Pixelfed is bringing hundreds of thousands of users to the fediverse who don't know about federation.

Julian Fietkau

@tchambers @dansup One issue with that approach is sooner or later (when they want to log in on another device, when they get a new phone, etc.) people will need to know what server they're on. Flagship instances circumvent this by saying "if you don't know, you're almost certainly on this one." It can't be randomly assigned and then never brought up again. If people get assigned to random servers, we need to find reliable ways to make them feel connected to their server and remember it later.

Tim Chambers

@julian @dansup I'd say a good UX, can make it clear which server you are on in the sign up process without being confusing. This would apply too if you had one of four being chosen for users by default.

Julian Fietkau

@tchambers @dansup Yeah, but I'm thinking only in the signup process might not be enough. How about any number of these:

- A little animation when you open the app "Welcome back on pixelfed.example"
- Visually emphasizing the server in your logged-in user handle (somehow)
- Prominently showing server-specific discovery mechanisms (local feed?)
- Default-following an account that regularly posts about the server and its culture

From the top of my head. Point is, you'd probably need *something*.

Antoine

@tchambers @dansup @julian

> "servers you do deals with"
"deals', really ? Isn't it against all federation principles ?

> "know are well run, scalable & solid"
According to who ? An external trust authority ? or pixelfed app principal's dev ?

> "spreading out of users across multiple servers"
If load-balancing is the issue then don't bother showing that as an option to the user. Just server-side balance users as needed, and never reveal them on which instance they are

1/4

Tim Chambers

@villapirorum @dansup @julian You wouldn't want to incude servers without their approval, right?

Antoine

@tchambers @dansup @julian

Sure

Clot

@dansup I think a better solution could be making a list of servers which have approximately same rules and choose random one of them and do load balancing.
Ofcourse you would need to consult with the server admins if they are willing to do it..

snahn ip

@dansup this is not the way sir

snahn ip

Superego needs to humble itself.

Sascha Foerster :bonndigital:

@ij @dansup I understand your position well. There is a lot to criticise in Pixelfed and the decisions of Daniel. On the other hand, it feels for me, we don’t have many chances left. I prefer to support the suboptimal but open approach close to values of the Fediverse instead of letting this chance pass by and have democracy in fire in the next decade. I never understand how everyone can be so demanding to someone who gave so much in advance, be it imperfect or problematic. It’s still a big gift

ij

@Sascha Hmmm, I don't think so that I'm too demanding. I've been in talk with @dansup about e.g. LDAP integration for like 2 years or more. I even provided a dedicated LDAP server to him so he could thoughoutly test the LDAP integration. I even offered some money as a bug bounty for a proper LDAP integration.

Regarding the stuck account registration with undelivered mails that needs to be resent, I'm not the only one that was asking for a fix - which Dan said that he was working on.

But instead of working on bug fixing, my impression is that he wants to implement new features and new apps. I understand that new stuff is more fun to work on compared to bug fixing, but bugs needs to be fixed as well.

WRT onboarding: some days ago he removed pixelfed.social from the server list. Now he aims towards the opposite.

And I fear that he is in danger of burning out: too much stuff to work on and too few contributors.

The Nexus of Privacy

@ij I agree, I don’t think you’re being too demanding! And great point about the parallels to Eugen’s making mastodon.social the default.

Michael Downey 🚩

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