So insightful, so grown-up, so convincing, and then

the fascists

Sometimes I despair.

Correct. Seems more like 5th.

That’s an idea too. But personally I think this worrying about the dominance of a single site is a bit misplaced, assuming that the server uses the same software and protocols. There’s advantages in having some centralization. More resources can be put into the chosen instance to improve its reliability and its moderation. These need to be absolute priorities when trying to attract new users.

A certain encyclopedia site has a de-facto monopoly of the encyclopedia space. That’s not a problem because it has the right governance and ownership structure. I think the discussion space could perhaps use a similar site.

Alternative: just send them to World and do not even mention the whole federation thing. Federation is essentially a power feature for a few people who care about it.

For normies, the real killer USP will be something much simpler: no ads.

OK. Given that self-hosters are maintaining two PCs already, I suppose that’s fair.

As an RSS user since the early days, there’s something I never get: why is this something that people are hosting? Are you really all consuming so much news, so much of the time, that you need to do it simultaneously on two devices? That sounds like news overload to me but what do I know.

Personally, I catch up once a day for an hour (or two). Seem more than enough and means I only ever need an RSS client. Right now: the Feedbro add-on in Firefox desktop.

As for tips and tools, RSSBox is a useful one. IMO if RSS were more popular this is the sort of thing that would be built into the client.

OK, I see that problem. In fact I remember having the same issue myself. (Presumably this will create a secondary confusion problem for “All” subscribers, who will see the content of their feed gradually expand without explanation as other users subscribe to other foreign servers, correct? Whatever, I don’t care much about them, someone who subscribes to “All” apparently doesn’t know what they want anyway!)

So the optimal solution here would be for each instance to preemptively connect to a whitelist of known foreign communities, perhaps? Or maybe each instance could regularly ping other servers in order to update its search database with popular communities.

This goes completely against what the average person is expecting and causes a lot of confusion.

But this is only true if the user looks at the All feed, correct?

In fairness it does appear to be a literal AI translation from Polish, hence the opaque word “interpellation” in the title.

Great advice. This is exactly what I do.

No. The latter is just British English.

An RSS feed is basically just a blog but formatted in XML. So the correct answer is some kind of fediversal blogging platform.

Hey wait this sounds like a great idea! Someone please get onto this!

In the meantime, not what you’re looking for but since the subject is RSS, here’s a tool I’ve found useful. Just getting it out there.

Agreed on all counts.

Interesting anecdote. Yes I’m aware that the “ht” in http is now basically a historical artifact. It all feels a bit dirty but, as you say, doing things the way the architects intended is probably not worth the effort.

Upside down, as the other comment says. It should rather be forum:// or similar, i.e. a generic self-explanatory term for the type of data. The branded networks like this one would then follow the standard in order to display properly.

It’s an intriguing idea and might well be in line with the founding principles of the internet.

As I understand it, the URI is supposed to define the type of data you will find at the address, allowing you to use a client dedicated to that type. So: use a Gopher client for gopher:// data, a newsgroup program for nntp:// data, and of course a web browser for http://.

So the issue here would be to define what “fediverse data” actually looks like. This is quickly becoming quite a technical challenge.

Personally I like the idea of standardizing communication paradigms with a protocol, but you do first have to decide what the paradigms are. A few obvious suggestions:

• IM, or one-to-one message (holy grail! but then not public, by definition)
• many-to-many text message (IRC)
• forum post with comments (this thing right here)
• one-to-many message (Xitter, Mastodon)

Since the ActivityPub protocol seems to be the de-facto glue to this fediverse thing, maybe that’s where to look first.

Airplane mode here! Blocks all tracking and saves battery too.

Unpopular opinion: Federated or not, life is better without social media in your pocket.

Sound advice.

PS: punctuation and capitalization are conformist and bourgeois but they do make it easier to read.

To pursue my point, something is definitely happening on the disgust front. A few decades ago, it was normal in the West to eat offal. Now plenty of Westerners are grossed out when they find bits of bone in their chicken broth at an Asian restaurant. For meat to be widely palatable these days, it has be only the best cuts, if possible in a sealed packet with no indication that it comes from an animal. Part of the explanation is surely a subconscious awareness of the horrors of factory farming. But I think something more fundamental’s going on. Something about disconnection from nature, ironically.

Absolutely agree that legislation must bring transparency to factory farming.