The Problem with the Fediverse

I have no issues with the way it is implemented, I have no issues with it at all. For context, I left Twitter to join the Fedi, and it has been great so far! I use Misskey for microblogging, PeerTube for uploading videos, and Lemmy for Reddit-style discussions. The Fediverse is amazing!

Except, idk, for the fact that it is too fragmented? I hope I am using the right words. Like, the current instance I am on does not have support for communities, so i have to do it the hard way and mention @fediverse@lemmy.world so that I can post here. It’s a good workaround, considering it doesn’t have built-in support for communities.
But my point still stands. It’s not a Lemmy/PieFed problem. It’s mostly a fediverse problem. Implementing communities for every platform would help the Fediverse. Not only does it solve discoverability/algorithm issues of the Fediverse (since now when you follow a community, you get all posts from that community), but also it would interconnect every platform (Misskey, PeerTube, Mastodon, etc.)

Imagine you don’t have to use your Lemmy account to check everything on Lemmy. Instead of creating channels in PeerTube, just post to an existing channel/community, and people subscribed to that channel/community can find you easily. I see this as an absolute win for everyone.

I understand this would require collaboration between all developers of all software. But hopefully, this is possible?
Or am I asking for too much?

If I am wrong, then is there any way in which we can solve this issue?

#fediverse #problems #fediverseproblems

  • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
    3·
    2 hours ago

    If you will allow me to respectfully disagree, the mere fact that you can make this post at all is evidence against what you are saying, no?

    e.g. Reddit has “posts”, which may have links to “YouTube” or “Wikipedia”, or to “Tiktok” or “Instagram”, or “Facebook” or “LinkedIn”, etc. - each of those requires a different account (the former three at least allow anonymous viewing, the middle two make it extremely difficult but it can be done if someone has a link to a specific item of content, while iirc the latter two mandate having an account to view the content at all).

    Within each component of the Fediverse, it seems connected to a very high degree? e.g. the one we are discussing this on here now is the Threadiverse, which can be read, interacted with (voted, saved, links sent to) and commented on by people with accounts on any instance running Lemmy, Mbin, or Piefed (among Threadiverse software platforms I have also heard of nodeBB and flarum but I do not know what the current status is of their ActivityPub protocol integration). This level of interactivity is high.

    And beyond that, you can interact with it via Mastodon, Misskey, Friendica, etc. Granted, this level of interactivity is much lower… but at least it exists? So it is high compared to not being able to interact with it, if that makes sense? A better phrasing might be that something is better than nothing?

    And with effort put in by people donating their time & energies & attention & skills, it will improve. e.g. I am writing this to you from PieFed where new features are added practically every week (in fact it is nowhere close to being uncommon to see changes every other day). So what you are asking - it is happening, right in front of our very eyes! It might just seem slow to someone more used to “capitalistic” rather than socialist endeavors because it is not backed by corporate money that would seek a return on their initial investment, e.g. by selling user data, and instead requires the donations (especially of effort and skill, but money works too!) of individual people.

    • Znatley@torishiro.comOP
      4·
      2 hours ago

      @OpenStars@piefed.social @fediverse@lemmy.world if you told me this about 2 minutes ago, i probably wouldve disagreed with you. But, seeing yalls responses, i realise that im asking for a ginormous favour from all developers. Id just make my own software instead of complaining about all of the devs hard word to keep everything interconnected whilst not overwhelming the users with every feature under the sun.

      You have proved yourself to be right. The mere fact that every platform is interconnected means that we are actually… connected!

      Its not perfect, but thats not a reason for me to just take a back seat and watch and complain.

      Id really like to see this grow to become a great community. To make projects like this for the sheer fun and goodness of it, and not expecting money back. Now thats something to applaud for!

      • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
        3·
        1 hour ago

        Diagnosing an issue, on a matter that you feel passionate about, is a first step towards finding a solution for it. So now that you are walking partway down this pathway, I hope that you continue - donate or help directly if that sounds fun to you! :)

        And welcome to the Fediverse:).

  • rodneyck@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    4 hours ago

    I have an issue with Fediverse, Lemmy to be exact. The platform is allowing an outside tool that was built for a mod or admin of a community to see votes, how people vote, but it is being exploited by users to spy/dox/harass, gang-up, and use as a tool to exploit other users nefariously. The tool is called Lemvotes. You can access the portal here. Here is a quote from a user (go $fsck yourself @ lemmy.world) who exploits this sharing how to use it with other users;

    There’s a few ways of seeing votes. IMO they should be visible all the time. Moderators can see the votes of posts and comments in the subs they moderate. Admins can see all votes federated to their instance. Users have to use a separate tool for it. In this case I used Lemvotes.

    This tool, imo, should be banned, or the platform to be “patched” to only allow this to work for admins, not users who abuse it.

