Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of the Fediverse in the first place, though? Consolidation of users/power? If we're going to use a single instance for every topic, then why not just stick with Reddit?

I understand they are two different communities, I was just hoping it was a bug with Lemmy and kbin not talking to each other properly. The reason Reddit/Facebook/et al are so huge is because people want to have a single community to talk with, not 15 little communities all having their own discussions. I get the appeal of that, but if I wanted to join a small forum I'd go to startrekforum.com or something like that. We already have sites that offer small communities; what we needed was a replacement for Reddit. For the moment, it appears that Reddit is still the best way to be part of a large community, and that's sad for people like me that just want a large community without having to rely on one website to host that community. Oh well.

Technically can't they do that even now?

Isn't that still a consolidation of content/users, though? I thought the Fediverse was about decentralization, whereas I keep hearing that it's okay to centralize content/users on individual instances if it happens naturally. Wouldn't that just lead to situations where the mega instance could control the contents/users? Migrating users to an entirely new instance is hard, I mean just look at how hard it is to get people to leave Reddit. It just feels like either I'm missing something, or the Fediverse is just a new technical way to recreate a system that we already have and complain about. If a single instance has total control over the content and users (not the user accounts, just the fact that a huge number of users would be following that specific instance), then how is it decentralized?

So you're saying that 14 of the 15 "mini forums" shouldn't exist, and everyone should use a single instance, but access it through their instance via the Fediverse (like subscribing to !startrek@lemmy.world on kibin)? If so, wouldn't that mean a consolidation of power for the !startrek@lemmy.world instance, and thus go against what federation is about in the first place? Or am I misunderstanding the whole purpose of decentralized social media? I thought the reason we wanted to use the Fediverse over Reddit was because Reddit had too much control over the content, but if one instance has all the content, doesn't that instance have just as much power as Reddit has now?

Nope, still trying to understand things. I want to get away from Reddit, but if this isn't made for users like me, then that's okay, it's not made for users like me. I don't blame kbin, nor want it to change what it is; I'm just trying to understand the Fediverse and all things related to it, that's all. Trying to find a good home for the future that isn't Reddit.

More like:

I don't understand something I am having trouble wrapping my head around, and so I should ask the community that would best be able to answer my question. I'm not going to switch from Reddit to Instagram, because Instagram doesn't fulfill my needs; why should my evaluation of kbin be any different?

If kbin/Fediverse doesn't work for me, that's okay. It's a really well put together platform, and it's an exciting technology. I hope you guys have lots of fun here for many years to come. That said, if it's not a fit for me, why would I continue to use it?

I was thinking more of a situation where we have community registrars, "DNS" like servers, etc. Still a distributed system sharing power, but far more structured than the email analogy that is always used. That said, it appears I had the wrong idea of the goals/functions of federation and the Fediverse in general. Oh well, at least I learned a bit more about it.

If we can decentralize users, we can surely decentralize content, can't we? I don't want content to be restricted to one instance, and that's my problem. I was looking to have the same community and its content to be on all instances at the same time, removing the power of one instance to shut out the Fediverse and control all access to the content. If !startrek@startrek.website decides to shut down all traffic to/from kbin, for example, then that would leave kbin users in the dark as it currently stands, right?

I can make a new website with a forum if Reddit goes "bad," too, but that doesn't change anything. All of the content and the users would be on that one specific instance. That's what people care about: content and a critical mass of users. There's a reason people are still using Reddit, and it's not because Reddit has wonderful ownership that cares about the users; it's because that's where the most people currently are. Migrating people from one site to another isn't easy, and that would be the exact same situation if a super popular instance were to go "bad," whether or not it's part of the Fediverse.

See, that must be my confusion. I was thinking that each instance moderated the content that was being ingested by the server from whatever instances its users subscribed to. Like, if I subscribed to !startrek@startrek.website, then it would create a community here on kbin where the moderators of that magazine (I'd assume I would be assigned as the moderator if I were the first to subscribe to that source) would then moderate that magazine based on the kbin instance's rules. Like a: the instance pulls all the content from the external instance, but it's up to the instance's users to moderate the ingested content themselves, kind of deal. I'm learning that I have waaaaay too high expectations for the Fediverse given how young it still is.

Right, but what about how websites work? Each website has its own server, but it connects via registrars for the domain names, other computers/servers learn about those domain names via distributed DNS servers, etc. I'm looking for a solution where I can access a giant collection of people/content all while using whatever site I want to use that fits my desires (or one that I spin up on my own). Right now, I'd have to access the largest instance if I want to have a large community, but then that one instance has all of the power over the content and users that use it, right? So basically the Fediverse is essentially akin to using a third-party app to browse Reddit: the app (in this case, the instance) grabs content from the API of Reddit (in this case the API of the host instance), and pulls it into its own database. I don't see how this is very different from what we currently have, though I'm trying to learn more about it and not just be a dick saying, "I don't get it, it's stupid, bye losers". Decentralized content is what I'm looking for, not just decentralized user accounts. Is that not a goal of the Fediverse?

