Pretty much in the title. Maybe you wouldn’t even use it, but would like to simply see it exist for the sake of having a federated alternative.
For me, it’d be the following:
- Meetup
- Tiktok
I am on the first two, but would prefer a federated alternative. I’m not on Tiktok, but would like to see a federated alternative.
I’ll admit these might not be a good idea. But as a thought experiment, I’d be curious about the community weigh in on what you all think this might look like.
Tiktok
The problem with video content (even short videos) is, that it generates an absurd amount of traffic and needs lots and lots of local data storage. This is also why there are so few PeerTube instances.
PeerTube would be a way to publish your short clips, too. Not as specialized as TikTok, but still …
Yeah the data is an issue for sure. I wonder if torrents of some kind would help making it more doable, where viewers (on computers, not phones) build up a cache from which they also seed. Like Spotify did when they started out.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZeroNet
Something similar to this might help disburse the load required for peertube. What sites you read you host in return, very much like with bit torrent with a presentation layer tacked on top.
I think you are looking for something like ipfs.
I think the cache would also have to partially be on phones. If users are to ‘pay’ for using the network by caching/redistributing part of it, since most people access the web from phones
Also tiktok really only makes sense with a big algorithm knowing what users want to see. Even if you were to follow many people, with the average video being only about 30 seconds long you won’t have much content to enjoy. The whole short form video thing is kinda built on knowing what your user likes and doesn’t. I don’t know how you could design such a platform without some privacy concerns.
I don’t know how you could design such a platform without some privacy concerns.
Yes, yes you could.
Companies like Google yave successfully brainwashed us into believing that algorithms like this can only work on their server farms. The only reason those werver farms are necessary is becauwe they’re processing data for millions of people.
We forget that in each of our hands we hold a device that is 5,000 x more powerful than a 1985 CRAY-2, at the time the world’s fastest supercomputer. And let’s not forget our home desktops and laptops, which are several times more powerful that that.
We each have devices with persistent internet connections that could be at work scanning, categorizing, and filtering personalized content for each of us, without giving any privacy away. It’s only because we’ve been conditioned to be dependent on having our data centrally processed that we believe that’s the only way.
Note, it is more efficient to process content centrally, where the data is stored. However, generalized categorization and content tagging with robust metadata and standardized APIs would address the efficiency. Given companies are unlikely to do this and scupper their own surveillance revenue, the next best thing is local, privacy-respecting, smart content filtering assistants.
Are you Richard from Silicon Valley TV show? :)
Those sound like good ideas in theory, but your phone’s battery would last about 2 hours if you did this.
The heavy lifting, like tagging the content of millions of videos probably needs to be done somewhere other than the end-user’s mobile device. Some sorting and filtering of text-based metadata on the user’s device to pick what videos to see next is viable though.
There are hosting providers that offer unmetered bandwidth.
Sure, setup complexity is higher, but it is definitely doable.
I have thought about such a project as I also have access to relatively inexpensive 20gbps fiber, but lack the funding currently to do it.
Maybe one day…
Same with Instagram. I’m a performer and rely on it for outreach and promotion but absolutely HATE the platform to no end. And this is a common sentiment among all performers. It is a garbage platform that comforts Nazis and pedophiles but bans the hashtag #horror and puts your account in jail for using it.
Unfortunately, PixelFed has almost no one on it and reaching a local audience is impossible, so there’s no point in switching. We have to go where the people are :(
I would like to see something that is less focussed on social media and more on building something together like Wikipedia. One thing that comes to mind would be mapping out all political statements along with arguments and evidence to support or falsify them and the relationships between them (e.g. “if you believe x is a big problem in society and you believe y is the perfect form of government then you must believe y solves x”).
A lot of our political discussions seem quite repetitive and go in circles because each argument is presented in a very shallow way. Something to counteract that would be welcome and I think it could work quite well in a federated way since people with different political views would probably want to contribute the supporting and that falsifying sides for each statement.
That would go to shit immediately. The sheer level of moderation that would be required to prevent that from being abused and corrupted would be insane, and then that kind of moderation would in turn invalidate the whole project because the moderation itself would have its own biases.
But it especially wouldn’t work in a federated space. Are you suggesting that people can just open their own instance of that? If there are multiple different instances for this kind of thing, that’s even more abusable.
Part of the reason Wikipedia works is it is centralized, relatively neutral, and you need sources on facts. It’s run by people that adhere to a strict standard, and everyone that contributes is required to adhere to that exact same standard.
