CoffeeAddict

CoffeeAddict, 1 month ago

Yeah, it’s been a while since Ernest has posted anything, and I don’t think he has uploaded any new code in a while. I wonder if there was a roadblock somewhere?

Ernest also said he was having health issues so I hope he’s doing okay.

CoffeeAddict, 3 months ago

Thank you so much for the update ernest! I can only imagine how much work this website takes, and I hope you have a swift recovery - skin problems are no joke!

CoffeeAddict, 4 months ago

Good to know! I guess we will have to wait for ernest to come back then to enable it on kbin.social.

I hope he is doing well, his last post mentioned a hospital visit.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

Very well said and you have captured many of my exact fears.

Personally, if the decentralized fediverse was more developed and mature, I would not be as concerned about federating with Threads. But, Meta is entering at a time when everything is really just starting to develop.

They’ll be the big instance and they’ll have a lot of influence over the others as a result.

Just to give an example, What would happen if Lemmy.world decided to cut off kbin? Kbin would lose a ton of content and access to most of the large communities. Threads, thanks to Meta’s resources and huge Instagram user base, will likely gain more active users and communities than lemmy in no time and they could do the same. The difference is I believe Meta may be more likely to down the line because an open fediverse doesn’t fit super nicely into their business model.

I understand many people disagree and that is fine; nobody knows the future. If we decide to federate with Threads then so be it, and if it turns out I am totally wrong then I will eat my words. All I am trying to articulate is that I think there is reason to be skeptical of Meta.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

• More optional applicable permissions to moderators when owners add them: Right now, when I add a moderator, they can only delete, ban and moderate posts in general, but accessing the mod panel is impossible unless you are an admin, so this means, moderators can't help owners with community rules, description, or even attach a new logo. There should atleast be some kind of supermod option or role that I could enable for the mods, so that this remains an optional but needed feature for some (and I am one of them).

This is something I have noticed. It would be nice to have the magazine panel open to more moderators than just the owner (though, I understand why it may have been set up like that to begin with.)

Also, are reports also submitted and viewed under the magazine panel?

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

While I agree the web app is not the perfect solution, I think it actually works fairly well all things considered. It will never be as smooth as an actual app, but I think time will eventually fix that.

Artemis being abandoned was very disappointing, but there are other developers working on adding kbin support - Lunar for Lemmy is one of them: https://kbin.social/m/lunar@lemmy.world/t/682006/Kbin-Support

Lunar is being developed for iOS. I think there is another one being developed for android but I forget the name.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

It is pretty bare bones, but Lunar for Lemmy is adding support for kbin. https://kbin.social/m/lunar@lemmy.world/t/682006/Kbin-Support

Right now, it is only for iOS. I think there is another one being made for android. (I think ernest has included a link to both of these in one of his daily logs.)

Still, it will probably take some time before everything is polished.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

I am not super familiar with it, but my understanding is that Kbin lets users block something by domain.

So, my understanding is that yes individual users could theoretically block Threads content.

If I am wrong, somebody please correct me!

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

My main concern is that this is just Facebook Meta utilizing the “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” strategy that Microsoft used against Netscape in the 90s.

I feel like our small communities here - which are just getting started - are going to be flooded by Threads users who don’t even know what federation is and then all the content, power & control will realistically be in Meta’s hands.

My gut says that is probably Meta’s goal, but what do I know? I’m just some internet person.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

Right!?

Decentralized networks are a threat to Meta’s entire business model which runs on advertisements. That doesn’t work very well when your users can just jump to another instance without ads.

Meta wants to nip the fediverse in the bud now before it’s too late for them to get a foothold. I think they’re gonna do it by (trying) to port their massive userbase to Threads, make other instances dependent on their content and users, and then pull the plug so they can go back to selling everyone’s information to advertisers.

Edit:
https://i.imgur.com/4U0g4Bk.png
I saw this image floating around a few days ago that I think helps illustrate that even if a fraction of Meta's userbase migrates to Threads it will be enough to dominate the fediverse. Instagram has two billion users, and the entire fediverse only has around 1.5 million.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

Microsoft put that theory in practice with the release of Windows 2000 which offered support for the Kerberos security protocol. But that protocol was extended. The specifications of those extensions could be freely downloaded but required to accept a license which forbid you to implement those extensions. As soon as you clicked "OK", you could not work on any open source version of Kerberos. The goal was explicitly to kill any competing networking project such as Samba.

This is a great article describing exactly how Meta can control the fediverse and destroy smaller instances with anti-competitve practices.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

I mean fuck, how many of us left Reddit for their bullshit? Inviting Meta into the mix is an even worse proposition.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

Look, I understand your opinion and I respect it, but I simply do not trust Meta. They are a business, and they are always going to do what is best for their business. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with that - all businesses are in the business of staying in business - but I think their track record makes them an untrustworthy actor in regards to the fediverse; they're a big tech company joining a small (and I would argue obscure) ensemble of social networks.

Of course, I could be totally wrong and this could be a total boon for Activity Pub, kbin, mastodon, and the wider fediverse. I just think that the opposite is more likely.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

The concept is that overtime, communities and connections will organically grow. If Threads has a disproportionally large ubserbase, then overtime they will create a similarly larger number of communities. This then would give them a lot more influence over the fediverse and anyone federated with them.

For smaller instances that become accustomed to seeing those communities and content, the danger is that Meta can just “pull the plug,” defederate, and extinguish the competition, or at the very least hurt their competitor's users experiences when interacting with content from Threads. The reason they might do this is purely because it fits into their business model which is selling user data to advertisers; it is in Meta’s interest to have as much data on their users as possible, and to have those users be based on Meta’s platform.