    • rglullis@communick.newsEnglish
      2·
      1 hour ago

      There is no such thing as a “vote” in ActivityPub/ActivityStreams. This idea of “up/down votes” is just an abstraction of a message saying “Actor A liked B”, where B is an Post/Comment (and a post/comment itself just being an abstraction of ActivityStreams objects).

      That is to say: there is no way to selectively hide the content a message. If you want federation to work and you want people outside your own server to see your posts, then the server needs to broadcast the messages to anyone listening.

      Tools like lemvotes are just exposing this information. There is no point in trying to censor the tool, because this information is available publicly, and any motivated person will be able to track this information.

      If you are concerned about what people think of your “likes” and “dislikes”, then do not use a public social media service and only communicate with provably secure communication tools.

  • Microw@piefed.zipEnglish
    21·
    9 hours ago

    The developers of Fedi software have different philosophies. Some developers are just not interested in implementing and supporting all kinds of AP actors, kinds of media, ways of attaching media etc. Because they want their software to focus on a certain thing.

    Others want to implement everything and interconnect with every platform.

    • Znatley@torishiro.comOP
      4·
      8 hours ago

      @Microw@piefed.zip i understand and respect that in every sense. However, i think i made my point. Idk about other softwares, but Misskey has been dabbling around with “Channels” for a while, but the thing is, they’re not federated to this day.
      Hopefully they work more on this.
      @fediverse@lemmy.world

  • Die4Ever@retrolemmy.comEnglish
    11·
    8 hours ago

    I really don’t mind having a separate account for Lemmy and Mastodon. It’s not pleasant to force different types of content into different website formats, even if the implementation is “ideal”.

    That said, I am surprised Misskey doesn’t allow you to follow @fediverse@lemmy.world as you would follow a user, Mastodon allows this (it’s not as good as viewing inside Lemmy but it does work).

    • DrCake@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      8 hours ago

      Yeah same. The way I think about federation is in a kind of per “product” approach. That’s a piece of software can be run by anyone and all communicate and work as a whole is the main benefit. Cross compatibility between “products”/software is just an added bonus, but not necessary

      • Die4Ever@retrolemmy.comEnglish
        6·
        8 hours ago

        Even more than per product, it’s generally per category of products. You can run Lemmy, Mbin, or PieFed and get access to the Threadiverse. The devs actually do a good job with the interop when it fits the format of their site.

    • Znatley@torishiro.comOP
      3·
      7 hours ago

      @Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com i just checked your full conversation on your instance (misskey doesnt support edited posts)
      Misskey does support following the community, its just not done elegantly. All replies from the community show up on my home page, which isnt great.

      For now, ill stick with misskey till i find a worthy contender, just love msky reactions too much (too goofy lol, with sfx and all)

      @fediverse@lemmy.world

      • Die4Ever@retrolemmy.comEnglish
        1·
        8 hours ago

        Do it! You’ll probably find like-minded users. Don’t forget PixelFed and Loops too.

        Although maybe you could just contribute to Mbin or fork it, cause I feel like it already does all of this?

  • Blaze (he/him) @lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    14·
    9 hours ago

    Mbin has support for both microblogging and communities (so Twitter and Reddit like): https://fedia.io/ Maybe that’s something that can interest you.

    It doesn’t seem too popular, probably because the Twitter and Reddit crowd always had a limited overlap.

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    5 hours ago

    There are different platforms that serve different uses. Using a common protocol enhances development and growth, and the flexibility of the protocol lets developers build on it without reinventing the wheel.

      • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 hour ago

        I’m not sure you understood the point I was making. Multiple platforms exist on the fediverse. Interoperability is a nice plus but it’s not the core feature of the protocol.

        Mastodon is strongest around microblogging because that’s what it’s built for. Lemmy is strongest for community discussions because that’s what it’s built for. There are options like mbin that do more to bridge the gap in different ways.

        Success of a platform is mostly centered around doing a particular thing very well. There is nothing stopping someone from making multiple accounts across multiple platforms (or even the same platform).

        I’d recommend trying to set up different accounts and see if you find one meets your criteria better.

  • rglullis@communick.newsEnglish
    6·
    9 hours ago

    Implementing communities for every platform would help the Fediverse

    From Evan Prodromou, co-author of ActivityPub: The Fediverse should be more like the Facebook Platform (lots of client apps using the same social graph) rather than the Apple App Store (a bunch of one-feature apps that have to bootstrap their own social network each time).

    The issue here is that most developers and users are still thinking in terms of the siloed networks. We don’t need “multiple, separate platforms”. We need to get rid of the platforms! We need to build our tools around protocols.

    The WWW was incredibly successful because anyone could whip up some HTML and publish a webpage. The “protocol” of structured text alongside with links was simple to understand, any browser could do it. The Social Web should work the same.

