Some additional thoughts on why alt accounts don't seem to work here even though people have no issues participating in multiple separate forums.
-
Some additional thoughts on why alt accounts don't seem to work here even though people have no issues participating in multiple separate forums. Last time I said it was because I can interact with the same people and posts regardless of which account I use.
The problem is, as usual, the microblogging paradigm. Sure, I could create multiple accounts and only follow furries on the furry account, software devs on the software dev account, etc. But it would never work because microblogging is unfocused. You can post about anything and there are no repercussions in going offtopic. You might lose some followers, but that's really it. Many people wouldn't care.
Even if we all started off on the basis to keep topics separate, it would fall apart very quickly. As soon as others stop doing it, it stops working for you as well because then all the software devs you'd been following would suddenly start talking about politics, sports, etc. Fediverse instances having a theme doesn't solve this because federation mixes them all together anyway.
In contrast, forums were focused on a theme and there was a staff to make sure it stayed on track. Alt accounts may serve other purposes, but they can't be a substitute for taking part in separate communities.yup. on fedi I tried to have one account per use-case, e.g. microblogging, link aggregation a la reddit, you get the idea. You only tended to do alt accounts on social media for a topical thing (e.g. SFW vs. NSFW/MDNI, single-topic accounts), so "alt accounts" aren't really a solution to some of AP's/fedi's shortcomings.
-
Some additional thoughts on why alt accounts don't seem to work here even though people have no issues participating in multiple separate forums. Last time I said it was because I can interact with the same people and posts regardless of which account I use.
The problem is, as usual, the microblogging paradigm. Sure, I could create multiple accounts and only follow furries on the furry account, software devs on the software dev account, etc. But it would never work because microblogging is unfocused. You can post about anything and there are no repercussions in going offtopic. You might lose some followers, but that's really it. Many people wouldn't care.
Even if we all started off on the basis to keep topics separate, it would fall apart very quickly. As soon as others stop doing it, it stops working for you as well because then all the software devs you'd been following would suddenly start talking about politics, sports, etc. Fediverse instances having a theme doesn't solve this because federation mixes them all together anyway.
In contrast, forums were focused on a theme and there was a staff to make sure it stayed on track. Alt accounts may serve other purposes, but they can't be a substitute for taking part in separate communities.@volpeon Great analysis, totally agree. I wonder if there's a happy medium somewhere? A yet-to-be discovered interaction model?
Personally, I find it weird that server instances don't have more effect on content. It makes the choice of server almost arbitrary.
-
Some additional thoughts on why alt accounts don't seem to work here even though people have no issues participating in multiple separate forums. Last time I said it was because I can interact with the same people and posts regardless of which account I use.
The problem is, as usual, the microblogging paradigm. Sure, I could create multiple accounts and only follow furries on the furry account, software devs on the software dev account, etc. But it would never work because microblogging is unfocused. You can post about anything and there are no repercussions in going offtopic. You might lose some followers, but that's really it. Many people wouldn't care.
Even if we all started off on the basis to keep topics separate, it would fall apart very quickly. As soon as others stop doing it, it stops working for you as well because then all the software devs you'd been following would suddenly start talking about politics, sports, etc. Fediverse instances having a theme doesn't solve this because federation mixes them all together anyway.
In contrast, forums were focused on a theme and there was a staff to make sure it stayed on track. Alt accounts may serve other purposes, but they can't be a substitute for taking part in separate communities.@volpeon Having a lewd alt might work, though in my experience what tends to happen is something like
1. Has NSFW and main accounts.
2. Makes their main account 18+ because while it's not porn you might want to talk about things like sex as it applies to your life.
3. Starts posting thirst-traps on main cus there shouldn't be any minors there anyway and they look VERY cute today and people need to see it.
4. The distinction between the account becomes blurrier and blurrier.
And something similar happens when you try keeping a professional/private distinction, countdown to saying 'fuck it' and starting to shitpost on main.
-
yup. on fedi I tried to have one account per use-case, e.g. microblogging, link aggregation a la reddit, you get the idea. You only tended to do alt accounts on social media for a topical thing (e.g. SFW vs. NSFW/MDNI, single-topic accounts), so "alt accounts" aren't really a solution to some of AP's/fedi's shortcomings.
slightly related, got reminded of douzepoints dot social (which was a Mastodon instance for Eurovision fans). Safe to say, even if the Fediverse cared about Eurovision, the Eurovision fans did not reciprocate that. Even when the Eurovision Discord were recommending alternative platforms including ones on fedi.