As I said in another comment, I could be totally wrong and this could benefit the fediverse. I just think the opposite is more likely because I do not trust Meta. I think they will play nice in the beginning, but then start to flex their muscles once they feel they’ve got enough influence.

Also, there is nothing stopping them from expanding Thread’s capabilities to include the threadiverse. Kbin has already demonstrated both are possible in one app.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

And if Meta tries to pull some sort of destructive shenanigans, sure, then defederate from them. Not because they're Meta, but because they're pulling destructive shenanigans. There's already plenty of instances that get defederated for that sort of thing.

In principle, I agree.

My fear is that the fediverse has no big hitter that can compete with Meta’s resources. The closest thing would be Mastodon.social, and they are still tiny compared to the two-billion instagram users Meta is gonna advertise Threads to and the 390 million Twitter X users that they are trying to poach.

I think Meta will play nice in the beginning, but eventually (perhaps even quickly) will gain a much larger userbase than everyone else. From there, it is only a matter of time before their users create more communities and content than everyone else.

Eventually, anyone who is federated with Threads is going to get accustomed to seeing and enjoying Threads content (why wouldn’t they? It’s from people.) That is where I fear Meta will start to flex their muscles because at the end of the day their business model is based on selling user data to advertisers; having users being able to interact from other platforms doesn’t really fit into that as well as having everyone be on your platform.

Obviously, I don’t have a crystal ball and all of this is theoretical, but I can see something like this happening where people start to abandon smaller platforms for Threads because their preferred platform got defederated.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

I hope you’re right.

And I agree, lemmy.world does have a near-monopoly on large communities. I attribute that to lemmy being more developed and having apps ready and kbin simply not being completely ready in June (no shade thrown at ernest - he’s great and I like kbin better.) I hope overtime kbin grows some of its own large communities so it’s not so skewed towards a single instance.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

I can only think of two, and they would be exploiting this system for their own end. (Also, please keep in mind that at the time of writing I am not 100% sure how kbin & the wider fediverse's blocking system works. If I have some incorrect assumptions please correct me.)

1. They block the person to get the last word in, thereby "winning" the argument. Silly, yes, but people do this.
2. They create a post/thread and block anyone who comments/disagrees with them. Those people can no longer interact with the post/thread. The only reason this is a problem is because it is a form of self-moderation. (Though, as @wagesj45 pointed out this could be a self-solving problem if they continue to block everyone they disagree with.)

I consider both of these to be pretty rare exploitations of the blocking system, but they happen. I guess it is a question of is this system worth it with these downsides? Some people will go to extreme lengths to harass people, so I don't feel qualified to say either way.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

Could it be made that a blocked person's votes simply have no effect on the posts of people that blocked them? (ie from the blocked persons end it looks like they downvoted the person but the actually didn't.)

Also, by hiding everything from the blocked person you also run the risk of the blocked person finding out they were blocked, which is not exactly a good thing either; they could have an alt and easily see the person's content and harass them that way.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

Someone could literally make a website listing downvotes throughout the fediverse, and there's nothing stopping them.

This is why I agree that it should be shown upfront. A lot of people won’t like it, but I think users should be somewhat aware that it’s all technically visible.

Someone is gonna make an instance that does exactly this at some point. It will be inevitable as the fediverse matures.

CoffeeAddict, 6 months ago

Also, even if they wanted to I don’t think voting could be made anonymous at this point, either. I’m not a programmer in any sense, but I imagine it would totally break federation. Total anonymity would probably need to be a feature from the start.

Kbin at least puts it out there so you know it’s not totally anonymous. Sometimes I wonder how many lemmy users are unaware of this because the software doesn’t make it apparent.

CoffeeAddict, 7 months ago

I understand what you are saying here, and I have flip-flopped on the issue myself. At the moment I personally am a fan of the limited downvote federation because I do think it acts as a hivemind barrier; to use reddit as an example, as it got bigger the downvote was used as a means to disagree without adding any value to the discussion or to simply silence a dissenting point of view.

That is not to say there were not times when a downvote was warranted - hateful comments, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and general bigotry are all more than deserving of a downvote. There are also bots and general off-topic posts & comments that may warrant a downvote.

Overall though, I think the problem is how the downvote was used (on Reddit, at least) was not conducive to discussion. However, due to the fact that upvotes and downvotes are public on kbin it is possible that behavior could change, but then that could create problems with other instances where none of that information is public to begin with. (Nobody wants to have a crazy person come after them over a downvote.)

Right now, the fediverse is pretty small and Kbin is actually the most welcoming instance I have found so far. I am not sure if the lack of downvote federation has anything to do with this, but so far I actually like it. Maybe once kbin and the expanded fediverse grows larger my opinion will change, but right now I feel like it’s helping to make it more hospitable than reddit.

Edit: grammar and clarity

CoffeeAddict, 7 months ago

Right! I sometimes wonder if that could not lead to a schism in the future; many, many people on lemmy value their complete anonymity and they could see kbin exposing their upvotes and downvotes as a violation of that. (Not saying that people on kbin don’t, but I think we act knowing that people can see who upvoted/favorited or downvoted/reduced a post.)

I can say that public voting has definitely changed my use of the downvote; I was much more trigger happy with it on reddit whereas I don’t think I have used it at all since I joined kbin. Lemmy users seem to use it the same way Redditors do, largely because voting isn’t public on their end.