I have a number of Lemmy instances meant for discussion groups around specific topics. They are not being as used as I expected/hoped. I would like to set them up in a way that they can be owned by a consortium of different admins so that they are collectively owned. My only requirement: these instances should remain closed for registrations and used only to create communities.

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[–] Carighan 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Why?

That just locks communities off. Wh ich you could readily do before Lemmy, just host a forum. Discourse is a pretty damn cool software for it. Close registrations, close visibility, and allow users in on a per-user basis. That's also a lot how Tildes works, and I remember people here don't like that very much.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

From your response, it seems that you did not read the blog post. The instances are still going to be connected to the Fediverse, the idea is just to keep user registration closed. Users from other instances will continue to be able to follow and interact with it.

[–] Carighan -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Now it makes even less sense.

So instead of one admin being able to take it all down we have multiple, and we also don't allow local users. But we have multiple admins, so these instances would be uniquely able to process very large numbers of users on account of having more than one admin? There's still the problem of course of how to handle someone being an admin on a technical level, and I don't see a solution to that. Could go and notarize shared ownership of a bare metal server I suppose?

But still, what's the point? It doesn't improve anything, in fact it actively makes it worse. If you want communities to be resistant to server removal, you'd need a way to... federate the community. So that even if the original instance is gone, everyone keeps interacting with their local federated community-copy and these keep federating to each other (copy). As in, there's no original any more, but good luck keeping all of that consistent. 😅 In particular because that still doesn't solve the problem because now you got people able to either moderate each others copy (good luck with that power trip bonanza) and no central admin to remove the mods, or they cannot moderate each other, in which case good luck figured out how to block on a per-post basis depending on laws in your particular country getting the content federated over.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Dear Lord, I had no idea one could be so lost and still be so confident when making an argument.

I am not trying to be mean, it's just that you are arguing against things that are completely made up.

So instead of one admin being able to take it all down we have multiple

Shared ownership is a policy to prevent single-points-of-failure. Every large-ish instance has multiple admins. This is even a requirement in the Mastodon Covenant: your instance is only listed on the joinmastodon site if the instance has at least two people who can independently access the admin panel.

Could go and notarize shared ownership of a bare metal server I suppose?

You don't need any of that. As long as the collective has control over the domains and that backups are created and available for everyone, admins could simply move the instance to a new place with a new deployment and a DNS change.

It does not mean that every admin needs to have direct access to the server, and it does not mean that the server will go down if one of them goes rogue. Every minimally competent organization has security processes in place to avoid that.

But we have multiple admins, so these instances would be uniquely able to process very large numbers of users on account of having more than one admin?

I can't even imagine how you go to this non-sequitur. The idea of having multiple admins is only to ensure that these instances are not under control of a single individual and would not be represent a systemic risk to the overall Fediverse.

If you want communities to be resistant to server removal

Another non-sequitur.

So that even if the original instance is gone, everyone keeps interacting with their local federated community-copy

How is that working out for the communities on feddit.de, and the many other instances that disappeared in the last year? Did you notice they are gone?

In particular because that still doesn’t solve the problem because now you got people able to either moderate each others copy

Another non-sequitur. Are you sure you have a clear understanding of how federation works?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Are you sure you have a clear understanding of how federation works?

I'm not sure they do, I was confused by their comment as well.

[–] Carighan 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ah, sorry if that wasn't clear, the entire second half was theoretical about a better way of doing this.

A type of federation where there is no "home" for a community any more. It exists equally on all servers, so any being removed would have ~0 effect.

I mentioned that basically because I feel that's a much better solution to the problem than shared ownership + locked registrations. Sorry if that wasn't clear, not my primary language.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

A type of federation where there is no "home" for a community any more.

This is not federation anymore, but an entirely different architecture. Nostr works like this, but it also has its flaws.

[–] damon 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What flaws?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Your key is your identity. If it's lost or stolen, you can not revoke it. That alone will make it virtually impossible to be used as an official application protocol for any organization.
Usability is even worse than anything on ActivityPub
Moderation is entirely punted to the end user.
(not technical, but relevant) it is completely dominated by Bitcoin maxis

[–] damon 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That’s not true it’s not entirely punted to the end user. It starts with the relay operators just like it does instances. All of the same moderation tools that users have on instances and with clients Nostr users have too, so I’m not really sure about that comment. Also, maybe it’s because I’m a US citizen but I don’t get what so problematic about individualism and allowing users the ability to drive their own experiences. You mention the keys that’s still under user control as if instances have not gone down with users identities, content and social graphs Usability worse than anything on AP that’s very broad. Go point for point with comparisons You can filter out any content related to Bitcoin.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If you have examples of relays differentiating themselves based on moderation policies, it would be appreciated. Not just "we are extreme free speech holders" vs "we pay attention to some laws here". What nostr relay is actually running a strict filter, or do any type of analysis on the message content beyond "payment only"?

as if instances have not gone down with users identities.

If instances go down, there are still lots of possible backups: someone can recover the domain name and regenerate keys (or even recover a database copy). If someone loses a private key, there is no turning back. The fact that (some) poorly managed system are not recoverable does not mean that it is as fragile as something as nostr that gives up completely on making it.

allowing users the ability to drive their own experiences.

The same can be achieved on ActivityPub, no new protocol is needed for that.

Also, this is not matter of individualism, but of UX. It's "nice" when users have the ability to make decisions on their own, but it is terrible when they have to make all decisions on their own to get started.

[–] damon 1 points 1 month ago

Nos.social is one, there is https://github.com/atrifat/nostr-filter-relay amongst other tools integrated into some relays.

You said that like that’s been reality, I’m not going based on simply what’s possible but what’s happened when instances suddenly shutdown

If the same came be achieved why hasn’t it been? It is a matter of individualism. People often see instances as communities, I don’t agree with this assessment with the exception of coop and special interest instances.