-
Some additional thoughts on why alt accounts don't seem to work here even though people have no issues participating in multiple separate forums. Last time I said it was because I can interact with the same people and posts regardless of which account I use.
The problem is, as usual, the microblogging paradigm. Sure, I could create multiple accounts and only follow furries on the furry account, software devs on the software dev account, etc. But it would never work because microblogging is unfocused. You can post about anything and there are no repercussions in going offtopic. You might lose some followers, but that's really it. Many people wouldn't care.
Even if we all started off on the basis to keep topics separate, it would fall apart very quickly. As soon as others stop doing it, it stops working for you as well because then all the software devs you'd been following would suddenly start talking about politics, sports, etc. Fediverse instances having a theme doesn't solve this because federation mixes them all together anyway.
In contrast, forums were focused on a theme and there was a staff to make sure it stayed on track. Alt accounts may serve other purposes, but they can't be a substitute for taking part in separate communities.@volpeon thank you for putting great words to this! I hear people talk about instances as communities all the time and honestly it always sounds to me like people are confusing fediverse instances with forums...
The closest to that experience here is groups, but it's still not quite the same thing (because forums have more history, searchability, subtopics, etc).
Interestingly enough, some group software does support private posting to groups as well. Fedigroups for instance supports this, ( @hello ), I haven't tried it out yet but I believe it works by just limiting visibility of your post to just the group, in which case the group will echo your post instead of just boosting it.
-
@volpeon tbh the main problem here seems to be the microblogging paradigm's conflation of "categorization" with "discoverability" (so, hashtags)
in every other paradigm out there putting a #linux tag on your writing, or posting it under a "linux" category, would not be any deal, nobody would prolly notice it consciously. but conflating them with #discoverability leads to #TagSpamming and makes the concept of #tagging as a whole look like a #brand account looking for #attention
tagging (and implicitly, filtering in or out by tags) would solve this particular problem, but the primary influence on the entire network (whether anyone likes it or not) being a 1-1 clone of twitter with a sprinkling of bluesky which is itself a more unabashed clone of twitter, means that tags are effectively "dead" as a concept@volpeon given Hashtags as a concept are "dead", what do?
i think the answer. in a microblogging-compatible paradigm anyhow, is creating a second, evil kind of tag, where opting into discoverability is an intentional choice (perhaps keeping Hashtag as the discoverable version, and the new tag as the non-discoverable version)
these new tags would be out-of-band ONLY, and just as a cherry on top, let's make them a tree as well, so you can tag a post with, say,tv show.season 2.spoilerand it would additionally get categorized undertv showandtv show.season 2 -
@volpeon given Hashtags as a concept are "dead", what do?
i think the answer. in a microblogging-compatible paradigm anyhow, is creating a second, evil kind of tag, where opting into discoverability is an intentional choice (perhaps keeping Hashtag as the discoverable version, and the new tag as the non-discoverable version)
these new tags would be out-of-band ONLY, and just as a cherry on top, let's make them a tree as well, so you can tag a post with, say,tv show.season 2.spoilerand it would additionally get categorized undertv showandtv show.season 2@volpeon (this is something i am thinking of exploring with outpost, but it'll be a while for that to happen, if ever) -
@volpeon tbh the main problem here seems to be the microblogging paradigm's conflation of "categorization" with "discoverability" (so, hashtags)
in every other paradigm out there putting a #linux tag on your writing, or posting it under a "linux" category, would not be any deal, nobody would prolly notice it consciously. but conflating them with #discoverability leads to #TagSpamming and makes the concept of #tagging as a whole look like a #brand account looking for #attention
tagging (and implicitly, filtering in or out by tags) would solve this particular problem, but the primary influence on the entire network (whether anyone likes it or not) being a 1-1 clone of twitter with a sprinkling of bluesky which is itself a more unabashed clone of twitter, means that tags are effectively "dead" as a concept@kopper @volpeon It feels like there are only a few people who tag spam, and honestly I'm generally not interested in reading what they have to say, so I mute them and then the tag feed actually works pretty well. I don't think it is bad to have it linked to discovery, I want to discover on topic posts on subjects I am interested in from accounts I do not follow, and most people do seem to use them like that. We do need to keep building the culture around tagging, but we can do that.
-
Some additional thoughts on why alt accounts don't seem to work here even though people have no issues participating in multiple separate forums. Last time I said it was because I can interact with the same people and posts regardless of which account I use.
