Olives @olives@qoto.org

I dunno how content curation could work. One idea off the top of my head might be to have servers which act as gateways and servers which act as indexers.

An individual server might have some sort of compact index which the indexer could index. The indexer wouldn't store the actual data so to save as much on disk / database space as possible.

The user could have an app (maybe a web app) which queries a set (i.e. for load balancing purposes) of indexers for public posts (the query might denote something like what interests they subscribe to, maybe also negative prompts, maybe someone doesn't like AIArt) and the gateway for visibility restricted posts (and anything else, if the index isn't adequately complete).

They could then hand the results to the gateway to get the actual data.

The idea is that rather than having every gateway having to maintain a complete index of the fediverse (or the accompanying data), the logic of figuring out what is on the fediverse could be off-loaded in a more efficient manner to an indexer. Alternatively, they could do both, if resources permit.

This would still be fairly decentralized, although I suppose that someone might prefer the model of each server being it's own unit of decentralization. If an indexer, or a set of indexers, aren't functioning properly, pick another one / set. I dunno.

Part of the "content problem" might not even be a problem of users or content. It might just be basic content curation / collection. Right now, it is a bit of a hose pipe. Information is indiscriminately pulled in, if anyone shows a sliver of interest in it. Conversely, information that might be interesting is not pulled in, if someone doesn't already know about it.

Practically speaking, there is no way to subscribe to a particular related interest or anything. And that is one of the things mainstream social media kind of does. They guess at what someone is interested in, they guess at what content they might like, and they serve that. Of course, this model has it's flaws.

The fediverse is kind of anti social media in design because it goes out of it's way to *not do that*. It's not that particular users or content don't exist on social media. They do. But, generally, you might not see them and they might be buried by what someone is *actually* interested in finding. Likewise, particular types of users might engage with their own content, and that might keep them busy, rather than the subject being some sort of drama.

Then again, that is just a theory.

What I suspect happens is that someone markets the fediverse as some sort of "safe space" (rather than a "pick your own server" social network*), then someone comes in with that expectation, and that leads to more toxicity than is really needed.

* An idea which is interesting in and of itself.

Even if marketing it as a "safe space" gets a few more users, the so-called growth is not worth the toxicity it creates. Is indiscriminately trying to pull in more users even what is really wanted? Chances are it is never going to be Facebook.

"how to deal with block list mania"

For starters, stop marketing the fediverse as some sort of "safe space" unique among social networks, as if that is ever a thing.

At the very least, the Recall thing which Microsoft wants to add should be opt-in (and the user should understand how it works). Don't show lots of prompts to try to get the user to turn it on.

One of the cardinal rules of privacy is that someone is supposed to *minimize* the amount of data held. This is the exact opposite.

So, that is already one red flag against it.

While it is true that there might be stuff like cached data, and maybe that data should be easier to manage, this is also far more indiscriminate in what it collects.

The utility of it at this time is also largely hypothetical, although even supposing it is plausibly useful to someone, it is very over-engineered for the utility it actually provides and it's not clear why someone needs to use *this particular tool*. But, you know what, let's give it the benefit of the doubt momentarily in this post.

It is a treasure trove of information. If someone lives with an abuser (or with some sort of abusive dynamic going on), that might be troublesome.

It could be legally hazardous. What if someone inadvertently encounters illegal content? What if someone does moderation? Is that content going to be "saved"?

How might the data be managed? Can it be managed? Is it clear what is in it?

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2024/10/10/language/weights-exercise-japanese-grammar/ Interesting post.

Someone tried to explain to me how a location tracking app is supposedly good, but the more I heard, the creepier it sounded. #privacy

I could be more specific with A"I" but that would look weird.

Remember, I say "AI" in quotes. That roughly means artificial "intelligence".

Just because someone *can* do something (although, since it involves "AI", who knows what weird way it might fail) doesn't mean that they *should*.

If you are wondering, the bugs in the instance haven't been fixed yet. I still don't see the local feed.

I'm surprised that Microsoft is still at it with Recall.

I'm trying to use replies to the post instead of QTs here because these can render as links and I don't think people click on links as much.

One reason I don't do this is because I don't really want to create a lot of noise on tags by pulling in every tag that might be vaguely relevant to a post.

There's someone who goes around using something like four to ten tags in almost every take or reply he makes, and it feels a lot like that.

"obnoxious commenters"

I think it is actually a good example of how just breaking down any random boundary is not necessarily helpful.

For instance, let's say someone has an edgy blog.

If it's on something like the fediverse though, then that edgy blog is slurped into the same space as countless other things. All of a sudden, instead of being cushioned in it's own corner, it is viewed as an object of debate and anyone and everyone might want to get in on that.

Did removing that boundary help?

This opinion is probably not the end all and be all of opinions, lol.

I don't #understand #people who #insist on #talking like this.

If the problem was just a couple of people making edgy posts in a corner of the Internet, it wouldn't be much of a problem. Well, maybe someone might not like that, but it's not as if it would get much attention.