> However, I disagree with some of the analysis, and have a couple specific points to correct.

[cwebber@social.coop]

What I DO know is that it means that the entire structure of analyzing decentralization in Mark's paper and Bryan's blogpost thus, in practice, surround a term that is weak because it was FUNDAMENTALLY describing a centralized system, so it could criticize it

The loss of context here is BRUTAL

[cwebber@social.coop]

To conflate the two *automatically* introduces decentralization-washing. I don't think this is intentional, but it explains a lot.

It explains how a "weak" definition of decentralization could come from one of the boldest visions of what that very *idea* could be

[cwebber@social.coop]

Now okay let's point out the irony here because I feel like if I don't I'm being mean. Bryan does say:

> To some degree, I don't really want to spend time in a terminology debate.

And I just did! At length!

But the whole debate this whole time is "is Bluesky decentralized" so we kinda HAVE to

[cwebber@social.coop]

But also what happened was:

- I lay out a strong definition of decentralization; Bluesky doesn't match
- Bryan suggests an alternate definition, pulls
from
- An RFC which despite the title is extremely lukewarm AT BEST about decentralization which pulls from
- A definition describing centralization

[cwebber@social.coop]

And I don't think this was malicious on Bryan's part in the least because I know Bryan well enough to know he's not like that!

I am pretty annoyed at Mark though for quoting this out of context in such a way that it can completely confuse a narrative like this. I'll assume that was a mistake but

[cwebber@social.coop]

The reality is that Bluesky didn't match my definition of decentralization, and I hope it's pretty clear now that the alternate definition supplied was literally one about centralization

And so that cannot possibly be a lower bar that we say "okay maybe Bluesky can pass this one" I am sorry

[cwebber@social.coop]

Let's PLEASE not move the goalposts on "decentralization". Let's certainly not move them back to something that was literally "here's what centralization looks like in practice".

That's what I'm asking for here. That's why I went so goddamned HARD on terminology here.

[cwebber@social.coop]

Let's check the time.

It's 7:30pm where I am. I woke up at 4:30am and resumed work on my blogpost at 5am.

I have been, for the most part, between the blogpost, my job, and this thread, sitting at my computer fighting for decentralization for about 14 hours. It's been like that a lot lately.

[rwg@aoir.social]

@cwebber we're right here with you!

[cwebber@social.coop]

I have a reputation at work of being good at pushing others to take off time and they HAVE to take off time OR ELSE and I try to be that way in general. But I am really truly bad at doing so for myself and I know I have crossed my limits for today.

So let's wrap up for *tonight* in a sec

[cwebber@social.coop]

We're about halfway through this blogpost. There's a lot going on in my life. I am trying so hard to keep the organization I work for alive and moving forward. I am tired. I need rest. And I still need to drive two hours across the state tonight.

We're going to resume tomorrow. But first...

[cwebber@social.coop]

There's a reason I'm going really hard on this. I really care a lot about the shape of the internet. And tomorrow we're going to get into some more analysis and a talk about *values*, and one thing I like is that Bryan talked at length about Bluesky's values. And I think that part was really good.

[damon@social.wedistribute.org]

@[email protected] Agreed as long as people stop conflating federated and decentralised

[cwebber@social.coop]

For tonight, I need to unwind, I need to put a label on a mailbox, I need to eat dinner, I need to drive across the state, I need to sleep.

Maybe I appear ridiculous. I get it. I go pretty hardcore on this stuff. If you know me you know I tend to go all in.

[darius@friend.camp]

@cwebber thank you for contextualizing the Baran 1964 citations btw.

[cwebber@social.coop]

I am signing off for the night. Tomorrow we will analyze whether or not my assertion that "ATProto has explosive behavior as it approaches decentralization" problems.

I'm not going to read notifications until I finish this. Maybe someone will prove me wrong before I get it done.

I'll be oblivious.

[cwebber@social.coop]

We will also analyze values, which maybe I care about more than anything. And there will be more secret goblins, hidden among the posts.

For tonight, it's rest time. It's time for a

=== NO MORE LOOKING AT MY COMPUTER BREAK ===

[semitones@tiny.tilde.website]

@cwebber I thought the comparison to libera.chat was especially interesting because they've got one "credible exit" behind them! Back when we were all on freenode, but had to suddenly move to libera to deal with the hostile takeover. Freenode was centralized but the network was able to recreate itself in a way I haven't really seen elsewhere because IRC clients could point to a different server and carry on.

[django@social.coop]

@cwebber If ATproto describes its design (imho inaccurately) as “adversarial interop”…

Maybe ActivityPub could be described as: laissez-faire interop

[flancian@social.coop]

@cwebber this is literally in [[decentralized]] in the Agora (the social knowledge graph I'm developing) but I didn't know where it was from, thanks for finding the source!

It should of course also be linked at [[distributed]] for completeness