The problem is, as usual, the microblogging paradigm. Sure, I could create multiple accounts and only follow furries on the furry account, software devs on the software dev account, etc. But it would never work because microblogging is unfocused. You can post about anything and there are no repercussions in going offtopic. You might lose some followers, but that's really it. Many people wouldn't care.
Even if we all started off on the basis to keep topics separate, it would fall apart very quickly. As soon as others stop doing it, it stops working for you as well because then all the software devs you'd been following would suddenly start talking about politics, sports, etc. Fediverse instances having a theme doesn't solve this because federation mixes them all together anyway.
In contrast, forums were focused on a theme and there was a staff to make sure it stayed on track. Alt accounts may serve other purposes, but they can't be a substitute for taking part in separate communities.@volpeon@icy.wyvern.rip No idea how people get it done to manage their thousend alt accounts.
-
@kopper @volpeon It feels like there are only a few people who tag spam, and honestly I'm generally not interested in reading what they have to say, so I mute them and then the tag feed actually works pretty well. I don't think it is bad to have it linked to discovery, I want to discover on topic posts on subjects I am interested in from accounts I do not follow, and most people do seem to use them like that. We do need to keep building the culture around tagging, but we can do that.
@Shivaekul @volpeon but hashtags are a whole are "poisoned". that's my argument. as long as the cultural legacy of hashtags remain as "the things you spam under posts to get someone to notice you" then you just can't build that culture.
groups (as a concept) are much better for discoverability in my experience, as there are moderators who make sure you are not abusing the group for spam. hashtags are the wild west, and "do not post silly things under hashtags" is not exactly an enforceable rule, especially for people accustomed to how hashtags work from other microblogs -
@volpeon tbh the main problem here seems to be the microblogging paradigm's conflation of "categorization" with "discoverability" (so, hashtags)
in every other paradigm out there putting a #linux tag on your writing, or posting it under a "linux" category, would not be any deal, nobody would prolly notice it consciously. but conflating them with #discoverability leads to #TagSpamming and makes the concept of #tagging as a whole look like a #brand account looking for #attention
tagging (and implicitly, filtering in or out by tags) would solve this particular problem, but the primary influence on the entire network (whether anyone likes it or not) being a 1-1 clone of twitter with a sprinkling of bluesky which is itself a more unabashed clone of twitter, means that tags are effectively "dead" as a concept@kopper I think we need way more than mere tags to get the same level of separation as separate forums. For instance, hashtags are way too ad-hoc so it's often hard to tell which one is "right". Is it #bird or #birds or #avian or ...? Also, nothing stops people from posting anything under any tag.
What we need is a proper abstraction for communities which works like everywhere else. Let's call them "groups", let them have rules and a staff to enforce them (so they stay on-topic), and generate a group feed (for the filtering). I pitched this idea many times in the past, too. -
Some additional thoughts on why alt accounts don't seem to work here even though people have no issues participating in multiple separate forums. Last time I said it was because I can interact with the same people and posts regardless of which account I use.
The problem is, as usual, the microblogging paradigm. Sure, I could create multiple accounts and only follow furries on the furry account, software devs on the software dev account, etc. But it would never work because microblogging is unfocused. You can post about anything and there are no repercussions in going offtopic. You might lose some followers, but that's really it. Many people wouldn't care.
Even if we all started off on the basis to keep topics separate, it would fall apart very quickly. As soon as others stop doing it, it stops working for you as well because then all the software devs you'd been following would suddenly start talking about politics, sports, etc. Fediverse instances having a theme doesn't solve this because federation mixes them all together anyway.
In contrast, forums were focused on a theme and there was a staff to make sure it stayed on track. Alt accounts may serve other purposes, but they can't be a substitute for taking part in separate communities.@volpeon while I much understand this way of viewing it and agree to some level, I also think there's advantages to having alt accounts for e.g afterdark stuff.
but each alt is a full person and its interactions in a sense, you have to build a completely new group of friends from scratch.
I think that can be beneficial though, if you want to separate worlds for some subject *entirely* it works, but I've noticed it's a very poor way of 'categorizing' posts as you're essentially two(+) people.
-
@volpeon while I much understand this way of viewing it and agree to some level, I also think there's advantages to having alt accounts for e.g afterdark stuff.
but each alt is a full person and its interactions in a sense, you have to build a completely new group of friends from scratch.
I think that can be beneficial though, if you want to separate worlds for some subject *entirely* it works, but I've noticed it's a very poor way of 'categorizing' posts as you're essentially two(+) people.
