Understanding what different distros offer and being able to make a educated decision about it. I looked around for a week or so until I found a arch distro that worked, took away the manual installation process as a complete noob, and wasn't all red flags straight away (the example is that a lot of ppl advised against manjaro). I ended up with garuda (which some ppl aren't a fan of because of chaotic-aur, but we have to start somewhere, haven't we) atm which works fine until I am confident enough to do a complete base arch installation the next time.
The last time I tried to make a USB dual-boot Linux on a laptop I ended up breaking the laptop. It would turn on but show nothing but a black screen. Makes me really hesitant to try again on an old laptop that I would still like to be able to use if I fuck it up.
IMO one of the main problems is eliminating the workflow of older commercial operating systems and having to build a new habit of using a new system. There are various Linux-based distributions that manage to give the user everything they need without having to resort to using the specific terminal.
Creating a new habit after spending years developing one for an old system, for me, is the main problem that leads many users to leave it.
Intimidating to install and then an unfamiliar interface and applications.
It might be more accepted if it came preinstalled and simply had a browser like Chrome and an app store, where all the other ‘helpful’ but confusing apps like Libre office were kept out of the way.
I install it for my family and it would only be accepted if it looked and worked just like Windows or MacOS. All they really need is a browser to get to GSuite or Office365.
I studied bot patterns on Reddit for a few years while using the site and was active in their takedown. My username is the same on there if you want to see the history of my involvement. What drove me to stop being so involved in bot takedowns is the extent to which Reddit as a site was continually redesigned to favor bots. In fact, I woke up today to a 3 day suspension for reporting a spam bot as a spam bot. I think what we need to examine in these cases, if possible, is if the bots were made strictly for the purpose of contesting blackouts (i.e. by Reddit themselves) or if they were made by a hobbyist or spammer. Given that these are on r/programming, that makes it seem more likely that a hobbyist programmer made these bots for a laugh or something, rather than it being an inside job. If the usual resources of Reddit’s API were accessible enough to provide a total history of these bot accounts’ posts and comments, then that would help to clarify (this is what I mean about Reddit redesigns favoring bots). On the subject, I think Lemmy needs to start implementing preemptive anti-bot features while it is in an embryonic stage of becoming a large social media site (or a pseudo-social media site like Reddit) to future-proof its development
I’m very new to this site so I’m not sure what all already exists. Some features that come to mind based on my experience on Reddit and other sites:
Ability to search the entire site to see if a string of text (or multiple select strings of text) has already appeared there, including removed content. On Reddit, this was useful for seeing if an account has copied the comment, the text within a post, or the post title from elsewhere on the site. SocialGrep, Reveddit, and Unddit were my preferred sources of this info for Reddit. Text may also have been copied by a bot from other sites, but the original tends to be more accessible in those cases.
Ability to search the entire site to see if an image has already appeared there. This was essentially only relevant for repost bots and for bots that recognize an image from another post and re-comment from that other post. I do have concerns about this becoming relevant in the future for comments that contain images. TinEye and reverse image search on Google were my preferred sources of this info, but I don’t know if Lemmy posts will show up on those sites. u/RepostSleuthBot and the like were also helpful, especially if summonable in the comments.
Blocking users should only filter them from the blocker’s feed, rather than make the blocked user unable to comment on the blocker’s posts and comments. Spammers and scammers would abuse this system to prevent human users from calling them out on being spammers and scammers. While this design makes sense for sites based on personal profiles such as FaceBook or Twitter, it does not work for sites categorized by subject matter with impersonal user profiles.
Say what you will about the bad aspects of 4chan (and you should!), but the use of Captchas prior to publishing a post or comment seems to majorly mitigate bot activity.
This doesn’t seem to be a problem on Lemmy, but on Reddit, not all of the information of a spam report was sent to the subreddit mods. A report for Spam -> Harmful Bots would tell the admins that it was a Harmful Bots report, but the mods would only see it as a generic spam report and not be fully informed of the issue. Also, unbeknownst to mods, admins could link a subreddit rule report to a sitewide rule report. What I think Lemmy could improve on in this regard is to keep the openended custom report option, but also include pre-written report options for community rules, instance rules, and sitewide rules.
