Suggestion: Endorse http://infogalactic.com/ as the approved wiki of SaidIt

submitted by sawboss from (self.SaidIt)

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[–]JasonCarswell 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (67 children)

I'm not in favour of this.

"Endorse" and "approved" - meaning what?

Note everyone here would go for that. And once you start picking favourites or play the left-right crap, it all starts sliding downhill.

InfoGalactic is less transparent than Wikipedia though it's more free / unregulated. I have posted countless ideas through the last few years as to how they might better improve the site, content, functionality, aesthetics, policies, community, and their publiciity - almost entirely to no response or effect. Further, they are religious, alt-right, and not left or truthers, whether they are Corporate Dem SJWs or authentic left-leaning progressives or anarch-Marxists. I may be the only one there who leans left or be a truther.

InfoGalactic is NOT friendly as a site and of the interactions with people I've only had issue with one Ayn Rand fan, Froglich. I ignored him and he stopped arguing. My conflict solution remains: https://infogalactic.com/info/Chomsky_(disambiguation)

I REALLY like the classic Wikipedia format and the deep, if outdated, encyclopedia to link to almost anything, or import it if still absent.

I'm all for collaborating and building bridges, but I'd rather "officially" team up with WikiSpooks, as /u/Robin (also as /u/WikiSpooks) is already SaidItron and posts primo content here on the regular. (FYI, Robin provides a weekly ZIP (<5gb) of the entire WikiSpooks content to download should anything happen to WS.)

Better still IMHO, would be to easily create a SaidIt.Wiki and manage it ourselves. I don't see a need to reinvent the wheel and decentralize information that will get out dated. While we could do the InfoGalactic thing and scrape WP for content or we could upload WS, maybe stealing it's thunder, I'd rather just start a new wiki.

There are other Wikipedians here too. We could start by saying that our rules are all the same as Wikipedia's, and then amend them as necessary. For example, instead of eliminating all "fringe" media we could allow it as sources to cite. We could also allow "fancruft" and long articles that delve into detail. We could allow other wiki-projects beyond the scope of an encyclopedia, like opinion pieces, essays, blogs, personal vanity pages, and open projects. The possibilities are endless. The encyclopedia might be the smallest part of it.

All this being said, it makes more sense, in my mind NOT to call it SaidIt.wiki but something entirely new, and have it under the NET of SaidIt.net. (Being creative I could come up with a hundred names in a second but that's not what this is about, and it should be democratic.) I'd be willing to buy the domain on May 1 if we can come up with something by then.

[–]JasonCarswell 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (60 children)

One more thought: The future is decentralization.

I don't know what that means exactly.

I've been so caught up in SaidIt that I haven't delved into Everipedia and it claims to be a decentralized solution based on Wikipedia. https://infogalactic.com/info/Everipedia

I don't know if it's legit or not. Robin found an article there that would have been censored on Wikipedia so it may be legit, at least to some degree.

I hate the default look though, like Wikipedia and InfoGalactic, its skin-theme-layout can likely be altered in user preferences.

Everipedia also is developing a reward system for it, though I don't know much about that. I also don't know if that will be a corrupting force or not. While money is the root of all evil, I don't blame the rewards, as it's done off site for Wikipedia, so maybe Everipedia might be slightly more transparent in this regard. I don't know what their policies are regarding fringe, fancruft, vanity pages, and other projects.

I have great hope for it but I am prepared for the worst.

I would next delve into the Everipedia and its culture, or other decentralization things (ie Mastodon, PeerTube, IPFS, Holochain, ZeroNet, etc), if I didn't have 2 projects I think are more important to share with the world.

[–]wizzwizz4 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (57 children)

I think we could add decentralisation to Saidit reasonably easily by slowly adding ActivityPub API support, and allowing people to navigate to, e.g., /e/saidit.net/ and read saidit.net's Mastodon-compatible Saidit-flavour ActivityPub site – and eventually interact with it, though blacklisting sites will have to be accomplished first to prevent abuse.

[–]JasonCarswell 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (45 children)

I don't know what any of that means. I have been consumed by SaidIt and yet to learn Mastodon stuff.

