category_mirrory @category_mirrory@qoto.org
Techs should factor.
Homepage: https://wiki.ircnow.org/index.php?n=Users.CategoryMirrory
Joined Jan 2021
>trapped in a discussion on the wrong topic
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis states that "language pre-determines thought".
[This article](https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fediverse-futures-visions-dreams-feedback-wanted/1238) notes that Fediverse promotion seems to fail because it's too developer-centric instead of user-centric.
"Decentralization", perhaps, is another vocabulary word that means too much to developers and too little to users. #YearOfDecentralization! #YearOfTheFediverse!
Welcome to #YearOfDecentralizaion!
According to [this user story](https://jaredwhite.com/podcast/61/), the primary challenges to the #YearOfTheFediverse are:
1a. Hard for users to discover content.
1b. Hard for creators to be discovered.
2a. Hard to federate identity (e.g. single sign-on)
2b. Hard to separate content (e.g. Discord "servers")
@cjd @seasharp @mangeurdenuage @a1batross @mistermonster @xerz @makeworld @joao @Julia @moparisthebest
The first step of coordination is **visibility**. The right hand simply knowing what the left hand is doing is a pre-requisite for them working together.
I found this map which I think helps illustrate the **surface area** and **volume** metaphor. There are 38 little dots (high **volume**) but only 15 connections outside their local groupings (low **surface area**).
It's hard to persuade someone to alter or change their project, but it's easy to get them to answer questions about it. And if a single list of fediprojects is too unwieldy, then having a list of such lists could help as well.
In Timothy Gallwey's "The Inner Game of Tennis", he points out that sometimes, when people try to hit the ball better, they fail; but when people just try to watch the ball better, they succeed in hitting it better without trying. The principle was also applied to musicians playing versus listening to a sequence of notes.
An organism is only one kind of biological system. A bee hive or a coral reef or a forest ecosystem are also kinds of biological systems.
@z428 @clacke @humanetech @fediverseparty @weltsnake@mastodon.technology
>sales, marketing, deadlines
If the #YearOfTheFediverse "product" can be **decentralized**, why can't these "coordination problems" of the product be **decentralized** as well?
I like Geoffrey West's "Scale"'s metaphor of **voume** and **surface area** repeating across cells/organisms and cities/corporations (and therefore cooperatives). The **volume** can be the "internal work" or "implementation details" of a project which do not need to be transmitted outside the product, while the **surface area** can be the "coordination work" or "interface" of a project which does.
Of course the pattern is fractal. A small project may have 100 details of **volume** and only communicate 10 details of **surface area** to a few related projects. But those few related projects form a group and those 10 details of communication forms the groups **volume**; and that group may itself coordinate with other groups with only 1 detail of **surface area**.
@humanetech @z428 @clacke @fediverseparty @weltsnake@mastodon.technology
Applying the quoted **metaphor** to programs:
1. The compound idea *"what is hogging space"* into the simple ideas ``du | sort -n``
2. The relation between the ideas of text editors vi and emacs.
3. Separating the idea of an archive of a directory into a ``.tar`` and ``.gz`` portion; that it might become a ``.tar.xz`` archive instead.
Something useful like a **"shared system clipboard"** might involve all three steps:
* 2: See that both *Writer* and *Calc* have internal ways to copy and paste data.
* 3: Separate their internal copy/paste mechanisms; also their import/export data mechanisms from the rest of the program.
* 1: Connect these mechanisms to a **"shared system clipboard"**.
Re-apply the **metaphor** to art: e.g. factoring an image or music into sections or themes and resampling to a new image or music.
Re-re-apply the **metaphor** to programming an art editor: e.g. having an image or music editor operate on layers or tracks as well as transforms on those layers or tracks.
Re-re-re-apply the **metaphor** to programming a new editor; e.g. a ``minetest editor``. Okay, I have two buildings in random places, I want to copy them next to each other. I also have a generic "sidewalk" tiling with benches and lights and trees in a line I want to place between them, cutting off at appropriate parts. One is built on snow and one on grass so I want to "magic select" the ground layers; delete; and re-apply a gradient.
How hard can this ``minetest editor`` be? Well from painful experience I know it's very hard. But now I have a second question - programming ``audacity`` and ``GIMP`` were **already** very hard, but they are **already** done. Shouldn't there be some way to leverage most of them?
Of course this is also very hard. But it's a dream. Anyway, re-re-re-re-re-apply the **metaphor** to:
1. social programs (that **share** data online)
2. **sharing** data between different social programs (e.g. single sign on, multi-posting)
3. semantic **sharing**; how the posts are connected to each other
4. re-designing the social programs to facilitate the semantic **sharing** when people use them to compose posts
5. what are the common factors among how each social program would want to implement semantic ~~sharing~~ (previous ``sense``, do not re-bold), that themselves could be **shared** among them
And the thesis from #CategoryTheory seems to be: Don't try to start with an absolute conception of **sharing** that encompasses all the above ``senses``; a ``"set that contains itself"`` will blow up. Instead re-build the ``sense`` of **sharing** anew each time by fixing previous ``senses``.
>Thoughts? I feel like it's the opposite of doomscrolling, it's just a way to see how people are doing and maybe learn something new about your friends.
It's a good idea. Ideally not only would it work standalone but also something would be able to integrate it as a status "add on" to other places.
@mray said:
>@category_mirrory is email part of the fediverse in your eyes – or just an analogy?
Well the blog is by @torresjrjr not me. Personally I never thought about it before you said it but I guess, technically speaking, email (and websites in general) are part of (the original) "Fediverse" (the Federated Internetwork).
In "The Future of the Internet (and how to stop it)", Jonathan Zittrain argues that we take the "history" of the Internet for granted. That is, we take it for granted that the Internet was **pre-ordained** to **inevitably** be a free and open place, because that is what wound up happening. But actually, Zittrain claims, companies tried really hard to make both the servers and the clients closed models (e.g. AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy, and specialized client software/boxes/appliances).
We forgot about the corporatists because they lost that round but they are winning round 2; not just in the new domain of social networks; but also returning to the old domain you pointed out of email and websites, where small providers instantly get placed on blacklists (or just never placed on whitelists) for everybody on gmail or outlook; or captcha and cloudflare.
So, returning to the theme, #YearOfTheFediverse is not a totally new phenomenon, but rather a **rhyme** with an old battle that was fought and won once and now must be fought and won again.
#YearOfTheFediverse sounds great to me! The same blog also gives a condensed explanation [here](https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-20-what-is-the-fediverse).
However I think the biggest obstacle for people isn’t **grokking** the concept of a twitter competitor but rather **discovery** of an instance to get started on. Or even better, an account they want to follow or a conversation they want to participate in right away.
And, in the same way that a single **global** instance can’t make the **Fedi**verse, probably no single **global** listing of instances will provide the answer. However, even among my own local experience with cool instances, accounts, and posts; I don’t really have any way to organize them other than a giant blob and I can’t really find appropriate ones to evangelize to people when the opportunity arises.
>an increasing number of nodes for larger versions
Ooh, some kind of **fractal** pattern would be awesome-sauce! #YearOfTheFediverse
@VictorVenema @nestort @humanetech @dsfgs @pfefferle @drq @tallship @person @eylul
Techs should factor.
Homepage: https://wiki.ircnow.org/index.php?n=Users.CategoryMirrory
Techs should factor.
Homepage: https://wiki.ircnow.org/index.php?n=Users.CategoryMirrory
Joined Jan 2021
