2y ago

Now that federation works, we need more clarity of source

I'm seeing the federated content, but it's hard to tell where the content came from. Currently, the only reliable way to see the source is by reading the URL when you're viewing a thread. It doesn't work well on mobile though and it doesn't work for the feed.

How work everyone feel if the magazine included the source always? So instead of saying kbinMeta, you'd see kbinMeta@kbin.social? Or would you prefer another solution?

36 comments

That's a feature, not a bug. If you find a worthwhile discussion, and have something to bring to it, just do it. No need to marry yourself to just the one instance. That's the beauty of federation, really.
- No. When I see a post called “we are shutting down” I want to know what instance that post is talking about. It should definitely show the full federated magazine address
  
  I agree with this. Context is important and it should be clear.
  Not gonna lie, I've just had a look at the feed just now and it's becoming noisy. It would be nice to not have to sift through so much chaff to find wheat.
  I know there's strong feelings about curated feeds around here but it should be up to the user to decide what they see for the most part. At least, they should be able to decide what they don't see.
  
  I mean, there'll always be way to see that. It's just not obvious at first glance. But even on Kbin, the URL of the thread you're in will have the instance after the @ sign.
  My point is that we don't need to make this a dick-measuring contest between instances. If the fediverse grows and gets better, we all win.
  
  I agree I got tricked by a similar post today. IMO either we need to train ourselves to add full context to titles or maybe distinguish federated content someway such as different theming.
- I appreciate the point you are making, but here's a solid example of how it gets confusing.
  ANNOUNCEMENT: defederating effective immediately from lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works
  Who is defederating?
  
  What I'd do is hover over the OPs name, or go into the post and check the URL. Yeah, it's different than what you're probably used to, but so is any new platform. It just takes some time to get familiar with it.
- An interesting take that I hadn’t considered. I still wish I had the option to toggle on/off the original source for the user and the magazine/community.
- It’s also good because it makes the experience easier when a new user onboards. IMHO, there should be a system in place to discourage someone from creating a community that exists on a different instance. This encourages people to coalesce into groups quicker, and if someone ever abuses that group, people always have the option to just…move on to another instance
- I agree. It's still interesting to see the source, but I personally do not want it to be too visible. There are of course some cases where it would be handy (like threads about fediverse since it is not always obvious what instances are concerned by the topic), but I have the feeling it is an issue specific to some magazines, and any change regarding this shouldn't impact too much all the others.
I just raised a suggestion for this on the repo then stumbled across this post right after. Hopefully it can be implemented at some point.
This is a kbin-specific issue lol. usernames have the instance hidden until you hover over them. the magazines all have their instance clearly marked in both the top banner and on the sidebar. However, if you @ tag a magazine, the instance gets hidden (same for users). IMO this should be toggleable but I agree I'd like to see it without having to hover over it and whatnot.
Agreed. I replied to a post in a Lemmy instance about an app earlier, and had no idea they were taking about Lemmy until corrected.
Also, once in a thread, the magazine is not obvious. On the actual feed it says "by x in y" but in the thread it's not there.
I personally think in both places it should say: "by user in magazine on (not sure what the word here is but kbin, lemmy, beehaw, mastadon etc.)
Edit:at least on mobile that's what I'm seeing, although I just realized it does show it at the bottom but I still think having just the little not I mentioned at the top would be nice.
In kbin, if you turn on the top bar, you can see where you are on the top just after 'Favourites'
If you hover on the 'collection' name it shows you, see my pic attached
- And for those who don't use kbin on a computer?
- Awesome, but I think showing it by default would be preferable
In a fediverse, does it really matter? (yes it will be nice to have though, maybe just because we haven't adjusted to the fediverse mindset yet though).
- Yes and no.
  Reddit suffered from some massive subreddits that made it basically impossible to actually interact with people. You post something to the sub, no one notices it, and you get no engagement. You comment on an active post, but so do 10,000 other people, so the OP or whoever you replied to doesn't see your comment, and doesn't reply back.
  It's just pure noise, and you don't get to recognize anyone, and no one gets to recognize you. There's no repertoire building.
  Smaller communities are very different, though. You actually get to see the same names pop up over and over again. People actually talk to you. You get to know peoples' patterns and opinions, and kind of get to see them as people.
  So, yes, if all you care about is adding your voice to the public record on something someone else has done, without any care for whether anyone will ever read that record, indiscriminate commenting and posting is fine. And you're welcome to do that. But if you're involved in a couple of different communities on the same topic, which happen to have the same handle but live on different sites, it's really nice to know which one you're looking at at a glance.
  It matters when you decide you care about the community, not just the topic.
- I think it’s very important to see.
  Is this viral post from the meme magazine I’m subscribed to? If not I should.
  Also paying attention the the rules of whatever instance you are about to post in is pretty important.
- From my new-and-limited understanding, it can potentially be an issue if similarly- or identically-named instances are on different servers - someone over on Lemmy noted that the mod of lgbt is also the mod of conservative. If you don't know a post is from X@kbin or X@lemmy that could be a source of confusion depending on the quality of the different source-communities.
  In the grand scheme of things, presumably whichever one is the more user-friendly will get the audience share and the other would wither away to the footnotes of history, but it's still a potential issue in the meantime. Happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken on all this, still very much a beginner here.
- It's not about tying your identity to a site, it's about respecting the community you're posting in. Magazines aren't just tags, they are spaces with their own moderators and rules. That's why it was important to know which sub you were in on Reddit and it's no different here.
  I don't need to know where a user is from but I do need to know the source of the post.
  
  It's not like that, though. Please don't just assume what our intentions are. We just get confused sometimes, especially on mobile, when there are maintenance and update posts for other sites that make it seem like it's going to be implemented here. The only way I distinguish between here and there is whether it's posted by Ernest or somebody else. If we could distinguish between posts by this site and others, we'd be up to date on other sites' development without getting misled.
  
  It matters. For example, if Stormfront runs an instance, that instance will be full of Nazis. There's no way they will tolerate anybody else there. Ergo, if you know someone is from the Stormfront instance, you know they're either a Nazi or they're lost and so clueless that they don't realize what all the funny crosses mean.
  Stormfront people (again, this is an example) will then sic their userbase on any thread about Judaism. They will intentionally exploit the confusion created by lack of context. They will create threads which users don't realize are transferring them from the world of ordinary humans into the Nazi dimension, where they will be confused and bewildered by the fact that suddenly 80% of their online peers are expressing the kinds of views that are expressed by a Stormfront denizen.
  The same will be true when NazBols run an instance and it is already true of the pro-genocide tankies that kbin is already federated with.
  
  It's not very important on a basic server, like kbin.social or mstdn.social. But the people on mstdn.lgbt probably like the fact that they're on an LGBT server.
@parrot-party@kbin.social
url
Doesn’t it already do this?
- I just saw beehaw's announcement about defederating with lemmy.world and whatever, and it said (kbin.social). So honestly I don't really know what it means.
- they're only self posts. if a link is posted, it shows the URL of the website in the link

36 comments