@deadsuperhero @kichae so in the same vein, the negativity is against the erosion or destruction of the future where those ends are achieved. what is desired is a paradigm shift away from “view everything from one website” and a return to that multitude of diverse communities.

i was telling julian the other day that going to other websites isn’t the problem. the problem is that you can’t interact on other websites. imagine if you could!

@deadsuperhero @kichae so in the same vein, the negativity is against the erosion or destruction of the future where those ends are achieved. what is desired is a paradigm shift away from “view everything from one website” and a return to that multitude of diverse communities.

i was telling julian the other day that going to other websites isn’t the problem. the problem is that you can’t interact on other websites. imagine if you could!

@trwnh@mastodon.social @kichae@community.nodebb.org That is 100% fair, and I think we are in agreement.

We don't want to emulate the Capitalist mode of "growth at all costs", that would be objectively awful. The question is, and I'm not sure there's a complete answer yet, is "can we grow sustainably, in a healthy way, in service of these goals?"

In our current setting, I'm not sure. So much of this network is predicated on free and unpaid labor. Even the most successful projects make comparatively little to our competition.

@julian The problem with mainstreaming is that everyone wants a piece of cake. Some people come to build, and I think that's fine, even if they take away something from existing projects. But there are also charlatans and scammers, and unfortunately faking achievements is very easy in Fediverse.

The good thing about grassroots / DIY spaces is that the latter category is non existent.

@deadsuperhero @kichae i think we can have healthy sustainable growth but it cannot be as rapid as the strongest proponents want it to be. millions joining overnight is not sustainable. the current protocols are also a major detriment. social infrastructure cannot handle it. things like that

I think there are a few things going on here.

• Yes, every since the old Gnu Social days there have always been techie-elitists on the fediverse who say things like "it's good that it's hard to use because it keeps the 'normies' out" ... and alas, that tradition continues today on Mastodon and other platforms (and is often expressed in language that echoes anti-immigrant tropes or is somewhat racist). It's unfortunate but I don't know what we can do about it other than attempt to minimize their influence.

• There's always been a tension between people who are in the fediverse because they want to get away from big tech companies ... and people who are in the fediverse because they think decentralization is cool, and so see it as a good thing that big tech companies are adopting the technology because hopefully over time it will provide a path for people to move off of the big corporate social networks. When Eugen called Threads' adoption of ActivityPub "a victory for our cause", it really drove home to a lot of people that his cause isn't theirs. This is part of why I talk about fediverses in the plural: there's a corporate fediverse as well as the "free fediverse" that's anti-surveillance capitalism (and others as well, like the 'freeze peach' fediverse). Of course, the various fediverses can potentially co-exist, but motivations and values are very different ... and the bigger corporations looking at the fediverse certainly aren't going out of their way to help or even acknowledge long-time fedi developers who aren't directly useful to them, so there's almost certainly some resentment on that front.

• ever since 2017 (if not earlier), the fediverse has been very driven by trans, queer, and non-binary people. So if the fediverse is 100x larger with big players, and in the process it becomes 99% cis-dominant, then yes they have really taken soething away from trans people. What percentage of the speakers at Fediverse House were trans? Which speakers talked about the key role trans and non-binary people have played in Mastodon and ActivityPub's development? And since the biggest player is Meta, who's actively hostile to LGBTQ+ people, the dynamics are even worse -- especially since so many high-profile cis fediverse influencers only talk about the positive aspects of Threads without even acknowledging the concerns of trans and non-binary people. How many of the speakers at Fediverse House mentioned the anti-Meta FediPact and Vanta Black's perspective (shared by many of the signers) that "being okay with meta joining the fediverse is being okay with cosigning every goddamn trans person who chooses to remain on here to a future of constant harassment"?

Of course the second and third bullets aren't directly relevant to NodeBB. You're definitely grassroots and DIY. And getting new perspectives and energy from people like you -- or the 2022 wave -- is crucial to getting ActivityPub out of the rut it's been in for the last N years, and making the software more broadly usable. But they're certainly part of the overall dynamics.

@julian not to buy into the "grassroots vs mainstream" narrative per se, but the emphasis on mainstream adoption at this stage is imo misplaced and only serves to reinforce broken patterns of "social media" and its consequences over the past 15-20 years. asking people to make the leap right now is going to leave a lot of people disappointed. we need to offer more compelling reasons to be here, and a genuinely better experience for multimodal communications that aren't shoved into the square hole

@jdp23 I think the best thing about the fediverse is that YOU (the user) can choose which version of the fedi you want to live in. If you don’t want Meta, then choose an instance that blocks them out (or self-host). If you don’t want people searching your content, you can shut that off in your settings. If you don’t want “normies” here, then you can close the doors via your instance. What annoys me is people who want to make *their* version of the fedi the default.