@volpeon I do like your ideas on the subject though, having a more forum-like fedi software would be cool and would allow for new ways to categorize things and make it more easy to find the content you're looking for too;
tags are way too basic for that purpose, and I feel like a lot of content gets 'lost' over time because it's e.g too far back on someone's profile to scroll through the mono-track timeline years back to find the specific content you're looking for
-
@kopper I think we need way more than mere tags to get the same level of separation as separate forums. For instance, hashtags are way too ad-hoc so it's often hard to tell which one is "right". Is it #bird or #birds or #avian or ...? Also, nothing stops people from posting anything under any tag.
What we need is a proper abstraction for communities which works like everywhere else. Let's call them "groups", let them have rules and a staff to enforce them (so they stay on-topic), and generate a group feed (for the filtering). I pitched this idea many times in the past, too.@volpeon yup. groups for discoverability, tags for categorization
some shortcomings of groups could be rectified by allowing posts to be in multiple groups (however: this would issues when moderating replies. perhaps preventing groups from moderating replies and letting fedi's high moderator-to-user ratio take care of that would be ideal?), and making "remove from group" "detach" the group from the post without removing it outright so your own followers could still interact with it -
@volpeon yup. groups for discoverability, tags for categorization
some shortcomings of groups could be rectified by allowing posts to be in multiple groups (however: this would issues when moderating replies. perhaps preventing groups from moderating replies and letting fedi's high moderator-to-user ratio take care of that would be ideal?), and making "remove from group" "detach" the group from the post without removing it outright so your own followers could still interact with it@volpeon additionally, if we're preventing groups from "owning" posts, then we can think of groups just as "hashtags with quality control" and therefore options like "automatically syndicate from group X" become viable solutions to the fragmentation problem (do i post on linux@lemmy.ml or linux@lemmy.world or linux@programming.dev) -
@volpeon additionally, if we're preventing groups from "owning" posts, then we can think of groups just as "hashtags with quality control" and therefore options like "automatically syndicate from group X" become viable solutions to the fragmentation problem (do i post on linux@lemmy.ml or linux@lemmy.world or linux@programming.dev)@volpeon a private group that does indeed own it's posts could be presumably re-implemented as a separate thing entirely based on shared logic with a hypothetical "circles" functionality
-
@Shivaekul @volpeon but hashtags are a whole are "poisoned". that's my argument. as long as the cultural legacy of hashtags remain as "the things you spam under posts to get someone to notice you" then you just can't build that culture.
groups (as a concept) are much better for discoverability in my experience, as there are moderators who make sure you are not abusing the group for spam. hashtags are the wild west, and "do not post silly things under hashtags" is not exactly an enforceable rule, especially for people accustomed to how hashtags work from other microblogs -
Some additional thoughts on why alt accounts don't seem to work here even though people have no issues participating in multiple separate forums. Last time I said it was because I can interact with the same people and posts regardless of which account I use.
The problem is, as usual, the microblogging paradigm. Sure, I could create multiple accounts and only follow furries on the furry account, software devs on the software dev account, etc. But it would never work because microblogging is unfocused. You can post about anything and there are no repercussions in going offtopic. You might lose some followers, but that's really it. Many people wouldn't care.
Even if we all started off on the basis to keep topics separate, it would fall apart very quickly. As soon as others stop doing it, it stops working for you as well because then all the software devs you'd been following would suddenly start talking about politics, sports, etc. Fediverse instances having a theme doesn't solve this because federation mixes them all together anyway.
In contrast, forums were focused on a theme and there was a staff to make sure it stayed on track. Alt accounts may serve other purposes, but they can't be a substitute for taking part in separate communities.More additional thoughts because the explanation above also may help you understand one point of conflict that never seems to go away: peoples confusion about instances.
I used to think that choosing an instance was like choosing an email provider. Others will say that it's also like choosing forums to join, and nobody had trouble with that either. The truth is, though, that it's both in the worst possible way.
This part of the fediverse is focused on microblogging. Like i said, microblogging in its current form has no concept for communities because everything goes into a global scope.
We like to say that instances on the fediverse are communities, and at the first glance that makes sense. They have a theme, rules and standards, a staff to enforce them, and a join process. It's the same as forums, right?
But instances are also federated, and this leads to the lines becoming blurred. So blurred, in fact, that it's hard to see any difference between them. Same as with alts, you can interact with the network and the experience will mostly be the same. The only difference is what parts of the network are inaccessible due to moderation and maybe a custom UI (if the user even sticks with the web UI).
