One of the big conceptual questions that's unresolved in the #Fediverse is: Just what exactly is an instance for?
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One of the big conceptual questions that's unresolved in the #Fediverse is: Just what exactly is an instance for?
Yep, it's a separate installation of server software. But what exactly does instance 1 give me compared to instance 2?
Answer A: it makes no difference except on policy: who runs it, what are their TOS, moderation policy etc. The Local feed has no significance.
Answer B: Beyond that, it defines a community. The local feed is essential.
Which should it be?
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One of the big conceptual questions that's unresolved in the #Fediverse is: Just what exactly is an instance for?
Yep, it's a separate installation of server software. But what exactly does instance 1 give me compared to instance 2?
Answer A: it makes no difference except on policy: who runs it, what are their TOS, moderation policy etc. The Local feed has no significance.
Answer B: Beyond that, it defines a community. The local feed is essential.
Which should it be?
@j12t why not both and more?
Long ago we had a fence and gossip, then a village had an exchange (I ordered a pizza in rural Australia by dialling 22) and a paper. Since the media were standards, trunk lines happened and telex so local could participate in the region, the country, international, informed but our viewpoint was still local, whatever your local media included or not.
Today the Local has been usurped to serve the global; #Fediverse has an opportunity to correct that.
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@j12t why not both and more?
Long ago we had a fence and gossip, then a village had an exchange (I ordered a pizza in rural Australia by dialling 22) and a paper. Since the media were standards, trunk lines happened and telex so local could participate in the region, the country, international, informed but our viewpoint was still local, whatever your local media included or not.
Today the Local has been usurped to serve the global; #Fediverse has an opportunity to correct that.
@teledyn IMHO right now common implementations (e.g. Mastodon) aren't doing a good job at either.
If it's only about policy etc, then things like not getting all replies to a post if made on a difference instance make no sense.
If it is about Local communities, then "post to local server only" should be the default. And it should be much simpler to be part of many communities/servers.
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One of the big conceptual questions that's unresolved in the #Fediverse is: Just what exactly is an instance for?
Yep, it's a separate installation of server software. But what exactly does instance 1 give me compared to instance 2?
Answer A: it makes no difference except on policy: who runs it, what are their TOS, moderation policy etc. The Local feed has no significance.
Answer B: Beyond that, it defines a community. The local feed is essential.
Which should it be?
@j12t from the (limited) bits I see, the power of B feels under-utilised ..it could be one of fedi’s greatest strengths …but very large instances work against that
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One of the big conceptual questions that's unresolved in the #Fediverse is: Just what exactly is an instance for?
Yep, it's a separate installation of server software. But what exactly does instance 1 give me compared to instance 2?
Answer A: it makes no difference except on policy: who runs it, what are their TOS, moderation policy etc. The Local feed has no significance.
Answer B: Beyond that, it defines a community. The local feed is essential.
Which should it be?
@j12t it’s also a container for your identity as a user. Under B, you’re not just a member of a community, you wear that label everywhere you go.
But any “should” question is a matter of opinion, and people who want different usage patterns will have different answers.
I think that’s why I don’t think about what “The Fediverse”, constrained by the limits of ActivityPub should be, but about how a future system could provide better support for more usage patterns in a unified way
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@j12t it’s also a container for your identity as a user. Under B, you’re not just a member of a community, you wear that label everywhere you go.
But any “should” question is a matter of opinion, and people who want different usage patterns will have different answers.
I think that’s why I don’t think about what “The Fediverse”, constrained by the limits of ActivityPub should be, but about how a future system could provide better support for more usage patterns in a unified way
@ShadSterling I've long argued that I should be able to use an identity / identifier defined at one site at others. This goes from "use my mastodon ID on Lemmy" to "use my personal website with any fediverse instance".
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@ShadSterling I've long argued that I should be able to use an identity / identifier defined at one site at others. This goes from "use my mastodon ID on Lemmy" to "use my personal website with any fediverse instance".
@j12t wasn’t that the original point of OAuth, to use your blog ID, with a definitive home at whatever domain hosts your blog, to authenticate to anyone else’s blog to comment and whatnot? That’s better, but still has the vulnerability that if your blog host goes out of business you lose that identity. The Named-Content-Networking people figured out host-independent identities a decade or two ago; I’d prefer a system with something similar, not sure if ActivityPub could adopt it
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@j12t wasn’t that the original point of OAuth, to use your blog ID, with a definitive home at whatever domain hosts your blog, to authenticate to anyone else’s blog to comment and whatnot? That’s better, but still has the vulnerability that if your blog host goes out of business you lose that identity. The Named-Content-Networking people figured out host-independent identities a decade or two ago; I’d prefer a system with something similar, not sure if ActivityPub could adopt it
@ShadSterling Not OAuth alone but OpenID. I would augment this with making the rel=me related identifiers equivalent as I outlined in that talk: https://dweb.observer/seattle-node-gathering-feb-2025/
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One of the big conceptual questions that's unresolved in the #Fediverse is: Just what exactly is an instance for?
Yep, it's a separate installation of server software. But what exactly does instance 1 give me compared to instance 2?
Answer A: it makes no difference except on policy: who runs it, what are their TOS, moderation policy etc. The Local feed has no significance.
Answer B: Beyond that, it defines a community. The local feed is essential.
Which should it be?
@j12t B, absolutely!
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@j12t B, absolutely!
@tommi @j12t My take: community servers are not one thing across the fedi, nor need they be. General purpose servers might have relatively indestinct local feeds from each other, like a big food court. Everybody mixes togtether. But specialized servers like @jazztodon.com, @me.dm, @mathstodon.xyz, and @mapstodon.space are unique bistros with their own flavor - and each type works for different folks.
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@tommi @j12t My take: community servers are not one thing across the fedi, nor need they be. General purpose servers might have relatively indestinct local feeds from each other, like a big food court. Everybody mixes togtether. But specialized servers like @jazztodon.com, @me.dm, @mathstodon.xyz, and @mapstodon.space are unique bistros with their own flavor - and each type works for different folks.
tchambers@indieweb.social this, in a nutshell. The fediverse vid AP can support both A and B, and we can wax poetic about how one is superior to the other but both are legitimate UX decisions by their respective software stacks.
I prefer B myself, of course.
