadiverse has mostly moved on to v19.
Some instances defederate certain other instances, so in some cases you might end up finding that a community you subbed to gets disappeared by the admins of your instance (lemmy.ml did this to ani.social a while back). Whether there are valid reasons goes case by case, sopuli.xyz for example blocks instances that are for porn, and I like it that way.
Though outward federation is a bit borked on there atm, so I'm using my alts...
But really, it doesn't matter that much. If the grass looks greener, you can hop over the fence and see for yourself, and then hop right back if it turns out it wasn't.
I only moved from World because I wanted a smaller instance (and maybe because of stability). And from thelemmy.club because it blocked the Hackintosh community. And from lemmy.ml, which was my first one I moved because I heard the alligations that the admin was pro-chinese government.
Moderation and politics. Many in Lemmy don't like ML's stance on issues, including banning and moderating dissenting opinions. World won't defederate from Threads. Etc. Despite no major user difference, Lemmy is a much more "active" vs passive community in reinforcing their beliefs in what's right. It's why many migrated here to begin with.
We are fucking tiny, and everyone as far as I know is federated with us because they can't be bothered. Our server is run well, though we do get a bit of unscheduled downtime (though the biggest one was due to a fucking hurricane)
I had one of my posts on AskLemmy deleted for being "offensive". It was asking a silly question "Are Brits the Americans of Europe?". Some saw the lighthearted side. The professionally offended got it deleted.
Over-moderation will kill Lemmy instances. One of the reasons Reddit became as big as it did is due to very light-touch moderation verging on "absolute freedom of speech". It was refreshing and 'alternative' compared to the increasing sanitisation of the Internet.
Unfortunately Reddit-rotted Zoomers have jumped from the heavy-handed Reddit modding to Lemmy and will quickly fuck up any attempt to grow the platform. Because they don't remember/know how early Reddit worked.
They're trying to moderate Lemmy like it's a billion-user platform when it's a few hundred thousand.
I remember on Reddit when people were trying the limits and quirks of the algorithm, and you would wake up one day and your feed was filled with something totally unrelated. A few hours later and it went back to normal.
The whole point of the Reddit-style was that subreddits could be controlled by moderators and prevented from slipping into the same old tired town square-esque mess that arrives with popularity. I guarantee a mechanism to remove moderators would result in niche communities that get a surge in popularity winding up with the original moderators ousted because all the newcomers don't understand the community.
If you don't like how a community is run, you can start your own for completely free. That's how this works, you shouldn't be able to commandeer a community from the people who started it. If there's a truly problematic moderator, the new community will grow quickly.
Over-moderation will kill Lemmy instances. One of the reasons Reddit became as big as it did is due to very light-touch moderation verging on “absolute freedom of speech”. It was refreshing and ‘alternative’ compared to the increasing sanitisation of the Internet.
That's the sub not the website, over moderation is a feature of some subs, just like lemmy instances. Just like reddit, if you don't like it create your own, unlike reddit you can set an overall tone to your instance.
I understand the issue of “it’s a Fediverse only if the network is diversified.” And “it’s difficult for new users to understand.” But if we also go down the path of making the system like a standard centralized network we defeat the purpose of the Fediverse.
Our issue isn’t a “we need to copycat our predecessors” it’s a “we need to explain how we work in a simple enough way no one could possibly misunderstand.”
I’ve tried various methods of explaining it, and I think the issue is half bad explanations and half a lack of interest.
We need to also start pressing our strengths. The Fediverse, as it’s nature of an AGPLv3 project, is ad free. We also don’t have the weight of megacorps deciding what is allowed to be shared because of said ad revenue.
Avoid talking about the technology. Boast our numbers, we’re 2 million strong on Lemmy and 14 million Fediverse wide. Avoid confusion, offer help, and press our advantages.
I think I get how it’s supposed to work but I feel like there’s not much content on here or my instance maybe hides stuff from my feed. I also think the search function for new communities needs improvement.
Same, I signed up to Lemmy.world and have been on here for probably a good 4-5 months. If you browse the federated network instead of just your local server it doesn't matter what server you use AFAIK.
If you disagree with the admin's choices when it comes to defederating other instances, that's the main reason why you would switch to another instance...
What we really need is an app with an ordered account list that allows you to view all the content from those accounts and when responding/contributing uses that order and picks the top one that is able to.
lemm.ee is at the bottom of the ocean right now because of federation issues after upgrading to 0.19. I’m mostly shouting into a void. Can anyone see this comment? I know my comments in .world are not getting seen.