this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Fediverse

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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.

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Can we please remember to talk about things on the fediverse besides the fediverse itself? (kbin.social)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Having spent a lot of time on Mastodon... There are tons of people there talking about federated and self-hosted services, software freedom, censorship, encryption, tech regulation... A very narrow range of topics directly surrounding the fediverse get a lot of attention.

But nobody talks about anything else. Nobody goes to Instagram to talk about Instagram, nobody goes to Tiktok to talk about Tiktok, nobody goes to Facebook (at all). People use social media to either talk to their friends or talk about their hobbies and interests.

And if your hobby is tech, that's fine, enjoy. I like tech too. But please, if you have anything else to say, say it. The fediverse will never appeal to the masses if we don't embrace a wide variety of hobbies and interests.

We need people here talking about cooking. We need people here talking about fashion. We need people here talking about immigration policy. We need people here talking about everything people enjoy!

Yes, if you go to /m/fashion right now, it's... barely there. You're not going to get a ton of conversation when you post there. But that's not the point. The point is to build out the community, so that, a year from now, as more and more people attempt to post and engage, there is a conversation. There's a reason to be on the fediverse besides the meta circlejerk over how great the fediverse could be in theory.

This is the "content" people are craving. Find or start a magazine for your city, or your town, or your country. Write a post. Share posts from your favorite blogs. Comment on something, if you have anything to say at all. Share a youtube video—yes, a youtube video, I know, youtube sucks, but at least it gives us a path to a community here.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

You are missing the point that while you are free to do as you please, others also enjoy that same freedom. I don't WANT to make posts about fashion, cooking, politics, or non-techie things, but if you do, then by all means, please do that? Be the change that you would like to see in the world, and all that? I hope you find your bliss.

While I am at it though, "nobody talks about anything else" is objectively false - it is a "feels like" statement that falls prey to the hyperbolic fallacy that your POV is the only one that matters. In point of fact though, there are TONS of such discussions happening, right now, all across the Fediverse! Granted, probably not at the frequency that you want, or perhaps not as easily discoverable as you wanted. Have you considered that Reddit or Twitter or Facebook etc. may legit serve your needs better at the moment, and that's okay too?

For fantastic artwork here though, check out magazines such as m/[email protected], or here's a post sharing a youtube video with nice music. For cooking, I see THOUSANDS of members making THOUSANDS of comments across MANY different places: here's a comprehensive list of those across all of kbin.social - e.g. m/food has 2243 members and 2209 posts, and m/[email protected] has >1k comments (looks like concentrated mostly in a few posts such as https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/71429/What-do-you-eat-that-other-people-think-is-odd). Surely people might even talk about politics here, a tiny bit?:-P

And now we both are breaking your rule: discussing things about the fediverse. This place is for those with an early-adopter mindset: we don't have daddy spez over here "taking care of us", so we must build our own things. Thus, we often resort to talking about actions that involve that process - which I for one don't think is a bad thing? It makes us better, to have these civil conversations about how to make things better moving forward! Although I think your post is poorly written, using inflationary emotional language that misses several points. Even so, I am absolutely LOVING how the comment section here isn't full of harassers saying things like "U SUK", but instead people offering constructive feedback, both positive and negative. To me, THAT is the difference between this place vs. Reddit that makes me enjoy being here more than there. Even though, admittedly yes, it does have FAR less content, and it is all of a biased nature (towards the topics that we here enjoy posting about).

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Some folks really don't understand they can absolutely get what they want out of the fediverse, they're that accustomed to the limits of the more mainstream options. It's whatever they want it to be. If you're tired of not seeing enough of something, there's nothing stopping you from creating your own instance or a community within a pre-existing instance and rallying others to engage. You're always bound to find someone with a few similar interests around.

It will never grow or change if nobody is willing to directly participate in what they wish to see grow or change.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't WANT to make posts about fashion, cooking, politics, or non-techie things, but if you do, then by all means, please do that?

I didn't ask you to do those things, specifically. What kinds of hobbies do you have? Talk about those. If your topics are all tech-focused, that's fine, keep talking about those, but I'm really hoping I see people here talk more about pomeranians and nail polish, even though I'm not into either, because those topics will engage people who are into those things.

And now we both are breaking your rule: discussing things about the fediverse.

I think you misread my post. I did not say people should not talk about the fediverse, I just think we should post about other things, too. Especially if we want to see the fediverse succeed, we need more than just the meta-conversation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I do actually:-)

Although the statement that:

nobody talks about anything else

is a direct quote from your post. We ARE talking about other things, just again, perhaps not at the frequency that you would like, or it being as discoverable as you would like.