Maybe start a /s/SaidItDecentralization sub to discuss and develop all decent options openly. I'd start by proposing stuff to M7D3 for their approval. If they don't understand it then you can develop your pitch or come up with others. If they understand it they can approve it and you can code it for them to implement. They have their own lives and priorities and will implement stuff in time. The SaidIt logo was done in late January, maybe into February and in only got added a few days ago.

Sure and steady as she goes.

[–]wizzwizz4 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (44 children)

Oops; I didn't mean to write that jargon. I was actually asking for your opinion on the UX of it, but didn't really actually ask that.

Do you think it would be OK to have URLs looking like this?

https://saidit.net/e/saidit.net/s/Saidit/comments/lid/suggestion_endorse_httpinfo…

(though obviously with the ability to write other site names there instead of saidit.net!)

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (43 children)

I don't know what a UX is.

I love the idea of using more than just /s/link. I've been saying almost since arriving that we could have a whole shortcut system, as on Wikipedia, where for example LV:link would take you to the Latvian Wikipedia. InfoGalactic I think has a WP:link.

I'd hope to see thinks like:

  • /r/Reddit
  • /wp/Wikipedia
  • /ws/WikiSpooks
  • /ig/InfoGalactic
  • /yt/YouTube
  • /ddg/DuckDuckGo

And so on. One thing I just came up with, excepting the Reddit standard, is the idea that 2 or 3 letters means off-site. In this way the single letter could be exclusively for SaidIt purposes. For example, maybe /w/Topic could be a shortcut substitute for /s/Topic/wiki/ (regardless of an external sister wiki), or in the future maybe there will be something like /b/Books, /i/Images, /m/Music, or /v/Video. And say in the future, maybe I'll wear them down enough to start their own MediaWiki-based sister-site. This whole /123/thing could be developed in a sub and people could submit their requests for the SaidIt equivalent of DuckDuckGo !bangs.

As for your /e/ I don't know what the "e" means. External?

I don't know what you mean okay if they look like that. Looks aren't critical. It looks confusing and redundant. I'd need to know what the purpose for so much extra stuff to approve it.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

UX is User eXperience. It's like UI but more, it means the whole flow of using the product, it is easy or is it stressful, surprises or intuitive, etc.

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You'd think I'd know that having delved into that dating back to the SoftImage flow in 1996 or so and being keen on ergonomics.

[–]wizzwizz4 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (40 children)

The purpose is that, ultimately, you can use your Saidit account to read and post on any Saidit-like site, or Mastodon instance, or Prismo instance…

I also think it looks redundant and confusing, but I can't think of a better way of doing it.

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (39 children)

I don't know what Prismo is. There are a lot of them.

I like the purpose.

Why configure it so that:

https://saidit.net/e/Saidit/comments/lid/suggestion_endorse_httpinfo…

Automatically implies something like:

https://saidit.net/e/saidit.net/s/Saidit/comments/lid/suggestion_endorse_httpinfo…

And just have the /e/ and /s/ essentially equivalent on local SaidIt and mean whatever elsewhere?

e = Everything? External? Excelsior?

[–]wizzwizz4 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (38 children)

We've already got /s/ for that purpose, and since it's possible to make a sub called /s/saidit.net that URL scheme is (sadly) not feasible.

A possible alternative to having that /e/ scheme is having a longish hex string. I don't like the idea of that, though.

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (37 children)

Your first sentence makes no sense to me.

I don't know why you're reinventing the wheel, again, again, again.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

I've thought about that too wizz, I think it'd be possible.

[–]wizzwizz4 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

The hardest part would be allowing posts and comments from external sites to be posted on normal pages. How hard is it to add an extra column to the posts and comments tables, setting every row's value of the column to NULL?

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

it's pretty easy to add a new attribute to posts and comments that defaults to empty. you've gotta deal with subs though too?

existing federated reddits:

https://prismo.xyz/

https://gitlab.com/prismosuite/prismo

https://dev.lemmy.ml/#/

https://github.com/dessalines/lemmy

and maybe notabug?

edit:

i like this idea of baby steps into the fediverse, like with using your saidit account elsewhere, sounds pretty cool.

[–]wizzwizz4 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Subs are easy; you just cache basic data for the listings and then request it from the external site when you need to view it. Any content on there is stored on the external site, and maybe a copy's kept for convenience on user pages but that's non-canonical.