Some sort of indicator for groups of accounts which seem to be commenting only on the exact same posts as each other, which commonly are bots.
Entirely dependent on the subreddit or community, requiring some sort of verification post or other verification with a photograph of a paper with their username, the community name, and current date on it prior to permitting the user to post/comment may be beneficial.
A sitewide blacklist structured like r/BotDefense, wherein suspect accounts can be submitted and, if determined to be bot, will be automatically blacklisted from participating communities. Blacklist appeals will also be essential just due to human error.
As someone who had my 16+ year old account on Reddit permabanned for writing antibot scripts trying to keep the community I modded free from scammer and spammers, this is spot on.
Don’t see why people are doing this. You’ll just damage the fediverse and discourage meta from federating, granting them their own walled garden that you cannot use without selling your soul to them, which is going to dissuade people from using Mastodon as what’s the point if people on threads cannot see what they have
You’re confusing something. Defederation by lemmy.ml means that lemmy.ml users cannot see any threads.net content if they wanted or not. Threads.net can still connect to lemmy.ml. That’s exactly the situation lemmy.world and beehaw.org are in: beehaw.org blocked lemmy.world and lemmy.world users can see and interact with everything from beehaw.org, just beehaw users don’t see any of those interactions. Have a look at lemmy.world/c/[email protected] as proof.
So many folks on here are jumping on and claiming that decentralization is a one way or that people don’t know anything, but have failed to read the specifications themselves.
ActivityPub defines the Block activity for client-to-server (C2S) use-cases, but not for server-to-server (S2S) – it recommends that servers SHOULD NOT deliver Block activities to their object.
So as I mentioned before, Lemmy.world should be blocking those servers at the instance level, preventing it from sharing any data to any identified Facebook instances.
Sure this doesn’t stop Facebook from spinning up other instances, but that will improve a lot more effort on their side and will quickly be identified and blocked by the communities, just like all their urls for ads, api, etc. have been for years.
It would not be that simple, considering they’d be running multiple instances and require more effort to aggregate, deduplicate, and stage that data - vs just having a single clean database for it
but have failed to read the specifications themselves.
What the specs say doesn’t matter if reality behaves a different way. Fact is that Beehaw blocked Lemmy.world but not the other way around and therefore Lemmy.world users can read everything from Beehaw. Lemmy.world blocking Threads would thereby be at best just a symbolic gesture and at worst actively driving people away towards Threads because that’s where they can access all the content. If an e-mail provider blocked all mails from @gmail.com, most of its users would jump ship towards a provider that doesn’t do that and perhaps even drive them towards GMail.
It does actually matter, because that is what is happening.
Head over to the [email protected] link that you shared as an example and notice that the posts are 3+ days old and all the recent posts are from instances other than beehaw; this clearly shows that Lemmy.world has not been receiving any data from beehaw for some time already.
As for hurting Lemmy and driving people to threads, is a baseless argument; anyone wanting an experience that Threads offers is not coming to Lemmy; they would either already be there or would be coming from Twitter/Mastadon. Lemmy at its core is very far from what Threads/Twitter/Mastadon try to be.
3+ days old and all the recent posts are from instances other than beehaw; this clearly shows that Lemmy.world has not been receiving any data from beehaw for some time already.
The block is older than three days.
anyone wanting an experience that Threads offers is not coming to Lemmy
Facebook is known for analyzing your contact list and trying to get as much data as they can on those people as well. You don’t have to make life easier for face-eating leopards.
I get that. But instead on Lemmy were freely giving away our data to literally anyone that ask for it. That’s the downside of the federated platforms. I guess with the fediverse you’re at least not tying things to your actual identity. Not sure if threads allows for anonymous accounts like Twitter.
You don’t speak for everyone, especially when you clearly don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
The comments and ratios in this thread are a perfect example of why lemmy.world should not defederate from facebook until given a clear reason. You all are operating on emotion, not logical or rational thought.
I’m defending users being able to make these decisions for themselves. If you want to be on an instance that ‘pre-emptively’ blocks corporations, lemmy.ml might be better for you than lemmy.world.
This thread is full of children who think that because they don’t like something than neither should anyone else.
Oh boy, more ‘data collection’ nonsense. Hey brother. Have you, personally, ever written a bot? If you did, you’d know how trivial it is for anyone to collect anything posted on lemmy.