Wait, how? I thought the content stayed with the old instance?

If people migrate to !startrek@startrek.website, and use it for 10 years, then they go bad, I can start a new instance and pull in all 10 years of content from the other instance?

My problem was that I have to subscribe to an instance in order to see its posts. If I'm subscribed to !startrek@startrek.website, and they decide to shut off access to the Fediverse for whatever reason, all the content would be gone to me here on kbin, right? Also: I would need to subscribe to a new Star Trek community, because I could no longer connect with the old community? What do you mean by, "the content would remain available to both"? If they shut off the Fediverse, or blacklist my instance, wouldn't that mean I no longer have access to their content, even old content that I posted?

And yeah, when I say, "migrate," I mean, "getting people to subscribe to a different instance, because the one they were using turned evil/shut down/disconnected from the Fediverse, etc." Wouldn't those scenarios still mandate action by the users in order to find a new community, and thus equate to migration? Just because a new instance has the same number of users that can post there, doesn't mean there will be the same number of users actively posting there. They will still be using the old instance, and it will take work to get them to start posting to the new instance. That's my point. From my understanding, the Fediverse decentralizes user accounts, but it doesn't decentralize content, and that's where I'm running into my expectations/wishlist issues.

Oooh, okay. So if I subscribe to !startrek@startrek.website, then kbin would store that data, and I would be able to point everyone to !startrek@kbin.social and we'd all be able to pick up where we left off? Still an issue of getting users to change where they're posting to, but that's better than I thought, at least.

Also, I imagine the problem with how difficult it is to migrate away from commercial centralized services is that it's hard to spin up a new version of that site with the code and database. Being quick to spin up a new kbin instance or Lemmy instance helps immensely, though the issue of directing the users to those new instances would be just as difficult.

I don't know about, "this would never work," as it's basically how news forums work today. The news is posted by websites such as CNN.com, Reuters, etc., and then individual forums/websites moderate that content based on their rules. It would be less efficient for small instances to subscribe to big topics, but then there could be a solution about layering moderation (an option to ingest the feed as it gets moderated by a different instance, or to ingest the raw feed, or some other option I didn't think of in the few seconds I gave it thought).

See, I was thinking decentralizing control was the primary goal of federation. Reddit having total control over the content is killer for any other website, so it makes sense for others to want to abolish that grip.

My thinking was like this: a community is made that every instance can join and post to, the posts would be shared across instances like a mailing list, and the community would be moderated on each instance by that instance's community (there would be a mod for !startrek@startrek.website and a different mod for !startrek@kbin.social), then each community on their own instances would moderate the content themselves, but it would just be a stream of content flowing into them for each instance to deal with itself. This would allow instances to moderate each community themselves according to their rules, as opposed to each community having rules that stretch across the Fediverse. This way a user would be able to post something to !politics@kbin.social, and a moderation team for the !politics@teenagers.wtf would be able to moderate the content coming from the greater "politics" topic according to their instance's rules and their own community's rules; I imagine users on kbin.social and users on teenagers.wtf to have very different ideas of what's acceptable within their communities. This kind of setup would allow a decentralization of users, content and control.

Obviously I was very wrong as to my assumptions of the Fediverse, and I appreciate the education on the subject matter.

I would argue that a community is the content and its users. People don't use a new site/instance unless it's active with content to their quality standards (it's why so many people refuse to use new options that the far-right creates). The only exception is when there are major events like Musk purchasing Twitter to get Mastodon going, or the API changes leading to kbin/lemmy getting more popular. As an example: I'm still using https://reddit.com/r/worldnews because they have the daily update thread on Ukraine, but !worldnews doesn't.

You are very right with the apps, though. Creating a new account is easy, but having to install new apps and set them up is a royal pain. Another pain point is having to learn an entirely new interface, whereas I can spin up my own instance of kbin after using it for a couple of years and feel comfortable with the interface of the new instance, as opposed to going from Twitter to Mastodon which is quite the adjustment.

How does an instance have "total control" over users from other instances? It has no control at all. At worst it can defederate, which would just hurry along their migration to a new community that's on some other instance.

Look at Reddit: it's gone bad, and yet millions still use the site. So much so, in fact, that content on many subreddits is posted every few minutes, whereas the same communities here on kbin see hours or days between posts. That's what I mean: people are used to the solution they like, so if a community becomes "bad" enough to make me move to a different instance, it might not be bad enough for everyone else, and so I'd be stuck moving to a smaller instance while the majority of users continue using the "bad" instance. Just because I don't need to create a new account doesn't change that fact.