Does SQLAlchemy let you add a new attribute to the magic Table object, run the code in prod and automatically update the database? Or do you have to run SQL commands to add the column manually?

Hadn't seen Lemmy; that's cool. Also, it reminds me of one other issue:

Other sites have different voting systems. If we're going to federate with them, we need to genericise the way we represent votes or everything will fall over when we try to pass content to and from somewhere with only one vote, or with upvote and downvote, or even with three types of vote.

Here's one possible way of doing that: we have a votes table, where each vote has an id. Then we— wait, that won't work.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Does SQLAlchemy let you add a new attribute to the magic Table object, run the code in prod and automatically update the database?

Yes, new db columns/rows are happening automatically based on changes in code.

genericise the way we represent votes

we can just call our points whatever the protocol wants to call them, upvotes or likes or whatever.

[–]wizzwizz4 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

No, I mean…

Let's say (and this wouldn't ever happen) that we convinced Reddit to add federation support identical to our own. When you're viewing Reddit posts from Saidit, and find something funny, and click the fun button… they get a downvote. And conversely, if you don't like something on Saidit-from-Reddit, you want to downvote it, but accidentally mark it "fun".

What do we do about that?

Incidentally, /s/CringeAnarchy has CSS'd in up and down arrows, which isn't such a smart move as the mod probably thought it was. Do you want to try to explain, or just leave it?

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

What do we do about that?

Well since only SaidIt clones will have the same voting model, the best we can do is work around it. If a downvote comes in, it's discarded (edit: or subtract downvotes from the upvotes if both are present). For a fun vote to go out, it either counts as another upvote or it's discarded. Etc. etc.

Do you want to try to explain, or just leave it?

I'm just gonna live and let live. Maybe they like it because it ups the cringe factor. Surely they will notice the score in the sidebar not subtracting points on "downvotes" sooner or later. Edit: they have already changed them anyway.

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I didn't know about these! When did these happen? Worth reposting with details, how they work, and a run down on /s/DecentralizeAllThings

Also, have you considered them? Looked at their code? Etc?

What are the pros and cons of each?

This seems huge! It's exciting to say the least.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

They are both very early projects. Prismo is a little further along and has been live for a year. They used to have https://prismo.news but then dude accidentally deleted the DB and lost a year of content. Now they're at https://prismo.xyz

I'd certainly entertain switching if the feature set was right.

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I hope you have backups.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

#METOO

https://fediverse.blog/~/Prismo/on-prismo-data-loss

[–]Tom_Bombadil 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You know the landscape at IG better than anyone.

I'll defer to your judgment.

One more thought: The future is decentralization.

I have a more ominous view. The open internet is under assault. Any possible future for the open internet as it exists requires decentralization.

Do you have any suggestions? Can something like a website be block chained; while ensuring Magnora and d3rr maintain admin control?

It is their ship.

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That's the zillion dollar question. Beyond my skill set.

Sharding is now better than blockchain. Blockchain requires the entire chain. Sharding shares only parts of the blockchain and the entire chain is not critical. This helps a lot, and though loss may occur if shards aren't maintained, it's likely solved by trackers that would equalize the distribution, or something.

Further, to add on to that, I think it might even be worth embracing the idea that there may be splinter groups from SaidIt who may get banned or do their own thing, yet continue to help maintain the code and thrive or die elsewhere. This idea is more about the SaidIt community being curated and cultivated by exemplar leaders, as others groups are free to do. I guess part of that would still necessitate some kind of list of who's in the community, maybe shared among distributions.

[–]sawboss[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm not in favour of this.

That's fine. I want to have the discussion anyway. Thanks very much for explaining your opinion.

[–]Froglich 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I've been monitoring your activities...

You are an Ayn Rand horcrux.

[–]sawboss[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

That's nonsense and there's no reason for name calling. Furthermore, it's just plain false.

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Relax guard dog. I told him. It's Tom trolling me.

[–]JasonCarswell 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Tom, the Froglich problem was mildly traumatic for me so fuck right off using this alias at me. I've repeatedly said as much in more diplomatic terms.

[–]sawboss[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Name calling is bottom tier. No need to reply. Just report.