I did not like how you worded your post, as if we were not, when we ARE - and I gave examples of that happening, thousands and thousands and thousands of times all across the fediverse.

If you want to take responsibility for the exact words that you said that may have mislead people into thinking that you are a Karen who is telling people what they "need" to do, then I offered my feedback in case that would be helpful. Fwiw, I do think you had a point, buried in there somewhere, I just think it is hard to find b/c your post had so many objectively false statements - "feels like" wording that if I stretch out really hard I could maybe guess at what you might have meant? (but which if you are honest with yourself, I hope you can see are factually incorrect)

And mixed in along with the false statements are the extremely obvious ones like:

People use social media to either talk to their friends or talk about their hobbies and interests.

I mean... yeah?

Admittedly, yes fashion does seem to be a neglected topic, but you cannot force people to create content for your amusement? Maybe make a post on Reddit about this place, targeted to fashion enthusiasts and gently advise them that this place exists too if they would want to come here? Or start posting there yourself, every single day and maybe multiple times a day, to help attract other like-minded individuals?

Also, why pick on fashion, but then add on cooking, as if it is the same - isn't that cherry-picking your details? Also:

We need people here talking about immigration policy.

But again, WE ARE - here's an article that is not even 20 minutes old yet.

TLDR: your post came across as telling others what to do, while not wanting to lead by example and actually do any of it yourself. Why not DO IT, rather than ask for all that work to be simply done for you? Again, I have no idea what thoughts were in your head as you wrote that, I'm simply saying that this is how your words strike me. Especially the statements that are outright falsehoods.

But if you are not interested in knowing the effects of your words on others, then I am sorry to have bothered you. Fwiw, I do think you meant well.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have you ever been on a social network under construction? The first people joining are the geeks who talk about geek stuff and the geek stuff now is the fediverse and microservers. It has always been like this.

We don't need anything. We discuss based on interests. Talking for filling blank space is what led reddit to what it has become.

Don't be in such a hurry to see your network filled with people talking for the sake of talking. We will come to this point and this will be the moment when we leave.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Have you ever been on a social network under construction? The first people joining are the geeks who talk about geek stuff and the geek stuff now is the fediverse and microservers. It has always been like this.

The fediverse has been like this for years. For... What, a decade? It did not take that long for Reddit users to start talking about their hobbies. I remember a lively community for my undergrad school where people discussed events, classes, student government, the schools' governance structure, all sorts of shit, that was in... 2012? Very active for a very small niche. Much more active then than /m/nyc is now. Much, much, much more active.

I'm not in a hurry. My mastodon account is six years old, and there's still nobody there talking about anything, I have found about 12 accounts I wanted to follow — half of them are software projects or software freedom organizations, and half of them are inactive. I go there, put up a post, none of my ~300 followers see it, because none of them check Mastodon, because it's a complete ghost town.

I've been extremely patient. It's about damn time the fediverse started to happen.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of the top 10 posts currently on my front page, 2 are about the Fediverse, 1 is about Kbin specifically, and the other 7 are completely different topics including politics, space, video games and art.

Maybe you should look for magazines/communities other than /m/fediverse if you want to talk about things other than the fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of the top 10 posts currently on my front page, 2 are about the Fediverse, 1 is about Kbin specifically, and the other 7 are completely different topics including politics, space, video games and art.

Is this on /all? I did see some non-fediverse posts there, but like... a few of them were specifically from @196, which... the name of that magazine is an obscure reference to an inside joke from reddit, and the content is basically just, what if there was a second @memes. It's not pulling people in.

I did see one cool post about Persian Rugs, though, I liked that.

Maybe you should look for magazines/communities other than /m/fediverse if you want to talk about things other than the fediverse.

I've spent a lot of time there, scrolling through them and searching for the ones I want. And it's not that the ones I want don't exist, but nobody posts or comments there. I posted to some of them, but there's no conversation to be had. I commented where I could, but I'm afraid half of those people signed in for a day and then left when nothing was happening.

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[–] SouthernCanadian 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Most of the posts I see are not about the fediverse. This one is though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Most of my posts are not about the fediverse. This one got attention, because /m/fediverse is one of the only active magazines here.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We need more Fediverse users posting pictures of pomeranians, please:

https://feddit.uk/c/pomeranians

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

hard agree.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Be the change you want to see, start posting about things you want to see here.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I did and I have, here and on mastodon, but I can't affect this change alone.

