this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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Fedigrow
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Only because aussie.zone is relying exclusive on waiting the data to be pushed. If they pulled the data in bulk, latency would not be an issue and the problem would be immediately solved.
Aside from mander.xyz, the other instances are not topic-specific. They have communities which are focused of a more general scope, and its users are not focused on conversations around an exclusive topic.
Anyhow, the point is: as of yet, there is no one running an instance focused on Fediverse news and discussion. Wouldn't it be nice if you, I don't know, volunteered to do so?
I am sure you can find people to help you co-admin the instance as well, if you set one up.
That isn't how lemmy and the activitypub protocol work. Source instance pushes metadata about new content, remote instance then needs to pull it. If we've not received the push yet, we can't pull the additional info.
I responded to you before I had my coffee, so I didn't realize that you are one of the admins for aussie.zone.
I will tell you what: I am 100% sure that I can write a service that can work as a bulk message relay and I'm equally sure that I can modify Fediverser's code to make it able to ingest data from the relay. If you want to join Lemmy's Matrix Room, we can chat to see how to best solve this.
Note I said lemmy AND the activitypub protocol, ie lemmy does not currently have this capability. If it were added to mainline lemmy I'd be open to configuring it, but its not so I can't.
The root cause of the issue is well understood, the solution is available in lemmy already: multiple concurrent outgoing federation connections to remote instances. AZ has had this configured since it was available. LW have not yet enabled this, though they're now running a version that has it available.
Appreciate the offer, but I'm not interested in customising the AZ server configuration more than it already is. If you write it up and submit a PR that the main lemmy devs incorporate, I'd be happy to look at it.
There would be no customization of Lemmy itself. You'd only have to add a sidecar service.
If you don't want to do it, fine, no one can force you to. But then perhaps it would be nice to be transparent with your users and tell them that the delay in federation can be avoided.
You're contradicting yourself there. By definition adding an external service is a customization to lemmy. I'm not interested in running un-vetted software from a third party.
This has been discussed previously with a request from a reputable source to batching content from LW. That setup required an additional server for AZ, close to LW. And for LW to send their outgoing federation traffic for AZ to it, which then batched and send to the real AZ server. This offer was declined, though appreciated.
I've been transparent and open about the situation. You seem to think this is the fault of AZ, and we're willfully not taking an action that we should be taking. This is not the case.
As it stands the issue is inherent with single threaded lemmy federation, which is why the devs added the option for multiple concurrent threads. Until LW enable this feature, we'll see delayed content from them when their activity volume is greater than what can be federated with a single thread. To imply this is the fault of the receiving instances is disingenuous at best, and deliberately misleading at worst.
You won't be making any changes to Lemmy source code itself, that's what I mean. I wouldn't count adding something that is independent from the service as "customizing it", but if that is what you meant, fine.
What I had in mind would be to run the relay myself, and you would only have to set up/manage an extra service that could run along your Lemmy process.
Well, yes? You have the possibility to take the initiative and mitigate an issue that is affecting your users, and you can solve the problem independently of the third-party's cooperation. Why put yourself at the mercy of others when you have enough power and agency?
With the resources available its not feasible for AZ to develop/deploy custom solutions that can be resolved by remote instances with trivial configuration changes.
I'm not going to address specific parts of your post, suffice to say I disagree on almost everything you said.
As I said previously, if you have a workable solution please do devlop it and submit a PR to the lemmy devs. I'd be happy to try your suggestion should they roll it in.
Setting up parallel sending also would require more resources on their part.
It is your problem to fix, yet you are only willing to take action if the solution comes in the form that is most convenient to you. I genuinely don't understand why, but I guess it's between you and the users on your instance.
You're wrong, I'll leave it at that. Won't be replying any further.
There is absolutely nothing in the AP spec that prevents people from pulling data from the outboxes instead of waiting to be pushed.
Hello, @[email protected] @[email protected] was this an option you were aware of?
How are programming.dev and lemdro.id not topic specific? It's in their names
You want to go back to the "is sysadmin more volunteering than community building ?
First, as the last post on https://metacritics.zone/ was seven days ago, wouldn't it also be nice if you volunteered some of your time to keep your communities and instances active?
Second, I got another admin recently who told me that I should just stop discussing with you. Maybe I should.
As stated above, I'm as interested as sysadmining than you are in community building
lemdro.id also has communities like "Microsoft" and "ChatGPT". "Linux" is only tangentially related to programming.