This thread is full of children who think that because they don’t like something then neither should anyone else.
This is exactly you. You don’t like the idea of blocking Facebook and are being combative and douchey to anyone who disagrees. Your dislikes are in the toilet and you are as free to leave .world as anyone else.
Things might go bad with federation with Meta and Meta is indeed loathsome and has an awful history and present of being a bad actor — but responding to “You all are operating on emotion” with the bad faith emotional ad hominem response “Why are you so hard for Zucc?” is kind of proving the point.
I think there’s lots of good arguments around being wary of Meta and defederating (and some good ones in favour of wait and see) but the level of discourse around this issue on here is really not great and too much attacking others (and it’s not just you — the post you’re responding to as well was rude too with “you clearly don’t have a clue what you’re talking about”). The absolutist way people are talking and treating people who have other perspectives has made me feel much less positive about the potential for good discourse and community on this platform.
You’re being bit of a jerk in this thread but you’re still right. People are spamming one article and using the same buzzwords from that article to sound smart but the content of their messages demonstrates that almost no one understands how any of this works. People over-estimate the amount of data Facebook can collect from outside instances and they’re confused about what defederating actually does.
I don’t want anything to do with facebook either but I’m interested in actual solutions for this and not just something that feels good but doesn’t do anything.
You’re posting on public forum. If you don’t want Facebook to see it then stop posting. Defederating isn’t going to change that. It just stops the content flow from their instance into yours. Not the other way around. For them to get data other than your content and upvotes you need to install Threads app because that’s only available to the admins of your instance and Facebook can’t get it wether you federate with them or not.
People are demanding for defederation but almost everyone is confused about what it does.
The thing is, if you wanted to interact with someone on Threads and it wasn’t federated, you’d have to install the app and hand over your data to Meta to interact with them. If it was federated, you could set up your own Mastodon instance and keep all of the data that you don’t want to share.
Yeah but it will still give them less of an incentive to join the fediverse in the first place. This kneejerk reaction of blocking them is madness. Instead we should be getting big figures to join the fediverse so that if meta ever chooses to leave the fediverse, they’d be removing their userbase from the content.
Yeah I agree that there’s possible downsides to it aswell. Ideally every user could individually block instances as they wish instead of it being forced upon us. I’d imagine this feature is eventually coming. Some apps allow it I believe
Would you mind explaining how they’re going to do this with fediverse? Like explain using your own words and not just linking that same article everyone is spreading around. It seems like no one is cabable of giving ELI5 or even ELI15 answer to this.
You’re a woodworker. You’ve developed skills that only few have. Carpentry Inc. approaches you regarding a partnership: you share your skills, they offer you their platform. Win-win, right? Now Carpentry Inc. decides to adapt the knowledge you provided, cutting you out of everything. You’re powerless against a multi-billion corporation. All your years of work are gone. You’re nothing more than an afterthought.
Damn, I think everyone missed that detail! We’re talking about two completely different companies here – my mind is blown! Just look at the Hemming distance between “Google” and “Meta”! I’m convinced! Meta will never follow Google’s footsteps.
Now how about you take a nice, cold shower and re-think your comment.
you actually think corporations will always keep their word, don’t you
and that somehow Google acting like it does is like some fluke or one bad apple or something, rather than Google acting in ways very normal and common to corporations
Accounts can be on instances which are federated with Threads, and on instances which are defederated from Threads. A single person can have both types of accounts.
Defederation has effects which many users find desirable. The same suite of effects is not available on a user level, and would require each user to manually take action individually.
So from a feature perspective, it is necessary that some instances defederate. This provides better service for users who find it desirable.
There will also be instances who federate. People can use accounts there if they prefer that.
TL;DR: We don’t need a consensus. Instances can choose their federation policy. People can choose which instance(s) they use.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t understand the point in defederating. Aren’t you just cutting down on the amount of content you can see? As a user I’d personally prefer to pick and choose what I can see.
What’s the actual upside in doing it? Obviously I can see why you’d want defederating from say a far right instance, but in general it seems like only downsides.
I’m new to all this so maybe I’m missing a crucial bit of information.
Aren’t you just cutting down on the amount of content you can see?
