What is federation even for? The UX kind of sucks. Your fetching is done through the server, not anonymously (e.g. using Atom/RSS), so there's the constant fear of your server and the other server's admins fighting with each other and blocking each other. You need a server and an account to follow in the first place, unlike Atom/RSS, which also hurts your privacy. And because things are push-based, spam is an issue.

Well, the answer is simple. It's for two-way communication without needing to register for multiple accounts, barring instance blocks ¹⁾. For example, email, or chat. Email is a federated protocol, after all! ²⁾

So we need to do an analysis. We don't want to use federation (in comparison to just subscribing via Atom/RSS) where possible, since the UX is worse and the privacy is worse. So, in cases where we do want two-way communication, use federation; in cases where we only want one-day communication, use Atom/RSS instead.

• Blogs/microblogs/galleries/general content: one way, since I really do not see the benefit of comments here; therefore, use Atom/RSS, not the Fediverse. ³⁾
• Code forges: two way, since I need to retrieve issues, discussions, and patches; therefore, use federation; either contribute to ForgeFed, or use SourceHut which is built on email.
• Forums/Q&A: two way, obviously; therefore, use federation, specifically, Lemmy/Usenet.
• Email/chat: two way, obviously; therefore, use federation, specifically, SMTP and Matrix.

So yeah, the title's kind of clickbait, but it's just a short way of saying that “yeah, I don't like comments on my blogs and microblogs, so I use Atom/RSS instead of Mastodon, but obviously for forums I want two-way communication, and the modern federated way of doing this is with Lemmy”. ⁴⁾

Also, Lemmy usually has less qualms about full-text search (heck, it's available as a built-in lens on Kagi), which already puts it 1000% ahead Mastodon. ⁵⁾

Send post.

(If you connected to multiple news servers.)

Web 1: you post online by hosting a server (e.g. example.com)

Problem: not everyone can host a server

Web 2: you post online by relying on a single third party server (e.g. facebook.com)

Problem: the server owners can become abusive, or you can get banned, or the server might die

Web 3: you post online by relying on multiple third party servers (e.g. brb.io)

Explanation: this way, even if one of the server owners become abusive, or bans you, or dies, your content is still online as long as at least one of the servers is online

The Mastodon solution, by the way, is to go back to Web 1, but also to educate people to self host, or to educate enough people such that each person would have a trusted friend or commune member who can self host.

I think that is important? After all, self hosting *is* the most reliable way of making sure your stuff stays online (compared to relying on third party servers). What Web 3 helps with, then, is for people who can't find a trusted someone to help them host. And for self hosters, I guess it provides a sort of redundancy layer?

It doesn't! Well, I guess it could, in two ways:

• Cryptocurrency can be seen as a subset of Web 3, because you go from relying on a single server (the bank's) to multiple servers (the nodes).
• Cryptocurrency can be seen as a way to pay for servers, but this is completely optional and separate.

But in my definition, where I'm talking about Nostr or IPFS, or heck, torrents (which, yes, is Web 3), cryptocurrency is completely optional. You could have other motivations for hosting an open node, such as giving back to the space, being a non-profit, etc.

Nostr (Notes and Other Stuff Through Relays) is hecking awesome. For those coming from ActivityPub, you can think of it like being on multiple instances by default, instead of just one. They are responsible for helping you relay your posts to others, and for storing your posts.

Because you are on multiple, redundant instances, you can only be banned if all your instances ban you (and you can easily host and/or join new ones). To prove your identity across instances, you use a cryptographic key. Don't worry, you can still mute people. Yes, spam is a problem, so there are relays that help filter spam out.

Because you are on multiple, redundant instances, one of those dying wouldn't be an extinction event (the Mastodon term for “an instance dying and all the users on it getting deleted”).

Oh yeah, and instances talk directly to clients, not to each other. So there's no such thing as “your instance blocking another instance”. Even if instances did connect to each other, and then some blocked each other, it wouldn't matter to you because you can subscribe to multiple instances, and as long as some of them carried the users you wanted to talk to, despite the admin drama, you can still talk to them.

(Okay, fine, I guess Nostr relays are kind of a mix between Fediverse instances and relays; they store data, like Fediverse instances, but are also interchangeable dumb pipes, like Fediverse relays).

But also yes, instances here don't have to store your data forever. So if you want your posts to be stored and hosted forever, you don't need to do anything, the Internet never forgets you need to host your own relay. Or have a trusted friend host one for you. Just normal Fediverse things.

Okay, just to recap, here I used “instance” to mean “relay”.

Also, yes, Nostr is part of the Fediverse. It doesn't just mean ActivityPub, you know! It encompasses many different protocols that are federated. Which… okay, fine, I guess Nostr isn't commonly known as federated. Whatever.

Also, yeah, I don't really care about two-way microblogging. I'm looking to use Nostr as a forum thingy. There's a related Nostr Improvement Protocol for Moderated Communities, but I don't really like it because it creates rulers (specific users are named in the community-creating object). I think it would be better if groups were like hashtags, with absolutely zero moderation in-band, and moderation is done on a separate, optional layer (with default moderators for UX purposes).

“Why not USENET?”

FUCK okay yes I need to learn that too.

• File:How-the-Fediverse-connects.jpg
  • Imke Senst, Mike Kuketz, RockyIII
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