What would be the scholarly criteria for the sort of thing that you’re talking about? What is the standard? And how do you enforce that standard in a federated space?
Because if it’s anything like how federation works around Lemmy, there can be no standard. Instances are going to do whatever they like based on the biases of each admin, which undermines the entire concept.
I like this idea
You might like a website called Kialo. It’s a tool for structured public debates
You might like a website called Kialo. It’s a tool for structured public debates
You’re trying to apply objectivity to a very subjective area. I’m not saying it’s impossible, and you should by all means try it, but maybe it would be a good idea to try something that has a better chance, first, such as this:
How about an open platform for scientific review and tracking? Like, whenever a new discovery or advance is announced, that site would cut through the hype, report on peer review, feasibility, flaws in methodology, the ways in which it’s practical and impractical, how close we are to actual usage (state of clinical trials, demonstrated practical applications, etc.)
And it would keep being updated, somewhat like Wikipedia, as more research occurs. It needs a more robust system of review to avoid the problems that Wikipedia has, and I don’t have the solution for that, but I believe there’s got to be a way to do it that’s resistant to manipulation.
Basically a living survey paper. Examine.com does a very good job of this for a very small set of the scientific literature. The problem is that it takes a lot of work to do, few people are qualified to do it, and out of those few, even fewer will have the time to make such contributions.
Letterboxed - an app like bookwyrm, but for movies. I’ve seen other people talk about it and I think some people are working on it, but AFAIK nothing is up atm
Trakt would be good also and it covers film and TV.
Tumblr
DeviantArt
Furaffinity
Archive Of Our Own
Keep the fediverse weird and invite more theater kids. They pair surprisingly well with the tech dorks that make up the majority of the current fedi population.
what do you think a defederated ao3 would look like? not trying to sound condescending here or anything just actually curious
No different from the regular thing except:
- Different fandoms would congregate in different home instances – Which is ultimately just an aesthetic difference but still.
- It’d be a lot more resilient due to decentralisation. I’m old enough to remember when the entire concept of fanfiction was something considered litigious and anyone who wrote it felt they were skirting on the edge of the law. People forget how easy it is for those times to come back. All it’d take is 1(one) corporately-backed author making a stink about it. Decentralization would make it harder to curb.
oooh point 2 makes a lot of sense. I do tend to forget how fragile the current internet ecosystem is thanks to corporations
I’m an older theater kid!! And I do pair well with this site!!!
I don’t feel like Twitch / livestreaming is well-supported yet (OwnCast is sort of a different approach to it)
edit: TikTok also is a livestreaming platform
There actually is a fediverse TikTok equivalent being developed! I’m not sure what the current status of it is, but it does already have rudimentary functionality. I bet he developer(s) might appreciate some help working on it, if anyone has the time/coding skills/money/etc to contribute. Somebody else mentioned Tumblr, and that exists too! So many cool projects being worked on, I regularly check this list to see what’s new, and it’s really heartwarming to see all the work people are putting into making the fediverse such a awesome place. There’s even a Tinder-esque dating app!
Personally, equivalents I would love to see include:
- Archive of Our Own
- RPC/F-List/roleplay platform
- (I’m actually trying to work on one of these myself, but I’m an amateur so don’t get your hopes up lol)
- Etsy
- Ravelry
- A search engine
- (And not just a metasearch using the same index as Google/Bing/etc)
Disqus. Would be great to add federated comments to any news, blog or static site.
There’s already a way to do this using Mastodon and a bit of Javascript. I use that on my flashlight review website and also link the comments to [email protected].
It’s not as slick a UX as Disqus of course, and it would be cool if somebody made that.
It’s hacky and not something a professional site would use. Cannot moderate comments for example.
I certainly can moderate comments; I am the admin of the Mastodon server in question.
