this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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Fediverse

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A community dedicated to fediverse news and discussion.

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

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I am writing a research paper about #fediverse . I am almost at the deadline and I would greatly appreciate if you could comment down

• the difficulties you faced in the fediverse

• challenges faced by the fediverse in attracting users and retain them

• your experience in fediverse

• feedbacks about fediverse

• your suggestions to improve

• setbacks of fediverse and anything related to fediverse.

[Update] I created a form to submit your responses

I would greatly appreciate if anyone could participate in the survey I created for my research about #fediverse . it won't take much time and it is hosted on privacy friendly service #cryptpad . all responses are anonymized. You don't have to answer all questions. Fill as much you can and submit when you had enough. The survey link : https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/LyJcsEgXPzaWJtwXXsGq4uoGwK6C+VzujXC6Wrz3YqI/

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[–] dave@feddit.uk 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“Almost at the deadline” and starting to collect data. Sounds familiar.

What’s your research question? Your list of questions seem quite unfocused and broad.

[–] gplwpu@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Actually I just want to propose some suggestions to overcome current issues in decentralized social media to gain more involvement

[–] federico3@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I did the survey but please would you mind identifying yourself and linking to the research paper when it's ready?

[–] gplwpu@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Thank you. I will link the paper when it's done

[–] gon@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the difficulties you faced in the fediverse

Some networks are a bit confusing, like Misskey and Firefish. On Lemmy sometimes things don't federate as you'd expect them, like Mastodon <-> Lemmy. Even between different Lemmy instances sometimes things don't federate, so people on different instances will see different things on the same post. Not hard to get used to, overall, but it's there.

challenges faced by the fediverse in attracting users and retain them

I'm not really inside that part of the fediverse. I enjoy Lemmy, and check Mastodon ocasionally. I guess an issue is that the people I follow on centralized social media aren't really on fediverse. Also, I think videos are a big issue. Video-based content is huge on the internet, but the fediverse video-sharing platforms just aren't very good.

your experience in fediverse

I've been having tons of fun. Lots of fun conversations and interesting topics to explore. Definitely positive.

feedbacks about fediverse

As I mentioned before I think video-based stuff really needs to improve. Some connectivity/federation issues also need to be ironed out. I also think chatroom style social-media would be great on the fediverse. Lemmy does that a little bit with the Chat comments, but it's not the same thing. I'm thinking something like Discord. Matrix can be federated I think, it does run AP, but it's not in practice AFAIK.

your suggestions to improve fediverse

Basically what I said above: focus on video content more and effective chatrooms.

setbacks of fediverse and anything related to fediverse.

Not sure what this means? Setbacks? I guess dumbasses talking shit online is an issue? A lot of people hear "fediverse, activitypub, blah blah blah" and decide it's "not for them". I guess it's hard to make people see the value of decentralized social media. And it's definitely difficult to make people let go of their virtual lives on other social media for something that's still a bit buggy and not used by a lot of people. Well there's a lot of people on the fediverse but a lot (A LOT) less than on other social media platforms.

[–] gplwpu@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

This answer is very helpful. Thank you very much sir

[–] h3ndrik@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The user @SkyLeaf@lemmy.world is also doing research about Lemmy and the Reddit -> Lemmy migration:

[–] gplwpu@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you very much sir. I should also try collecting data from a form

[–] h3ndrik@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, you choose the correct methods. I'm not the one doing the research. But share your results with us if you can (and once you have them). 😀

[–] gplwpu@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] h3ndrik@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That link doesn't work. Cryptpad says you should have used the "Share" button. "Link was copied from the browser's address bar and does not provide access to the document."

[–] vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What kind of Mickey Mouse data collection effort is this?

If you can’t be bothered to make a form, al least format your post so I can read the questions.

[–] bbbhltz@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago

It is fine. I don't think this is a university level research paper. Check the users posts and comments. If they don't know Markdown then give them a link to learn.

[–] gplwpu@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago
[–] bbbhltz@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am on Mastodon, Lemmy and PixelFed.