[–] PCChipsM922U 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Nobody goes to Instagram to talk about Instagram, nobody goes to Tiktok to talk about Tiktok, nobody goes to Facebook (at all).

That's because the companies take care of the techie stuff, while in the fediverse, we have to do that. So, it's natural, I guess 🤷.

The fediverse will never appeal to the masses if we don't embrace a wide variety of hobbies and interests.

I don't think most of us actually want that. Then, it'll become just like FB or Insta... the crowd I mean. The point is to attract the right audience, not just any audience.

We need people here talking about cooking. We need people here talking about fashion.

See, that is exactly what I want to get away from... you have that on TikTok and FB/Insta. That is exactly what I don't want to see here. Of course, anyone can open a comm like that, I probably wouldn't block it, but short clips of someone roasting hotdogs with cheese and calling that a super easy and healthy meal... nah, that is not for me.

Fashion as well. Those topics are for influencer wannabe types. That's not what we're trying to build here, are we?

Yes, if you go to /m/fashion right now, it's... barely there.

Apparently, people around here are not interested in that topic 🤷. I'm sure a comm like that would be very popular on Insta.

This is the "content" people are craving.

Once again, the kind of people we're not trying to attract anyway.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don’t think most of us actually want that. Then, it’ll become just like FB or Insta… the crowd I mean. The point is to attract the right audience, not just any audience.

Right now, it's attracting a circlejerk of people who only want to talk about how good the fediverse can be. I don't know what you mean by "the right audience," but this is not an audience I or anybody else wants to spend time around, and it's not an audience that can build real collective knowledge or anything like that.

My menswear friends aren't coming anywhere near the fediverse. Not because they're "the wrong audience" and the fediverse only appeals to cool people, but because there's nobody talking about menswear and the fediverse doesn't appeal to people.

See, that is exactly what I want to get away from… you have that on TikTok and FB/Insta. That is exactly what I don’t want to see here.

Why do you follow it if you don't want to see it?

I don't see anything on FB or IG that I don't avail myself of. I follow users I want to follow. I go on reddit, I join subreddits I want to join. I don't have to run away from the content I pick.

Tiktok is dumb though, IDK why you'd want to see algorithm-selected content like that.

Of course, anyone can open a comm like that, I probably wouldn’t block it, but short clips of someone roasting hotdogs with cheese and calling that a super easy and healthy meal… nah, that is not for me.

I mean, you're free to downvote that nonsense. It's certainly not a problem on Reddit, it only exists in the subreddits that are specifically about cringey recipes.

Once again, the kind of people we’re not trying to attract anyway.

You mean people with hobbies? You exclusively want people here without hobbies?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (13 children)

All of your gripes sound like a lack of patience, or a need for the corporate instances of social media to be replicated in the fediverse.

DIY isn't for everyone. It will have rough edges. It will lack things until you build them.

You want people to go somewhere? Make it worth their time. This is like burning man. Show up to a blank slate and make it fun/interesting/sustainable.

If that's not for you.. well.. perhaps you should stop trying to square peg this round hole.

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[–] PCChipsM922U 3 points 1 year ago (14 children)

I don't know what you mean by "the right audience," but this is not an audience I or anybody else wants to spend time around, and it's not an audience that can build real collective knowledge or anything like that.

OK, then don't spend your time here 🤷. I like it. If I don't like it, I'll leave. It's as simple as that 🤷.

By the right audience i don't mean your everyday Joe, I mean intelectuals, or just people that in general think that there's nore to life than just sharing family photos on social media, sharing their new boob job or whatever. That is exactly why I don't like mainstream social media and why I joined Reddit, people made memes there with those kinds or posts/stories... and I was like, finally, my kind of crowd... not just people showing me "oh loooook, doesn't her nose earing look cute ☺️", and me silently going "Jenny, I don't give a f*ck about her nose earing, why in the world would you think I care about that. If I wanted to see it, I would ask.", but really outloud saying "oh, yeah, so cute ☺️". Why? Because Jenny just had to share that with me, cuz she knows I have FB/Insta. Now, I don't have to hear that. Why? Cuz I don't have neither and she just jumps me when she shares that with everyone. Finally, piece 🙏.

See, people like Jenny and her friend with the nose rings, that for some reason, just felt that she had to share that for the whole world to see, is exactly what I'm trying to get away from here.

My menswear friends aren't coming anywhere near the fediverse. Not because they're "the wrong audience" and the fediverse only appeals to cool people, but because there's nobody talking about menswear and the fediverse doesn't appeal to people.