If I don't want to use Reddit, all of the content and users that I benefit from are still over on Reddit. No matter how much I'd like everyone to switch over to kbin, they don't think Reddit is as big of an issue as I do. Clearly. So what am I supposed to do if that happens with !startrek@startrek.website in a few years? Do I have to put up with a bad site as long as everyone else puts up with it, too? Or do I have to move to a smaller community on a different instance just so I don't have to deal with the problems of the original instance?

Kind of, but not exactly. I'm asking for a solution where kbin.social and lemmy.world and startrek.website all post to the exact same community, but in a way that doesn't require me to be subject to the whims of the mods of any specific instance.

If a mod on !startrek@startrek.website (currently the largest Star Trek community instance) were to go on a power trip and ban anybody who mentioned Star Trek: Discovery, I wouldn't want to be part of that community, anymore. Most people wouldn't care, though, and just wouldn't post about Star Trek: Discovery. So, fine, I go subscribe to another instance where they allow Star Trek: Discovery, but if !startrek@startrek.website has 20 million subscribers, and the next biggest instance only has 40 thousand, the experience of using that next biggest instance is going to suck in comparison. That's the problem I'm trying to find a solution to: a situation whereby a specific instance doesn't control the content for everybody, but instead they only control the content for their specific instance.

That is an entirely valid point, and one I do like. The worst part of that is having to wade through duplicate posts, which isn't the end of the world, I suppose.

Well said.

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?

You're right, but the current tradition and momentum are towards using short display names; virtually every service that has a public-facing feature uses display names (even most email clients put the first and last name of the users instead of their actual email addresses).

We definitely should be using the full bit on kbin/lemmy, though, as it's so critical to the idea of the Fediverse, you're 100% correct on that.

Basically I want a mailing list feature, but one that mimics Reddit's UI. We already do this with websites (there are registrars and DNS servers that aren't controlled by any one organization), so why can't we do it with content? Share content with every instance as it's posted, as referenced by a "DNS server"-like setup, and bam, done. Each instance can moderate the content how they see fit, and if one instance decides to be dicks about it, users can switch to a different instance and have literally the exact same community and the exact same content as they had before the previous instance owners became dicks.

It also could be that people want their instance to be the instance for that community, or they want to be in control of the community, not someone else. It's also one of the concerns I have about user impersonation (having a @timbervale, a @timbervale, and a @timbervale could lead to a whole bunch of confusion).

No, that makes perfect sense, it just seems like a real limitation. The reason Reddit got as big as it did was because everyone was on the same platform, and I didn't need to go to 15 different forums just to have to participate in the same conversations 15 different times. I was kind of hoping the Fediverse would be a replacement for that, but instead it seems to dive headlong into the "15 small forums are better than 1 big forum, even though it's been proven time and again that (most) people don't want that".

Oh well. Back to using Reddit, I suppose. Thank you for the answer, though!

Unfortunately, not. Multi-reddit just lumped everything together, which allows for duplicates. Using my Star Trek analogy: if there was a new episode, and both communities had a thread for discussion, I'd have to go into both threads to talk about the latest episode. What I want is a single thread being posted to one community automatically gets pulled into the other, and comments can be posted on either site but appear on both. That's the way federation should work, but it doesn't currently work like that. That's my frustration. If I wanted to go to multiple communities to have the same conversation multiple times, I'd search for web forums that have existed ever since "Web 2.0" was a thing in the early 2000's. There's a reason people tend not to use those small forums anymore, and favor larger sites like Reddit. Hopefully it's a change that can come to the Fediverse sooner rather than later.

Yeah, that's by far the largest one. I'm just using Star Trek as an example, though I'm actually thinking of other communities that are even smaller. Good link, though.

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.

The benefit would be the content. Imagine you post to a magazine with 300,000 users, with new posts every 5 minutes, and hundreds of comments per article; that kind of an experience would be more desirable than posting to a magazine with 500 people, with new posts every 12 hours, and maaaybe 10 comments on the more popular posts, wouldn't it?

The benefit of every server moderating everything that comes in would be that a post that isn't suitable for one instance could be perfectly fine for another. Imagine the topic of politics: for some people, discussing abortion might be too sensitive, but others might be totally fine with allowing it. We wouldn't want to stifle conversations about that subject, though, so maybe it gets through to the individual instances to handle it as they see fit. This way a user can continue interacting with a large community that's interested in politics, instead of fragmenting that community into half a dozen smaller communities; sure, some posts might be hidden by some instances, and those threads would be less active than thread about more agreeable subjects, but that's still a lot better than every thread being less active, isn't it?