this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
38 points (100.0% liked)

Fediverse

19 readers
2 users here now

This magazine is dedicated to discussions on the federated social networking ecosystem, which includes decentralized and open-source social media platforms. Whether you are a user, developer, or simply interested in the concept of decentralized social media, this is the place for you. Here you can share your knowledge, ask questions, and engage in discussions on topics such as the benefits and challenges of decentralized social media, new and existing federated platforms, and more. From the latest developments and trends to ethical considerations and the future of federated social media, this category covers a wide range of topics related to the Fediverse.

founded 2 years ago
 

When I look at https://lemmy.ml/c/startrek vs https://kbin.social/m/startrek I see two entirely different lists of posts. Why? It's the same topic, just on different instances. How can we have communities about topics without having them siloed into their own instance-based communities? Is this just related to that 0.18 issue with Lemmy/kbin not talking nicely, or is this how the Fediverse is?

Is it (at least theoretically) possible for me to post an article on https://kbin.social/m/startrek and have it automatically show up on https://lemmy.ml/c/startrek, or are they always going to be two separate communities?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] timbervale@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sure, but that's no different from switching to a different subreddit, in the current case of Reddit.

Which doesn't really happen. The mods of r/news are idiots, but only a tiny number of users actually care about that. Most people either just stop using r/news, or deal with it. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of how things should be. Hell, the only time I've seen people switch subreddits is when everyone went from r/antiwork to r/workreform after that disaster of a TV interview; even then, the former currently has 2.6 million subscribers, the latter has 700k, so it appears even that migration was a failure. I can't imagine this is seen as a good solution.

Not really. No more work than posting on a different community on the same instance.

People don't want to post in two communities that cover the same topic. Duplicating work like that leads people to seek out a single solution, even if it's the worse solution. Reddit is so popular because it has a giant number of people posting content to subreddits all the time, meaning even niche topics have a healthy amount of fresh content. If you fragment users into multiple instances (even if they don't have to worry about creating new user accounts for each one), then it just leads to problems. Eventually they will move towards a single mega-instance, but then you run into the problems above: people won't leave that instance for a new one until they absolutely cannot stand to be there anymore, and some people are going to have lower tolerances for bullshit than others, which means most people are still going to be using the old instance for a very very long time, splitting content between multiple instances. In other words: why go to !worldnews@kbin.social when there's so many more users, and so much more fresh content on https://reddit.com/r/worldnews?

[–] FaceDeer@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are plenty of news subreddits. I greatly preferred /r/anime_titties, for example.

On Reddit, since there's only one "instance" and can never be any others, there can only be a single community named "news." If the name is really so important then the ability to "reuse" the name on other instances gives an advantage to the Fediverse.

People don't want to post in two communities that cover the same topic.

Then don't. I really don't understand what you think is going on here. If there's one community you prefer, stick with that.

If you fragment users into multiple instances

They are not fragmented. In what way are they fragmented? Everyone can participate in communities on every instance, no matter where they are.

people won't leave that instance

People don't need to leave that instance.

In other words: why go to !worldnews@kbin.social when there's so many more users, and so much more fresh content on https://reddit.com/r/worldnews?

Because Reddit's admins suck? Why else are you here?

[–] timbervale@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are plenty of news subreddits. I greatly preferred /r/anime_titties, for example.

r/news has 26.34 million users. r/anime_titties has 0.47 (even you even somehow stumble upon r/anime_titties being a news/politics subreddit, as I didn't even know it existed until just now, and even then I didn't think "news" when I saw the name of it). Those are two drastically different experiences. Do you at least agree on that?

Then don't. I really don't understand what you think is going on here. If there's one community you prefer, stick with that.

I feel like you're not following the train of logic, here... we're discussing what happens when you can't/won't "stick with that".

They are not fragmented. In what way are they fragmented? Everyone can participate in communities on every instance, no matter where they are.

They are fragmented. Just because they can post somewhere doesn't mean they will. It's why !startrek@startrek.website has 4,870 subscribers, 190 threads, and 3,180 comments, and yet !startrek@kbin.social only has 810 subscribers, 10 threads, and 17 comments. If having the ability to post in multiple places meant people actually did post in multiple places, then !startrek@kbin.social would be a whole log more active, wouldn't it?

People don't need to leave that instance.

You're right, but they would need to start posting to whatever community/magazine I'm subscribed to, or else the community/magazine I'm subscribed to wouldn't have any content, and then why would I bother being subscribed to it?

Because Reddit's admins suck? Why else are you here?

If your only reason was because Reddit admins suck, you could have just quit the internet all together, but you came to kbin for a specific reason. You moved away from Reddit because of the admins, but you moved to kbin because of the content. Now imagine if there were no places with any content; you'd have nowhere to move to, and quitting the internet would be a more appealing option than posting in a magazine with 10 threads over 2 weeks.

[–] FaceDeer@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The suckiness of Reddit's admins is adversely affecting the content. It's preventing me from browsing it with my chosen tools, it's crippling the ability of mods to keep their big giant communities running, and so forth.

I've come to the Fediverse to see content that's free of those restrictions. Unlike you, I don't see inherent value in having millions and millions of people subscribed to a given community. Small communities can still have plenty of interesting content. And these small communities are growing, if there's not enough content to your tastes right now then you can either contribute some or come back in a while to see if there's more.

The earlier suggestion about multireddit-like functionality helps, too, by splicing together the content of multiple smaller communities. At the user's discretion.

I feel like you're not following the train of logic, here

Oh, the irony.

we're discussing what happens when you can't/won't "stick with that".

Then you go to a different community. On the Fediverse it's super easy. As I've been saying.

[–] Dark_Blade@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don’t really get why the size of a community even matters beyond a certain point. As we’ve seen with default subs, vs more niche alternatives, communities generally go to shit once they get too big.

[–] timbervale@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

It's because below a certain threshold the amount of content posted is low. I don't think you can argue that a news sub is worse off for having more people posting news as it happens.