@jdp23 I think the best thing about the fediverse is that YOU (the user) can choose which version of the fedi you want to live in. If you don’t want Meta, then choose an instance that blocks them out (or self-host). If you don’t want people searching your content, you can shut that off in your settings. If you don’t want “normies” here, then you can close the doors via your instance. What annoys me is people who want to make *their* version of the fedi the default.

I think there are a few things going on here.

• Yes, every since the old Gnu Social days there have always been techie-elitists on the fediverse who say things like "it's good that it's hard to use because it keeps the 'normies' out" ... and alas, that tradition continues today on Mastodon and other platforms (and is often expressed in language that echoes anti-immigrant tropes or is somewhat racist). It's unfortunate but I don't know what we can do about it other than attempt to minimize their influence.

• There's always been a tension between people who are in the fediverse because they want to get away from big tech companies ... and people who are in the fediverse because they think decentralization is cool, and so see it as a good thing that big tech companies are adopting the technology because hopefully over time it will provide a path for people to move off of the big corporate social networks. When Eugen called Threads' adoption of ActivityPub "a victory for our cause", it really drove home to a lot of people that his cause isn't theirs. This is part of why I talk about fediverses in the plural: there's a corporate fediverse as well as the "free fediverse" that's anti-surveillance capitalism (and others as well, like the 'freeze peach' fediverse). Of course, the various fediverses can potentially co-exist, but motivations and values are very different ... and the bigger corporations looking at the fediverse certainly aren't going out of their way to help or even acknowledge long-time fedi developers who aren't directly useful to them, so there's almost certainly some resentment on that front.

• ever since 2017 (if not earlier), the fediverse has been very driven by trans, queer, and non-binary people. So if the fediverse is 100x larger with big players, and in the process it becomes 99% cis-dominant, then yes they have really taken soething away from trans people. What percentage of the speakers at Fediverse House were trans? Which speakers talked about the key role trans and non-binary people have played in Mastodon and ActivityPub's development? And since the biggest player is Meta, who's actively hostile to LGBTQ+ people, the dynamics are even worse -- especially since so many high-profile cis fediverse influencers only talk about the positive aspects of Threads without even acknowledging the concerns of trans and non-binary people. How many of the speakers at Fediverse House mentioned the anti-Meta FediPact and Vanta Black's perspective (shared by many of the signers) that "being okay with meta joining the fediverse is being okay with cosigning every goddamn trans person who chooses to remain on here to a future of constant harassment"?

Of course the second and third bullets aren't directly relevant to NodeBB. You're definitely grassroots and DIY. And getting new perspectives and energy from people like you -- or the 2022 wave -- is crucial to getting ActivityPub out of the rut it's been in for the last N years, and making the software more broadly usable. But they're certainly part of the overall dynamics.

@jdp23 I think the best thing about the fediverse is that YOU (the user) can choose which version of the fedi you want to live in. If you don’t want Meta, then choose an instance that blocks them out (or self-host). If you don’t want people searching your content, you can shut that off in your settings. If you don’t want “normies” here, then you can close the doors via your instance. What annoys me is people who want to make *their* version of the fedi the default.

@jdp23 it's the first time I heard of venta black

@ricmac @evan @evanprodromou

I think this post sums up my constructive thinking on these threads https://hamishcampbell.com/why-the-fediverse-needs-a-connection-between-mainstreaming-and-grassroots/

@ricmac @evan @evanprodromou

Did we find any paths out of this mess?

@hamishcampbell @ricmac @evanprodromou If I remember correctly, you shared a blog post with your ideas for what you want to do on the matter? I hope it works out. Good luck!

@evan @ricmac @evanprodromou

You are a bright guy, so you can hopefully see the issue with the reply:

Search Results for “individualism” – Hamish Campbell

(hamishcampbell.com)

If we can't talk about groups we can't talk, not understanding this is lying because It's what we do all the time, as "common sense".

With this in mind, the thread started with @julian taking a group thought and answering as an individual emotion, and carried on in this #blocking way. This is the normal mess, we do need to put more focus into composting