Is this enough to create a sense of community? I don't think so.
Communities are formed around a shared interest, with members talking about it, sharing their own works, holding events, etc. How could instances possibly be neat units of communities when all of these acts happen across the boundaries? Personally, I never felt intrinsically closer with anyone just because we were on the same instance.
It's easy to choose an instance on a purely mechanical level. You open one, register, done. It's no different from other platforms and this *isn't* the part that makes people struggle. It's the lack of a clear point of instances in the first place. They're first and foremost a vehicle to drive decentralization, but are presented as communities, leading to clashing expectations and behaviors. This is where the confusion comes from.
This doesn't mean that instances are bad or pointless. The mistake the fediverse made was adopting the instance = community concept without ever adjusting the microblogging design to represent them as such. -
More additional thoughts because the explanation above also may help you understand one point of conflict that never seems to go away: peoples confusion about instances.
I used to think that choosing an instance was like choosing an email provider. Others will say that it's also like choosing forums to join, and nobody had trouble with that either. The truth is, though, that it's both in the worst possible way.
This part of the fediverse is focused on microblogging. Like i said, microblogging in its current form has no concept for communities because everything goes into a global scope.
We like to say that instances on the fediverse are communities, and at the first glance that makes sense. They have a theme, rules and standards, a staff to enforce them, and a join process. It's the same as forums, right?
But instances are also federated, and this leads to the lines becoming blurred. So blurred, in fact, that it's hard to see any difference between them. Same as with alts, you can interact with the network and the experience will mostly be the same. The only difference is what parts of the network are inaccessible due to moderation and maybe a custom UI (if the user even sticks with the web UI).
Is this enough to create a sense of community? I don't think so.
Communities are formed around a shared interest, with members talking about it, sharing their own works, holding events, etc. How could instances possibly be neat units of communities when all of these acts happen across the boundaries? Personally, I never felt intrinsically closer with anyone just because we were on the same instance.
It's easy to choose an instance on a purely mechanical level. You open one, register, done. It's no different from other platforms and this *isn't* the part that makes people struggle. It's the lack of a clear point of instances in the first place. They're first and foremost a vehicle to drive decentralization, but are presented as communities, leading to clashing expectations and behaviors. This is where the confusion comes from.
This doesn't mean that instances are bad or pointless. The mistake the fediverse made was adopting the instance = community concept without ever adjusting the microblogging design to represent them as such.@volpeon@icy.wyvern.rip I have what sounds like a minor disagreement, but IMO it changes the core of the argument
You're right that instances aren't like forums, so they don't build community like forums. But something else that isn't strictly kept in topic is IRL meetups in communities.
Parkour is the best example for me, I have this circle of friends where we met in parkour class and we all love it and to talk about it. But then at some point I'll mention that the song that's playing is really cool and I learn that someone there also plays drums and we go off on that tangent. Then I'll complain about my cats and I'll learn that one of them is a professional pet sitter.
My point is, building community in real life is the shared interest as the anchor for everyone to have something to talk about, and for new people to know how to enter the space, but then things will inevitably branch out.
So maybe picking an instance is more like picking a club or gym or hacker space to make friends in, rather than a forum. But I think it is building a community in the same way we build it IRL, where you know the beings behind the screens, not just their opinions on the topic -
@volpeon@icy.wyvern.rip I have what sounds like a minor disagreement, but IMO it changes the core of the argument
You're right that instances aren't like forums, so they don't build community like forums. But something else that isn't strictly kept in topic is IRL meetups in communities.
Parkour is the best example for me, I have this circle of friends where we met in parkour class and we all love it and to talk about it. But then at some point I'll mention that the song that's playing is really cool and I learn that someone there also plays drums and we go off on that tangent. Then I'll complain about my cats and I'll learn that one of them is a professional pet sitter.
My point is, building community in real life is the shared interest as the anchor for everyone to have something to talk about, and for new people to know how to enter the space, but then things will inevitably branch out.
So maybe picking an instance is more like picking a club or gym or hacker space to make friends in, rather than a forum. But I think it is building a community in the same way we build it IRL, where you know the beings behind the screens, not just their opinions on the topic@gwenthefops
That's a good point, but I think it doesn't contradict mine. What a club or gym does is provide a consistent separate environment for everyone to be at, segregated from the public. A familiar comfortable space they have to themselves. Instances lack this property because everything still takes place in the loud global space.
So like I said, the fediverse would have to present instances as communities in some way to restore this property and actually make them work for community building.
