this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2023
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A modest proposal: roundtable on defederation (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by PzkM@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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I apologize if this has been asked before, but I'm wondering if it would be feasible to implement a new approach to defederation that offers the option of choosing between complete or partial defederation from another instance.

Currently, defederation blocks both the locally made posts on the defederated instance and its entire userbase. This can be excessive, and in many cases it may be better to block only the posts made on the other instance while still allowing its users to interact with the instance that defederated โ€” user behavior may differ between their home instance and other instances. This partial defederation (or limited federation) would facilitate normal interaction without negatively affecting the content of a feed.

Problematic users could be managed on a case-by-case basis using bans, similar to how it is done for federated instances. Automated tools could simplify this process in the future. Complete defederation would still be necessary in extreme cases where no positive user interactions are expected, such as with instances that promote Nazism.

Instances are being forced to choose between a sledgehammer and nothing at all, and I think a compromise is warranted. I'm curious to read others' thoughts on how to solve this existing challenge.

EDIT: I added a rough sketch that outlines the proposal. On the left side is the system as it works now and on the right side are two possible scenarios for limited federation (1 direction or bidirectional)

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[โ€“] bizzle@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Beehaw feels like it's ran by power tripping mods hiding behind toxic positivity and I'm not sad they defederated. I wouldn't denigrate anybody for preferring it but I personally like a little more freedom.

[โ€“] melonplant@latte.isnot.coffee 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Splitting hairs, but I think rather than implementing a partial defederation, I think it would be better to set user rights for a given federation instance. Some federations you might want to allow view only access, access to a certain "tier" of communities, etc. Make the rights customizable so its as granular as needed by the server.

[โ€“] PzkM@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

While I like the idea of granular permissions in principle, I feel like it could cause confusion and frustration for users depending on its implementation. For instance, if a user from instance A is unable to reply to a user from instance B, even though both are posting on instance C and are visible to each other. So while granular permissions would be powerful, they could also introduce unwanted scenarios that would be difficult for the average user to understand.

That's why I think it would be good to start with a simpler system. Partial defederation (or limited federation) seems like a compromise which could strike a reasonable balance between controlling content on local instances while minimizing the impact on user experience across instances. That said, if permissions/rights were implemented in a limited or user-friendly way, they could also work.

[โ€“] socialjusticewizard@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'd suggest that beehaw's concerns could be met with a tool that lets you disable posting or voting from off-instance users unless they meet threshold criteria, whether it be account age or post history or manual approval. That would allow you to keep your content interaction controlled without the nuclear option of complete removal.

[โ€“] this@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

I would even say that at least 3 tiers of defederation are nessesary:

  1. Remote instance users can interact with local instance by posting and commenting on local instance, but remote communities are blocked on local instance

  2. Remote users can see posts/comments from local instance, but not the other way around and commenting and posting is disabled both ways

  3. Full defederation as it works right now. Neither instance can see content from the other.

[โ€“] IsThisLemmyOpen@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

deleted by creator

[โ€“] PelicanPersuader@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Not necessarily. There's a Mastodon setting that would have worked here, it lets users from your community interact with another but doesn't let users from that community come into yours.

[โ€“] theory@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This needs to happen. This is getting ridiculous

[โ€“] 14specks@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have a feeling that given a couple of years, things will settle out a bit and be more like Mastodon.

Could you imagine if your ISP/Gmail was so particular about what servers you could send email to?

There will always be valid reasons to defederate, although I think the bar for that is going to end up pretty high and well-defined in the future, but it's sort of an organic process to get there.

[โ€“] theory@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago

Hope so

[โ€“] socialjusticewizard@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The site grew something like twenryfold in the span of two days... Honestly I'm impressed at how mild the ridiculousness has been

[โ€“] zero_iq@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

When you look at Lemmy as a whole though, the growth is significant, but the total is not that huge.

The number of Lemmy users has increased from ~50K at the start of the month to ~135K today, so a bit under 3x. (For comparison, that's approx. 0.002% of reddit's active daily user accounts, or 0.00008% of reddit's active monthly user accounts.)

That we are seeing technical, trust, financial, and social/management scaling problems leading to defederation, servers being overloaded, etc. at this relatively tiny level of engagement is a bit worrying, but also kind of encouraging in a way. Better to encounter these things and address them early on, while the system is up and running.

The good news is that there seems to be no shortage of people willing to help out. Lemmy is working for now, but these rumblings of future scaling problems need to be tackled. We have a growing user base, and there seems to be no shortage of motivation for creating a viable reddit alternative.

[โ€“] pieceofcrazy@feddit.it 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm out of the loop, could someone explain what happened?

All I know is that Beehaw defederated (or was defederated by) someone because of trolls?

[โ€“] Sallp@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Beehaw block lemmy.wolrd and sh.itjust.works

https://beehaw.org/post/567170?scrollToComments=true

[โ€“] pieceofcrazy@feddit.it 2 points 1 year ago

The comment I read made it seem as some kind of pitiful faction war but it's pretty understandable, maybe it could even have a positive impact on Lemmy as a whole

[โ€“] UrbenLegend@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, they defederated from lemmy.ml as well

[โ€“] chaogomu@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

At this point, they might just be going the way of turning off federation completely, at which point they can have their little curated walled garden where no one can disobey without a full account ban, and then they will slowly cease to exist.

[โ€“] Pili@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I like that idea. I had to create an account on 3 different instances to be able to interact with the communities I want because of instance blocks, it would be nice not having to juggle them all the time.

[โ€“] 00111010_01000100@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah people are not going to migrate over if they hear they can't interact with everyone. "Be careful which instance you sign up with because other instances may have blacklisted you, but I can't tell you which home instance to use because it might get overloaded."

[โ€“] RomanRoy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Things will settle. There will be a lot of split communities at first, but in due time it will be more consolidated.

So in more exclusive instances they will have their own communities on a matter if their users need it, but I expect the more general ones to be the go-to for the majority, even if in different instances.

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