Plus, you reduce the amount of content they can see (while logged in). Quoting myself from a similar context (It is about a community on another instance, which is federated with Threads, while your home instance defederated from Threads):
You wont see posts or comments from Threads users in that remote community. You also won’t see reactions to those activities from anyone, anywhere. It’s as if comment chains started by Threads users don’t exist.
Threads will not see posts and comments from you, even if done in communities from instances which are federated with Threads.
There are also more subtle implications. For example, some might find the situation in remote communities which have both federated and defederated qualities confusing (Imagine “see this comment section” when different users see different versions). This might be a reason to avoid these communities, to only visit communities on other instances, which follow your personal policy of de/federating Threads.
The same is probably true for votes. If your instance defederates Threads, you don’t see their votes, and they don’t see yours.
Defederation in this context sends a political signal, which some people find important.
This was not meant as a comprehensive answer, but as counter-examples to your core question (“Aren’t you just …”).
As a user I’d personally prefer to pick and choose what I can see.
You can do that either way, as explained in my previous comment. No matter on which side of the argument you are, use an account on an instance which has a similar policy. You can have many, you can use many. Of course, most people want to use not more than one, which is why they try to make sure their instance’s policy reflects their personal preference, instead of making sure their instance choice reflects their personal preference. In reality, we see both (people influencing their instance, and people choosing their instance), and both is fine.
Further, we need instances which defederate from Threads, so people can choose this option.
I’m new to all this so maybe I’m missing a crucial bit of information.
I get you. I’m also missing a comprehensive, compact list of consequences.
Isn’t it creating a situation of Reddit power mods on steroids? It’s easy to say “well go and make accounts on multiple instances”, but it’s creating additional barriers to entry that a lot of people won’t understand and frankly is kind of irritating as a user.
I feel like people aren’t taking the consequences seriously and that defederating needs to be viewed as like a nuclear option that’s avoided unless absolutely necessary. That’s what I get from the additional information you provided.
This place will become completely unusable in the future if the good will dies out and large instances decide to defederate from each other to try and become the “top” instance, especially as more and more casual users move over.
Isn’t it creating a situation of Reddit power mods on steroids?
Not sure, how do you see that? Isn’t the ability to “vote with your feet” putting a limit on how powerful they can become?
a lot of people won’t understand and frankly is kind of irritating as a user
That’s true. We need to become better at communicating and explaining these situations. I plan to use the wiki more. To have one comprehensive source of truth, which can be linked to, instead of partial explanations scattered across comment sections.
But even then, a distributed model is probably inherently more complex and hader to understand than a centralized solution. The benefit is more resilience against power-hungry tendencies.
Realistically most people aren’t going to make their own instance, so you kind of have to rely on the good will of others.
Purely as an example, let’s say that Lemmy world decides they no longer want to be federated with ML because of the Meta situation. If you’re on either world or ML now you’ve lost access to huge sections of Lemmy. This could basically go on forever, so any instance that wants to remain neutral can be locked out of either both or one of them as they keep defederating from instances until the whole thing becomes a walled garden, basically the same as if you upset a power mod on Reddit and lose access to huge sections of the site, except it’s worse on here because you wouldn’t even be able to lurk.
I guess you could just have multiple accounts, but we could easily see a situation where you need like 10 accounts just to see the most popular instances, which is obviously ridiculous and not practical unless you’re terminally online.
It seems like a pretty huge flaw in the system, to be honest. Theoretically it’s a good idea, but as more and more people flock to the large instances it seems like it’s only a matter of time before the power plays start to happen.
Is there anything at all to stop that happening? It’s seems inevitable to me that eventually the whole thing will fall apart if people abuse the system.
If what you describe is severe enough, that’s a significant disadvantage of being registered on a big instance, and using communities which are hosted on a big instance. Which in turn makes smaller instances and smaller communities more appealing.
I think it’s self-regulating. The transitional period (like the current reddit exodus) is always a bit rough. Long term, things will survive which are fine for all participants.
Worst case, it’s always much easier to move within the fediverse than it is to move between entirely different platforms and ecosystems. Yes, power plays and nasty circumstances are possible, but moving inside the fediverse is so much easier compared to the outside world. And being able to move is a safeguard against bad conditions.
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