They are not "my" communities. I started the topic-specific instances as a way to help the general ecosystem and to have a destination for the alien.top posts. I was hoping that would help bootstrap more usage outside of the larger instances. I may post from time to time when I find anything interesting, but I do not hold any pretense to keep all 15+ instances and 200+ communities fresh with content all the time.
I am interested in the community building, I am just not committing to do it for hundreds of them on top of the work of running the instances and on top of developing tools in the ecosystem.
Agree to disagree
I am interested in system administration, I just prefer not to commit to it on top of keeping dozens of communities active and promoting Lemmy and others on Reddit.
That's what I meant previously: we both dedicate our time and energy to different activities about the platform.
Yeah, right...
What upsets me in this whole thing is that you present an impossible dilemma: if I run the instance, you won't participate because you think it is associated with the money-making business. If I say "okay, then you go find an instance that is topic specific and and only for groups", you find any possible reason to balk.
So here we are: you want to have someone that can focus on instance administration and you want to focus on building communities, but God forbid you even consider doing it a way that is only tangentially connected to a commercial venture. That is the part I don't understand.
None of the admins of the instances above have stated that they are actively looking to make a business out of the platform.
So? I never said I want to make money out of the instances.
Let me phrase in another way: all of the admins teams of the instances above are different. They are all different teams, but I regularly interact with them, and they are all quite nice people to talk to. I even like talking to the LW sysadmins.
On the other hand, why would I host a community to one of your instances, when all you do is argue with me? We have different visions on the platform, and that's fine. I don't even get why you suggest one of instances, it seems a bad idea due to our regular disagreements.
My tone changed after you refused any form of collaboration and resorted to the most absurd excuses (like the football domain episode).
I wasn't being hostile to you when you came asking if you could have access to the user votes. I thought it was something visible for moderators, but when you said that it was only for admins I even offered to host an instance for you for free. All you needed to do was get a domain name. You refused.
And your tone now is pleasant and agreeable.
The football episode was when you revealed how much you were paying for all those domain names for the 20 instances, as well as the operating costs. Again, seemed like a risk to me. The domain itself wasn't the actual reason, it was the risk of seeing you disappear overnight or having to cease operations due to cost.
I refused the free instance because I didn't want to use your resources for something as minor as being able to see votes.
Now, it certainly isn't.
What if I told you that Communick has reached break-even point, and since February it makes more in revenue than it costs to operate?
Oh, that's right, I told you that already! It's just that you didn't react to it. Could it be because it doesn't fit your worldview?
Then let's just stop here?
If you prefer to avoid the conversation on the basis of "unpleasantness" instead of facing the arguments that are being presented to you, it's your choice.
But at least show some decency and willingness to admit you were wrong and consider that maybe the best way to get a sustainable, healthy and universal Fediverse (i.e, not just a niche thing that barely reaches 1M MAU) is by having small businesses around?
My main reason to want to end conversations with you is that you use bad faith arguments. It also explains why I don't want to build community on your instances.
I regularly suggest to agree to disagree, you just don't want to.
Let's give this another try
How is having a business going to change that? The platform is here, Boost is a clone from it's Reddit version, Voyager and others offer good alternatives.
Network effect can't be fought by money. Meta spend millions on marketing Threads, it's a failure.
Finally, I recently asked how many people were ready to pay for the Fediverse: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/33116369?scrollToComments=true
Seems to reflect my perception that some people are okay to pay 10-20$ per year, but not much more, and that's not everyone. I'll repost it to the new community now so that we have more data.
Now again, if you believe so, that's your choice, please create a community to advocate for that perspective.
You are looking at this super-tiny space of "the Threadiverse" and taking it as the whole "social media landscape". This is textbook example of selection bias.
How much do you want to bet that we will see a Reddit-like alternative built on ATProto by the end of the year? Which one do you think will have a better chance of success: the application that is starting of a potential userbase 1M MAU or the one with 25M+? How was Bluesky funded? Was it via donations?
No, but money can buy infrastructure and development which is sorely needed. We are not limited because people don't want to leave the walled gardens. They are eager to leave, but we keep failing to offer them an usable alternative.
The reason that Fediverse doesn't grow is not because of any single particular feature of the other alternatives. It's quite easy to say "Bluesky won over Mastodon because it has better content discovery" or "Matrix is not a good alternative to Discord because it is slow and has a moderation problem", but all of these tiny things are not fundamental issues. They can all be fixed, but they just don't get fixed fast enough because these organizations are lacking in resources compared to the VC funded alternatives.
Funding is like oxygen. Organisms that do not have circulatory systems can only grow to the size of insects. If we keep constraining ourselves to only these very limited sources of funding, we will be forever bound to this tiny insignificant niche space.