Lemmy claims decentralization, but once you join a community on one instance you’re still subject to that instance’s rules and moderators. Being banned from c/community@instance still means you can’t post there unless you make a new account elsewhere. That isn’t real decentralization, it’s just fragmentation where every instance ends up replicating the same centralized moderation power in a different place. Federated instances don’t stop this, they just scatter the same problem across multiple servers. If the goal is escaping centralized control, the reality is you still get banned, silenced, or cut off the same way, the only “freedom” is signing up somewhere else. That’s not decentralization in practice, it’s decentralization in name only.
I dunno, this screams of “I want to be an asshole with no way for anyone to stop me.”
The reality is that an instance or community with rules that are too strict simply dies or never becomes popular in the first place since anyone can re-create a community on another server. People have the freedom to choose the “best” instance or even hang out on the strict one if they so desire.
Nah I think it works well. If an instance sucks, it’s easy enough to use a similar community on a different instance. If an instance dies, it’s easy enough to move the community to a different instance. We’ve seen it happen already. Way better than Reddit.
Describe what you think decentralization is in practice.
Moderation is good. Decentralization isn’t the absence of moderation.
Just go to communities where you agree with the rules.
I don’t think you understand federation. Its like bars. with reddit you only have bars owned by one place. here you have all sorts of independent one. if you don’t fit in at community@instance for whatever reason, maybe the mods are powertripping. Well you can go to community@otherinstance and talk on the subject. Just like if the bouncers at some place won’t let you in you can find one that is more chill. Hey man sometimes just someone who hangs out at a place turns you off. Its great to have options.
That just causes fragmentation, in Reddit all the community is in a single place, that’s what made it popular otherwise we could go back to using forums. Each person chooses a different one and then we end up with dozens of barely active forums.
well us just having a alternative keeps it being in one place and then there are other things like slashdot or any other competitors. piefed does a good job of grouping things (kinda comics seems to be split in at least two topics). Personally I don’t want to be in one place with everyone on the planet as I don’t like many people. I want a place with somewhat like minded folks just like I would with a club or bar or whatever.
go back to using forums.
I don’t think Lemmy ever claimed they’re decentralised, because it has a specific meaning that sets itself apart from being federated, and Lemmy certainly isn’t decentralised.
The whole freedom of federation comes from the fact that if you don’t like something, you’re free to set up your own stuff and do it there. In practice, it doesn’t work that well as advertised especially for something like Lemmy, which creates an additional layer of isolation (communities) within itself, but it requires a large group of people in a single community to work. I think Lemmy needs a way to '“merge” communities across instance.
decentralization doesn’t have a particularly specific meaning. Federation absolutely qualifies for having a certain degree of it. You can be more or less decentralized ranging from completely monolithic to fully p2p. Then there are related properties like the ability to migrate or anonymity.
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I like themed instances and would enjoy them more if the All feed were personalized instead of the same for everyone. They are nice for browsing different content, sort of like a multireddit but choosing an instance that fits you best isn’t possible, you would need to analyze your votes compared to other users’ votes on each instance. Also I may not like tomorrow a topic I like today so choosing an instance based on a theme makes no sense to me.
I like themed instances and would enjoy them more if the All feed were personalized instead of the same for everyone.
That’s what your subscribed feed is for…
But choosing an instance that fits you best isn’t possible
It doesn’t need to be the best fitting instance possible. It just needs to be an instance that lets you use and interact with the fediverse in a way that works with you. That’s why a lot of people use generalist instances. They’re no ones “best fit”, but they are also less likely to be bad fits for folk…
Some instances are themed, some are generalist. Because multiple communities can exist around the same topic/theme, the user based ultimately ends up in a community hosted on an instance that fits their needs, because if it didn’t, they would simply move elsewhere.
Which ultimately means that if you get instance banned from an instance that hosts a community you want to use, there’s a good chance you weren’t going to last long in that community anyway…
Your freedom is in the (theoretical) ability run your own instance and communities on it if you disagree with or have been banned from other instances. And your instance can federate with whomever will allow it.
Communities also want freedom – to be organized and run the way they want to be, and to be free from being hijacked or shit on uncontrollably by randos, bad actors, or even (defined by themselves) undesirables.
It’s not perfect. But you sometimes have to consider a bigger picture than just your personal freedom, to make things a free as practically possible.