What wouldn’t work so well is to host comments on someone else’s Mastodon server, so it’s not a good fit for a low-tech/low-overhead site. There’s definitely a space for something with a lower barrier to entry, but I don’t think it fits well with the nonprofit, community-oriented approach to servers running most of the fediverse. Those users would be best served by a commercial subscription service.
since there is lemmy im happy
Well, I’d for one like to see something new. Not just another clone of an existing platform, since I don’t really love any of the social media platforms. I’d like something that simultaneously connects me with friends and people all around the world. With communities like here, just more focused on positive and constructive engagement regarding different topics. Less picking on the news and less just replying if there’s something wrong with what somebody said. I’d like to explore some means of democratic engagement. For example electing moderators. Maybe vote on rules instead of transferring power just by choosing instances wisely. And I’d like to do away with the current way of upvoting. It sometimes encourages herd mentality instead of good answers. I’d also like to incorporate blogging longer and well reasoned texts, microblogging and sharing pictures. Both silly memes but also vacation pictures with my friends. I think the concept of friend circles is good, You could choose who gets to see what aspect from your life. And I want different pseudonyms so not everyone knows all the stuff I’m into. And something that’s entirely missing is selling used stuff in the neighborhood. Something like NextDoor/Craigslist/Facebook marketplace… You could also combine that with local news and connecting the neighborhood, not just discuss world politics all the time.
I think there is much potential for an enticing platform if we think big and use the concept of federation to our advantage, apply it to use-cases and concepts that haven’t yet been explored by the big commercial platforms. We have to do away with the urge of re-creating something to make it possible. And it’d be hard to come up with good concepts to foster good behaviour and solve the technical aspects. But at the same time it’d allow us break free from the constraints of what’s already there and just be a smaller alternative to XY. The way it currently often is: We let the major players come up with the new ideas. They have different motivations, mainly growing and making money. We re-create what they came up with and add a bit to it, but the concept stays the same. I think we can do more. But it is difficult. There have been crazy ideas, really new distributed platforms being implemented, lots of it with some crypto tech and in the end it didn’t take off or wasn’t aligned with what the users want and need or are comfortable with. Or people tried combining every feature into one platform (like I just proposed,) and it fails due to complexity.
commune is a semi unique fedderated social media
Love the illustration on their home page. Looks like a very new project.
Nice. Looks a bit like Revolt, Rocketchat, other standard Matrix clients, maybe even inspired by Discord or whatever people use. I’m curious to find out how they applied the Matrix protocol to power this.
I’ve had this idea where instead of a moderator having dominion over a community, their removals only work for people subscribed to that moderator specifically. We can make moderator actions work the way block lists do in ublock origin!
Of course admin action would still be necessary for curbing high volume spammers and illegal stuff.
I’d just like to see how things are when the conversation isn’t one way ruled by moderators who want their own ideals to seem like the norm. I’m not interested in tone policing and the like.
We seem to share similar ideas. I think we don’t necessarily have to be constrained by how stuff works in the real world. There, it is impossible to listen to everyone, you need to transfer power to a small amount of representatives. And one or few people at the top or it gets messy and nothing gets done. Also you need to come up with a single solution that applies to everyone.
I don’t think it has to be that way in the realm of online services. Technically, we can ask an arbitrary number of people for their opinion. Vote with less effort since networks are fast, databases quite capable and everything interconnected anyways. Have people just represent themselves or just 5 family members or transfer their democratic power to whomever they deem appropriate. It doesn’t even have to be a vote by majority. There are better weighted voting systems out there that are just impossible to implement in real-world countries. It doesn’t have to be one solution for everything, it could individually apply to communities of the platform or work differently for different topics. And big platforms already provide different content and algorithms for their individual users. We could also just everyone be provided with a unique perspective on the same data. Someone can be faced with something while another person has it buried at the bottom or not displayed at all. And we’d just choose things for ourselves, not vote on how other people are treated at all. (I mean that somehow emerges on it’s own… Once everyone chooses to not listen to trolls and annoying people, they’d just lose their audience and become meaningless.)
I see many technical challenges and negative consequences. We’d need to keep the crypto and blockchain people away from it. Everything I’ve seen that uses blockchain technology to achieve this has failed in the meantime. And was mainly intended to make money by some means. But things like ActivityPub are also not made for this. I’d really like to do away with the current voting mechanisms. I’d rather say I trust what this person says and my interests align with those people and this would replace global up- and downvoting. It’s certainly possible from a technical viewpoint. But would it really encourage good behaviour and foster a nice place? People sometimes like to engage especially with the things they oppose and comment on them. It would also be a massive filter-bubble. Algorithms confine people into small and similar-minded bubbles, not a diverse and realistic and stimulating world. I think it’s really difficult to find a delicate balance here, design choices that automatically push towards good behaviour and interesting engagement per default.