  • Difficulties: On Mastodon I had two accounts on different instances. It took some some to decide which to keep and which to deactivate. Not a big problem, as I am not a very active user.
    I've been using Lemmy since the early days. It was harder to choose an instance on Lemmy than Mastodon.
    I have never managed to find a PeerTube instance that I could use for uploading.
    So, main difficulty would be time spent lookin for instances.

  • Challenges: I have never really spent time trying to attract users. When describing it to some people they liked the idea, but wouldn't move to a social network where their friends were not.

  • Experience: Positive overall. I have had exactly one confusing problem with another user. I will say that there are some strongly opinionated people on Fedi. Instances do create groupthink which can lead to biases, but I was aware of that before onboarding.

  • Feedback: The Fediverse is a good social network for many different people. It appears to me that Fedi can be quite welcoming to neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ communities. There is a political leaning, at least on the instances I see. I wouldn't say there is a slant, but when opposing opinions collide, wording matters because #FediBlock is a thing. I am of the opinion that improvement should come about organically. Forcing changes is pointless, unless you are a developer who can suggest a way to make the improvement a reality.
    New users to Mastodon (and Fedi as a whole) need to understand that "quote-tooting" isn't a thing, monetisation isn't a goal, and it will never be a 1:1 clone of Twitter, Reddit or Instagram.

[–] gplwpu@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you very much sir

[–] InternetTubes@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Here's my experience on the fediverse: https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/554307/Just-wanted-a-warning-Lemmy-World-is-perhaps-worse-than-reddit

If you are trying to access it like me now, you might get an Error 50x, but no matter since I can resume it with far more reliable Internet WayBack Machine links.

With my user InternetTubes@lemmy.world, I made the last comment you see here: https://web.archive.org/web/20231020022523/https://kbin.social/u/@InternetTubes@lemmy.world inside a thread that still ends with "mods and users may express their questions, concerns, requests and issues regarding the Terms of Service, and content moderation in Lemmy.World. We hope to discuss and inform constructively and in good faith."

As a result, one of the admins purged and banned my account, removing months of comments and participation, not to mention any credibility I would have when pointing out the claims had I not been able to store them in IWB: https://web.archive.org/web/20231019235547/https://lemmy.world/modlog

The most recent lemmy.world modlog has even been purged of all mentions of it: https://web.archive.org/web/20231021224842/https://lemmy.world/modlog (Search for HEISENBERG and search back up to see the huge gap). The way they acted with my account gives me the impressions that claims from other users who say they were moderators with them are true: https://lemmy.ml/comment/5060380

I've submitted a ticket, whose link leads to a service hosted on mastodon.world, and have received no reply: https://imgur.com/a/aisRzL9

My suggestions:

There needs to be remediation and resilience against bad faith moderation and instances within the fediverse system, otherwise there will be people who take advantage of it. My original comment has criticisms regarding permanent bans as well.

The fediverse could benefit from having a way to migrate accounts if you run into problems with an instance that wouldn't be considered a problem in another instance, to safeguard your submission history.

Modlogs are good but worthless when they can be manipulated, and the fediverse might do well to consider ways to implement decentralized tracking of them to monitor attempts to alter them.

[–] gplwpu@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah. I've seen incidents like this before. These references will be very helpful. Thank you very much.

[–] gplwpu@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

May I use these links as references in my paper

[–] InternetTubes@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago

No problem by me.

[–] Cannacheques 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well that's rather concerning. I'm curious to hear your side of the story, feel free to pm me if you wish

[–] InternetTubes@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago

That is my experience, https://kbin.social/m/general@burggit.moe/t/667921/Just-wanted-a-warning-Lemmy-World-is-perhaps-worse-than-reddit

There is hardly any other side to it when it includes the message that prompted the ban and purge, it has as much independent evidence as I've been able to provide. I doubt "my side" can be considered whether my claims took place or not, given that they are so largely indisputable due to web.archive, but I can understand if people have different takes about that says about the sort of admins that would do allow it and handle it as they have.

I don't use my account that much anymore since that can of worms, so sorry if I don't respond to it in a while.

[–] gplwpu@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Simply I just want to know are you happy about Lemmy, Mastodon and other decentralized social media platforms? Or are they need to improve anything? If so what are your suggestions