Keep your mainstream social media accounts to talk to your friends, use the fediverse for everything else you might think could be a good topic to discuss here. That is what I would do. I actually deleted everything on mainstream social media, except for Reddit and Lemmy. Everything else was just noise to me.

Why do you follow it if you don't want to see it?

Who said I follow cooking or fashion. I know because my wife does, lol 😂. That's like every second post on FB and Insta now.

You mean people with hobbies? You exclusively want people here without hobbies?

I never said that, but most of the people on mainstream media are like/karma whores or they make money from sharing stupid short clips. I am against them coming here. Sure, they can come and open up shop or whatever, with link to their mainstream social media, hey, it's OK, but most of them will give up after a short time cuz, well, no one here actually watches those stupid short clips that just show you how to make something very simple, but done in an extremelu complicated way, so you'd go "woooow, so cool 😯", which mostly works on a brainless audience, which is what most of Meta's plaforms are filled with, but it won't work here.

And we do have some thriving hobby communities here, look at c/woodworking, it's doing great.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

See, that is exactly what I want to get away from… you have that on TikTok and FB/Insta. That is exactly what I don’t want to see here.

Wait, what? Do you want to be on a site where the only topic discussed is the site itself? 100% meta, no content?

[–] PCChipsM922U 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Not 100%, memes here and there, NSFW as well, but influencer wannabe types and people sharing family photos and stuff like that, no, thanks, that is not what I signed up for.

The exact reason why I joined Reddit in the first place (and now Lemmy) is to get away from that from places like Insta and FB.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But my post was primarily contrasting Reddit from Lemmy, and Reddit doesn't have an influencer problem. I didn't say "we need more influencers," I said we need people to talk about their hobbies.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This seems extremely elitist, even if just for the fact that you do not know what other knowledge (and experiences and viewpoints and...) those people who'd be interested in those communities would bring.

If you want a site comprised entirely of - what it seems to me - techbros who talk about how large their homelab Kubernetes clusters are, you should do that by curating your experience with the general platform, not by excluding anyone else, which is what you're doing here even if you don't realize it.

I personally want people from all walks of life to set up shop in the fediverse (as long as they're not jerks). Even if I'll never see or interact with 99% of what they create, maybe that last 1% will solve an obscure problem I encounter, or recommend me something (whether it be a product or recipe or location or...) that will change my life for the better.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

I think it's a self-selection. To join the Fediverse, you usually need to be aware enough of social media culture to find out about it. So you get a bunch of people on social media who like talking about social media and what's going on. I mean, Mastodon is full of weird hobbyists in the hashtags, but during migrations we get slammed with talk about social media.

We do need more of the hobby boards to be populated. The gaming boards, /m/gaming, [email protected], are pretty active but the niche boards like /m/GirlGamer are still quiet. !cat is pure joy and very active.

I think it would be nice to keep the social media talk to relevant boards. We've been flooding the tech and internet and fediverse boards with threads about Threads, maybe we should make a community like /m/Reddit or /m/Twitter specifically FOR those conversations about Threads and let /m/tech and /m/internet talk about the large amount of other stuff going on.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

All of this.
A friend of mine always tells me this is what keeps them from really enjoying it and I agree, the topics have a very "elitist" feeling, almost like if anything mundane just might be ignored or shunned.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The irony of this post is palpable.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would like to talk about indie games. Is there a good place for that?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If not the more general subs, there's an indie community both on kbin.social and also lemmy.world. Both pretty small atm, but that's the point in building them up

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I think this is a side effect of a lot of us browsing “all” right now combined with the fact that most people are actively transitioning.

I’ve set up magazines for my interests and subscribed to the ones that already exist, but interaction is low or nonexistent except for on Beehaw where there are only a limited number of broad-topic communities and people will see and read what you post. Right now, you’re pages deep minutes after you post. Until people more effectively curate their feeds and spend time trying to interact with subject based content like they did on Reddit I think a lot of us will just be typing into the void waiting for friends (or enemies) to appear

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I think, this might be due to the currently ongoing federation issues.

I too see mostly fediverse, nostupidquestions stuff in my feed, but once the dust settles, and a better suggestion algorithm comes into pleace, I'm sure the feed will be much more diverse than now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I've noticed a few other Max Headroom AVIs on my Kbin browsing journeys, so I want to create a community that actively encourages and promotes using Max as your avatar in some form or another. The broadcast hijacker counts too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was just thinking the same!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

MORE OF US

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