I completely agree on the admin stuff. Someone has to provide the computing power and take responsibility for what’s stored on their servers. And sometimes mistakes happen, things turn out bad or break. There are malicious people out there. Someone needs to have the power to fix things. I think that’s perfectly possible. Lots of platforms have succeded at that, there are people available, perfectly able to handle that responsibility. And ultimately, the whole internet is quite resilient and was designed with the idea of being a level playing-field and connect things and people.
I’ve actually put a lot of thought into how this would be implemented, and you’re right about the technical challenges this would impose. There’s gonna be like a dozen different ways the data can be sorted and that would be up to user preference. It would have to be single host rather than federated unfortunately, but that doesn’t necessarily mean evil. PM me if you wanna hear about it.
AWESOME! Thanks for linking the Flohmarkt project. I’ve been looking for something like this for quite some time and all I found was abandoned projects, and things that didn’t make it. I’m going to have a closer look at it and install an instance if it proves to be what I was looking for.
“Tiny knowledge projects”: https://observablehq.com/@jsomers/we-need-more-tiny-knowledge-projects-heres-one
Something like a decentralised dynamic web page like the one linked would be cool. But generally, stuff that’s more like “web gardens” where people can build “places” rather than feeds. Wikis being the best known successful example but still somewhat simple (in a good way).
Something like StackOverflow/StackExchange would be nice. Would also like to see a federated platform for designers/artists (some Dribbble or Adobe Behance alternative).
Federated SO where each participating site has its own list of topics makes a lot of sense tbh
There is already a Meetup alternative - Mobilizon
Thank you so much. Have you used it? Care to expand on uour experience with it?
You probably want to use a regional instance to have more relevant users, groups and events, but there is a global search engine for Mobilizon
For example, I am using a Polish instance, with an unsuprising domain https://mobilizon.pl
With an account, you are able to publish events, with header image, title, category, tags, date, place, description (with formatting available), and metadata. The event can be accesible publicly, or only via link.
The event (if public) can federate (and be boosted to e.g. Mastodon) and be commented, but you are able to turn off the comments.Individual account can only be followed from Friendica, but not from Mastodon.
For more features you want to create a group. A group can be followed from Friendica and Mastodon, but only Mobilizon accounts can become its members. Group members are able to participate in discussions (not visible from outside), manage a “common resource folder” - links, make group events and group announcements
You can experiment with Mobilizon features with a demo instance
Lol my regional instance has some interesting upcoming events…
oh man, that’s not pretty enough to start using as an alternative to, like, partiful (oh, yeah, I totally want to give my phone number to some random fucking website to go to a party) or wedding registry sites… but those don’t really need to be federated, huh?
I would like discord but in fediverse. This one i am actually using and even there are foss alternative like nextcloud talk i would like something that is at least as reliable as discord for calls
Is that not what Matrix is? I haven’t been to really understand Matrix so maybe I’m wrong.
Yes, Matrix is the closest I’ve seen to Discord that is federated. However, it doesn’t use ActivityPub I believe
Is ActivityPub a good fit for chat? Trying to make every kind of interaction fit into a single protocol sounds like a recipe for a bad protocol.
well, yeah, because it’s private messaging, it requires encryption and things like that. Really, fediverse instances should ideally incorporate matrix chat in some way or another, but that’s not exactly trivial.
He meamtwd calling, calling is lacking
Bandcamp
There is at least one https://simonrepp.com/faircamp/
Is it federated? Or is it just a solo version for anybody who wants their own solo bandcamp?
AFAIK it is in beta but developer planned or already implemented federation. If I’m wrong, I think @freebliss could correct me.
@TadeuszBonawentura @z3rOR0ne @small44 It’s more the “your own solo bandcamp” thing to paraphrase @sentient_loom. From the technical side, given it’s a static site generator, it can not technically act as a server for anything, including federation. It could act as an activity pub client technically, but it’s an open research question how that could be interesting. So for now no plans and no implementation, but I’m keeping tabs on ActivityPub and at least thinking about possible directions.
I love bandcamp as it is, but this is an amazing idea.
Github
All the benefits of the network effect without the crippling reliance on a single MegaCorp to keep the lights on and not turn hostile like the owners of SourceForge, Reddit, and Freenode IRC.
Would also solve a problem I’m not hearing anyone at all talk about - what happens when the Gitlab / Gittea / whatever instances projects are hosting run out of money and go dark? Those sources are lost forever.
Gitlab is actively working on this.
That’s really great to hear! It’s an incredible vision for an open source future not dependent on MegaCorps, and I am SO here for that!