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   Derek Powazek 🐐 (fraying@xoxo.zone)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 10:45:46 JST Derek Powazek 🐐

   Watching the drama unfold regarding Threads' promise/threat to federate with mastodon and all I can think is, why are we trying so hard to smoosh everyone back into the same place again? Communities don't work like that. Smooshing everyone together causes all the problems that plague internet communities. It's good to have separate places for separate communities. Stop trying to cram everyone together! IT NEVER WORKS.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 10:45:42 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @fraying no, to connect with our friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors. That's what social software is for.

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     Derek Powazek 🐐 (fraying@xoxo.zone)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 10:45:44 JST Derek Powazek 🐐

     in reply to

     It's also funny to me that the excuse for all that smooshing before was that the ad model demanded it. More people = more value = more expensive ads to sell! But mastodon is not ad supported so why the fuck do we want interop with ad-driven companies? Just to make us feel like big important adults? THAT'S WHAT THERAPY IS FOR.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 11:15:59 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @fraying The outlines of real communities rarely line up with the boundaries of social networking apps. The whole point of federation is that I can connect with people I care about across software and service boundaries.

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     Derek Powazek 🐐 (fraying@xoxo.zone)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 11:16:00 JST Derek Powazek 🐐

     in reply to

     Point is, communities have boundaries. That's what makes them communities. And there's good reason to have the friction of creating a new account, agreeing to the community guidelines, and getting to know a new place. That's part of what makes communities communities.

     Maybe we should think twice before turning on a spigot we can't turn off.

     Tim Chambers repeated this.
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     Derek Powazek 🐐 (fraying@xoxo.zone)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 11:16:01 JST Derek Powazek 🐐

     in reply to

     I know, there are lots of fediverse projects, it's not just mastodon. All of them are virgin hills full of gold and we're seeing miners with pickaxes on the horizon and it's SO WEIRD to see them being welcomed as if they're not going to mine this place hollow just like they have every other place we've let them take up residence.

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     Derek Powazek 🐐 (fraying@xoxo.zone)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 11:16:02 JST Derek Powazek 🐐

     in reply to

     I fully understand what Threads/Meta sees in mastodon because it's what they always see: unclaimed eyeballs and the money they can make by selling those eyeballs to the highest bidder.

     But what do we get? We get to follow Instagram accounts here? THAT'S WHAT INSTAGRAM IS FOR. Why would I want that shit in my stream? Instagram fucking sucks.

     We get to be followed by the thirsty creeps on Threads? NO THANK YOU. Threads sucks, too, and if I wanted my words there, I'd post them there.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 11:29:37 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Neo-Rodneyite ✍🏿📖

     @jalcine it's against the W3C rules to badmouth people you're collaborating with. Corporations don't have feelings.

     There are a billion things you can do for the fediverse that don't require being in the CG. I hope you continue to do them.

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     Neo-Rodneyite ✍🏿📖 (jalcine@todon.eu)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 11:29:38 JST Neo-Rodneyite ✍🏿📖

     in reply to

     @fraying Well put. This is why I left the Social CG (that and it's against the CoC to badtalk companies - which 🙄 priorities)

     People are going to run from torment nexuses and being able to provide a space away is important.

     Especially when November 2024 coming.

   • Embed this notice
     Eugen Rochko (gargron@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 11:31:16 JST Eugen Rochko

     in reply to

     • かき@GNUsocialJP
     • Evan Prodromou

     @evan @fraying Exactly. The idea of siloed communities is rather antithetical to Mastodon's mission and messaging. The whole point has always been connect to many places from one account. Of the 20 posts I scroll by on my home feed right now, they come from 20 different servers, some not even Mastodon. I don't have an account on each of them.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 11:32:11 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @fraying I'm happy to follow you, but I didn't sign up for an xoxo.zone account to do it. I don't have accounts on the 12,000 known fediverse servers. I can just follow everyone from right here at cosocial. I like that.

   • Embed this notice
     Derek Powazek 🐐 (fraying@xoxo.zone)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 11:32:12 JST Derek Powazek 🐐

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou

     @evan What does "connect" even mean anymore? They can "connect" to us by creating masto accounts like everyone else. If they don't do that, then connecting with us doesn't seem that important to them, does it?

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     Derek Powazek 🐐 (fraying@xoxo.zone)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 11:37:16 JST Derek Powazek 🐐

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou

     @evan and yet humans are humans, wherever they are.

     Gentle reminder that I wrote a book about building community online and don’t need it explained to me.

     Tim Chambers repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 12:02:18 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @fraying right, but I'm sure you're also aware that I've been working on decentralized social networks for a couple of decades, now, and I really do believe they offer advantages for users and communities. Not least, because they put people and communities ahead of apps and servers. I realize that's not something you agree with, which is a good challenge to my orthodoxy. So I'm trying to make sure I can explain why I think connecting across service and software boundaries is a good thing.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 12:30:37 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @fraying so, you've got a lot in your argument. I'm going to try to write out my thoughts.

   • Embed this notice
     Derek Powazek 🐐 (fraying@xoxo.zone)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 12:30:39 JST Derek Powazek 🐐

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou

     @evan yes I’m aware of your work, which is why I’m not explaining federation to you.

     How does letting Meta in to strip mine this place put people first? It’s putting the network first, not people.

     I’m not sure you really understand what I’m disagreeing with because I’m not sure I do. All I’m saying is that boundaries are good in communities.

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     Raphael (xro@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2023 14:51:01 JST Raphael

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Evan Prodromou

     @Gargron @evan @fraying

     Isn’t there also the ability to block their content being visible to me and mine to them?

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Monday, 18-Dec-2023 01:30:18 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Wolf480pl

     @wolf480pl @Gargron @fraying that's fair but only partially true. ActivityPub has support for groups, and we have a few out there, but we need an upgrade to allow, for example, member-only posts. Also, Mastodon has lists, so you can group up your contacts, but they're not addressable (yet). We'll get there.

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     Wolf480pl (wolf480pl@mstdn.io)'s status on Monday, 18-Dec-2023 01:30:20 JST Wolf480pl

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Evan Prodromou

     @Gargron @evan @fraying
     except the only way to place community boundaries with mastodon is to place them at instance boundaries. Everything - moderation, timelines, post visibility - is per-user then per-instance. There's no groups of any kind. I can't send one post to "my friends interested in electronics" and another to "my friends interested in Polish politics", unless I make two accounts, which defeats the whole point....

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 21-Dec-2023 04:45:41 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Wolf480pl
     • Daniel Hernandez

     @danielhz @fraying @wolf480pl @Gargron so, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that we have public groups that work really simple at services like @groups. Private groups don't work well on ActivityPub yet, but I think we'll see some work on it in 2024.

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     Daniel Hernandez (danielhz@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 21-Dec-2023 04:45:42 JST Daniel Hernandez

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Wolf480pl
     • Evan Prodromou

     @fraying @evan @wolf480pl @Gargron Groups are something I would really like to have. I would like to share pictures of birds with the bird lovers' group, and share pictures of spiders with the spider lovers' group. When living in Denmark, people used Facebook groups a lot, for sport clubs and for the neighborhood. I would have been happy if I could have accessed those groups from my own ActivityPub instance.

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     Derek Powazek 🐐 (fraying@xoxo.zone)'s status on Thursday, 21-Dec-2023 04:45:44 JST Derek Powazek 🐐

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Wolf480pl
     • Evan Prodromou

     @evan @wolf480pl @Gargron That’s great to hear! Groups are complex for sure, but address a real human need. (Boundaries make communities!)