@erincandescent@queer.af @trwnh @mralanorth@ioc.exchange @shengokai
The model where everyone gets a new identity for every community they join (1) largely defeats the purpose of federation (2) does not scale as people have *many* communities of interest and (3) doesn't map to our natural conception of identity.
I *hope* it's fixable. May take some convincing of Eugen, which seems hard from this vantage point.
@blaine @erincandescent @trwnh @mralanorth @shengokai I hope Eugen is open to experimentation within the bounds of the protocol!
I totally think "local instances" have a place, where there's strong overlap between your contextual identity and your instance - e.g., work or other closed community-based instances like @darius's friend camp, where federation is a little external communication you can have as a treat, not the primary mode.
I wonder if @Gargron's opposition to the private community TL, which was originally grounded in a fear of losing network effects, may have waned now that the network is booming?
@blaine I love your use of federation as a little treat here haha
@darius I love making you happy
network effect is also a treat, says @gordon :
@blaine @erincandescent @trwnh @mralanorth @shengokai Regarding the many communities thing, I really like #Diaspora's "aspects" feature, which Google Plus later implemented as "circles".
It allows for one identity to participate in different communities and keep things tidy.
Mastodon' "lists" are kind of like that.
@ticho @erincandescent@queer.af @trwnh @mralanorth@ioc.exchange @shengokai
Circles got it exactly backwards (typical "state thinking" cf Scott).
Curating static lists of people
Joining fluid shared contexts
@shengokai @blaine @erincandescent @ticho @trwnh @mralanorth
“ Curating static lists of people
Joining fluid shared contexts”
cross-boundary communication, in context
@ticho @blaine @erincandescent@queer.af @mralanorth@ioc.exchange @shengokai lists are actually the opposite of circles/aspects -- a list is a subset of your follows, used to create multiple timelines. there should be a way to create subsets of your *followers*, and save those as custom audiences (a la twitter circle / instagram close friends, but more flexible)
circles/aspects were confusing because they mixed follower and following functionality.
@trwnh @ticho @erincandescent@queer.af @mralanorth@ioc.exchange @shengokai for me that's a use-case for a different identity and/or a different context on an existing identity. Eg, the people who I would follow/let follow me on fedistrava are different than pixelfed or mastodon or newsfed; defining who to send a post to within one context is (I think!) too much for the ux of any app to bear. (The scope toggle on mastodon is already way too overloaded and complicated)
@blaine Is it technically possible to have a single identity in a federation without a central identity authority? I’m new to federation (combined with auth).
@simeon yes! Definitely. Webfinger federates identity across domain (as in DNS) boundaries; I think it's a good model, but definitely worth exploring alternatives!
@blaine Cool! @atomicpoet mentioned the Zot/6 protocol.
@blaine @erincandescent@queer.af @trwnh @mralanorth@ioc.exchange @shengokai One's identity should be persistent and independent of community membership. But, one could have many aliases.
Could we use a DNS like system that allowed one to set up a community identity server that assigns community-specific aliases which map to persistent, community-independent identities? (i.e. You would use this service to discover that bobwyman@xoogler was the same as bob@activitypub.wyman.us. Or, the inverse.)
@bobwyman @blaine @erincandescent@queer.af @trwnh @mralanorth@ioc.exchange @shengokai sound like a "personas" concept is applicable here. You'd have one account with multiple profiles, and can associate your posts and other activity with specific profiles.
@Natanael_L @blaine @erincandescent@queer.af @trwnh @mralanorth@ioc.exchange @shengokai
"Personas" would allow flexible resolution when roles change and thus persistence of role-based identities. Thus, "@POTUS@whitehouse.gov" might be one person today, but another in a few years. To make the switch, you'd just change the mapping.
@bobwyman @blaine @erincandescent@queer.af @trwnh @mralanorth@ioc.exchange @shengokai that sounds like a type of alias / non-personal role based profile, it could probably work in a similar way to personal personas. From the perspective of people interacting with you the two are the same, they're only different from the administrative side (who controls the mapping, etc).