    • Znatley@torishiro.comOP
      01·
      8 hours ago

      @rglullis@communick.news for some reason, i disagree with you. A LOT OF developers have different visions for their software. I think the fediverse is in a good place at this point. I just feel like communities need to be federated everywhere…

      • rglullis@communick.newsEnglish
        2·
        7 hours ago

        It looks like that first you need to be able to better articulate what do you mean “federating everywhere”, because I can follow a Lemmy community from Mastodon just fine, and you seem to be on Misskey, and we are communicating just fine.

        IOW, “federation” is already working.

        Perhaps you just mean that you want the UX from misskey to change depending on the source? And you are proposing that this should be done to all software?

        • Znatley@torishiro.comOP
          1·
          6 hours ago

          @rglullis@communick.news Lemmy -> Misskey works fine. It’s Misskey -> Lemmy which is a bit of a problem, because Lemmy communities and Misskey channels are two different things. Misskey channels dont even federate server-to-server.

          I respect the developer’s choices, but if Misskey is going to implement something like channels, might as well federate them too…

          I apologise if i havent been clear with the whole “federating” communities, hope this clears things up…

          @fediverse@lemmy.world

            • Znatley@torishiro.comOP
              1·
              4 hours ago

              @rglullis@communick.news
              @fediverse@lemmy.world

              I may not have conveyed my point clearly.

              If it was merely a Misskey problem, i wouldnt have made this post, so ill list my likes and problems one by one, i may have been vague with communication:

              My likes:

              1. Interconnected: i dont need to elaborate too much. One account, to all platforms…
              2. Opensource: also not much elaboration.
              3. Protocol centric, not platform centric…

              My ONLY dislike:

              1. Lack of definite communication: Misskey may be my favourite, but it sucks the most when it comes to federating with other instances. There is no upvote system, no favourites system, no saved posts system. I can only reply and send reactions, and those reactions may not even federate properly. Same when i was using Mastodon. There was no downvote system, crosspost, etc. The worst in my opinion is the fact that devs are trying their best to federate with each other but throught different ways. My point is, this discrepancy between platforms calls for standardized system.

              I hope i have explained well enough. I apologise if i wasnt clear with this earlier… any solutions to the aforementioned problem?

              • rglullis@communick.newsEnglish
                1·
                3 hours ago

                There is no upvote system. no favourites system, no saved posts system.

                There is no such thing as “upvote” on ActivityPub. This is an abstraction on top of the “Like” activity. If Misskey UI is geared only towards reactions and doesn’t have a way for users to “like” something, this is a Misskey problem, not a Fediverse one.

                My point is, this discrepancy between platforms calls for standardized system.

                And what people are trying to explain to you is that this “standardized system” already exists. ActivityStreams is the standard to define a vocabulary, and ActivityPub is the standard that defines what happens when data is sent between different servers.

                The issue I am taking with your comment is that it seems that you are expecting developers to backwards from an unified product vision and build their down to the standard. This only works well when you have one single entity controlling everything. It’s the “Apple Way” of developing products.

                • Znatley@torishiro.comOP
                  1·
                  2 hours ago

                  @rglullis@communick.news you are right. I am sorry if i may EXPECT certain things to just work, just recently shifted from Twitter (stopped using twitter in 2023, now on Misskey since 2025). To be honest, i was realy confused with what ActivityPub was in the first place.

                  But i am glad i joined the fediverse. Today I Learnt more about the fediverse. A chaotic but really fun universe of interconnected planets.

                  I realise that i am asking for everyone to adapt to my needs, and not that i adapt to the ecosystem.

                  But now i try to learn… thank you for this informational conversation. It’s still amazes me how platforms scripted in different languages are able to connect with each other.

                  My post is invalidated. It’s now retitled to " why we need to reform our way of thinking about social media."

                  Still, that wont stop me from making a PeerTube+Lemmy+Misskey platform… ​:ablobcatangel:​
                  @fediverse@lemmy.world

  • Znatley@torishiro.comOP
    2·
    8 hours ago

    @fediverse@lemmy.world edit (since Misskey doesnt have an edit button): yk what, yall make good points. Ill just make my own software, combining Peertube+Lemmy+Misskey into one instance, maybs even Matrix… and if i cant, just not bother complaining then. Coz i understand not all devs have the same vision… i respect that, but till then, keep growing Fediverse, love yall regardless…

  • it_depends_man@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    9 hours ago

    so i have to do it the hard way and mention @fediverse@lemmy.world so that I can post here. It’s a good workaround, considering it doesn’t have built-in support for communities.

    That IS the built in support.

    If I am wrong, then is there any way in which we can solve this issue?

    Yes you are wrong, just keep doing it the way you just successfully did in this. That’s the solution.