Figure I should post this here as well.
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@evan @mmasnick Evan, every time you pull this bullshit, it pushes people away from the space. I’ve seen this behavior play out for months now, and frankly this plus the lack of stewardship and direction of the protocol, have left me to wonder whether the Fediverse or ActivityPub have an actual future. It’s demoralizing and embarrassing, and bad enough that I’ve largely considered throwing in the towel because of how this all makes me feel.
I have tried my best to be upbeat, supportive, and positive. But when I think of the current situation the Fediverse is in, especially in regards to ActivityPub and its lack of direction and stewardship at a high level, I visually imagine sticking a loaded gun in my mouth. Seriously! I don’t want to think of my 15 years in the space as a waste, but if you can’t grow a fucking spine and figure out how to move the ecosystem and protocol forward in a big way, then ActivityPub is toast. Yeah, Meta and Automattic and Ghost and Flipboard are building for it now, but they might end up being the only ones developing for it in the long term. With enough resources, any of them can switch to something else. Or just stop entirely.
It’s nice that you wrote a book, it’s great that you’re running a foundation, but your protocol is an unfinished product that relies on bespoke implementation and FEPs to even fucking function. You have an opportunity to humble yourself, draw inspiration from other efforts, and right the ship during one of the most pivotal moments of its history, and you’re fucking squandering it.
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@damon I know all that. This isn't about my convenience, it's about effectively building communities. Your needs are different from mine and my communities. Let's focus on how to accomodate the needs of different groups, not just one group. The beauty of fedi is a plurality of approaches, ideas, needs, wants.
Again, rheotrical question: why not make every federated instance opt-in if you want to respect consent? How is Bluesky any different from any other federated instance?
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@hallenbeck This I can get behind. I do agree things should be flexible and adaptive to all sorts of users needs. Apologies for the hostility, but I was there when on GitHub and Fedi how nasty and hostile people were towards Ryan. He took it like a champ but to me it was unacceptable and his mistreatment is something others have experienced on fedi. So, having an open discussion on making changes so things could be more convenient for you with the risk of them being harmful to Ryan doesn’t seem right. Erin also wrote these two https://erinkissane.com/blue-skies-over-mastodon https://erinkissane.com/mastodon-is-easy-and-fun-except-when-it-isnt
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@hallenbeck going to the instance disregards users consent, not sure if you’re trolling by asking that. Currently consent is respect in the sense that admins can block the bridge and also that users opt-in to the bridge. Not sure how your way respects users consent and address the needs as very strongly expressed in the GitHub issue
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I kind of agree with everybody here.
I hear what you're saying @[email protected] and I think it's likely that over time today's Fediverse will schism into a region that's consent-focused and a region that isn't (including Bluesky and Meta).
Today though I think that many people on most if not all instances have an expectation of consent ... as you say there isn't a single culture here but "you control your data" has been a big selling point, and if you look at the firestorms whenever something that looks non-consensual shows up, they're not just from a few instances. So I tend to agree with @[email protected] that an admin of an existing instance deciding to make Bridgy Fed opt-out is counter to many users expectations.
In terms of Bluesky I don't have particularly strong feelings. In general Bluesky *isn't* a consent culture ... but then again people certainly like the reply controls (which are another form of consent) and I could certainly believe that some people don't want their stuff going to the fediverse, -
@damon To be clear, it's not about what's convenient to me; I am more interested in exploring what's best for fedi. What is in the best interests of fedi are conversations. Respectful, sensitive conversation on issues like this. I don't believe the issue of opt-in v opt-out is in any way finalised and closed, and I sense Ryan is open to re-exploring it. Have a listen to his interview on dot social https://pca.st/episode/94af1736-427a-431b-844e-0eefd001a09e. I think he's got the approach right. Take it sensitive and slow.
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One of the points I make in https://privacy.thenexus.today/consent-for-fediverse-developers/#opportunity is that today's mechanisms are very klunky. When @[email protected] decided to make Bridgy Fed opt in he had to roll his own mechanism ... that's not easy! So there's a real opportunity to do better here.
@[email protected] @[email protected] -
> I kind of agree with everybody here
It's that plurality thing again, huh?
But yes I do agree there is a ways to go and change must be handled with care and consideration. Take it slow and steady. Move slow and mend things, etc.
Say, did you hear the interview with Audrey Tang? Absolutely fascinating and many resonances with what we're talking about here.
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@mmasnick @markdarb @evan I do think that there are some practical things the ATProtocol folks can do to make bridging between them and AP cleaner: the very dead simplest one is change their post size to 500 characters.
And I do think folks on the fedi allergic to bridging have plenty of means and agency to block it and only a (albeit loud) 5 percent would. Most would welcome a robust bridge to BlueSky.
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I very much appreciate your blog. I'm subbed in my RSS reader and always happy when a new post drops. I've learned a lot from it.
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@hallenbeck @markdarb @mmasnick
This rings true. It was a definite subset that were riled up, but that's cool, they have every right and ability to block such bridges at will. But I agree most - to my experience 90 percent plus, welcome it.
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@damon @hallenbeck Agree with Damon on how that went down, and that Ryan handled it with great grace and care.
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@hallenbeck @mackuba @markdarb @mmasnick @mike @snarfed.org
Yes exactly this. Each server can have its own opt-in or out rules -- as long as they state it clearly.
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It's that plurality thing again, huh?
I vaguely recall a joke one of my older relatives used to tell about their rabbi (who like all rabbis in these jokes is wise and long-suffering) ... two people were both upset at him because he refuses to take a side in their dispute and he keeps saying they're both right, the punchline is him sighing heavily and says "you're right, you're right, you're both right ..."
I haven't heard that interview, thanks for sharing ... she's very astute, looking forward to it!
@[email protected] @[email protected] -
oh blush ... thanks! always nice to hear! @[email protected]
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Yeah really. Well said. This attitude has real consequences to the Fediverse as a whole.
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@tchambers @mackuba @markdarb @mmasnick @mike @snarfed.org
Exactly that
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@hallenbeck
Idk if Ryan is open to changing that, he wrote this before the launch https://snarfed.org/2024-01-21_moderate-people-not-code
We also had him on our podcast prior to his appearance on Dot Social, https://wedistribute.org/podcast/bridgyfed-ryan-barrett/ -
I appreciate the Apache license protections for those who use your software; that's not enough.
You need to make a written pledge as an organization that any patents you make on the work you do are freely licensed. Right now, you're putting everyone in the space at risk. We don't know if you're going to overreach and patent distributed social networking, or user profiles, or whatever.
Fortunately, you have one of the smartest patent defenders on the planet on your board.
