I think that federation is the answer, it’s just an answer over a long time rather than an immediate catastrophic paradigm shift.
It might not have taken off yet for message boards, but it’s the only way to allow diversity and self-reliance while also allowing a common community and an aggregated large user base.
That’s the USP of big tech: Go on facebook or reddit and you can join multiple different communities from one place, whereas it’s a unique commitment to be on even a few standalone forums since you routinely have to go to each one. Federate and suddenly you can be in multiple communities that have nothing to do with each other from whichever site you like the design of.
As a user, you’d dial in, sync your newsreader software, and later whenever you want you can go through all the threads in the groups you’re subscribed to and respond at your leisure. Your posts go out next time you sync up.
Could be worth looking at what worked and what failed over the various forms forums have taken over the years – email lists, usenet, web forums, etc.
I think that federation is the answer, it’s just an answer over a long time rather than an immediate catastrophic paradigm shift.
It might not have taken off yet for message boards, but it’s the only way to allow diversity and self-reliance while also allowing a common community and an aggregated large user base.
That’s the USP of big tech: Go on facebook or reddit and you can join multiple different communities from one place, whereas it’s a unique commitment to be on even a few standalone forums since you routinely have to go to each one. Federate and suddenly you can be in multiple communities that have nothing to do with each other from whichever site you like the design of.
The fediverse has a bit of a discoverability problem though. It could be part of the solution I guess, but right now it isn’t.
A federated forum model? That sounds cool!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet used to be the thing before forums took over. Every decent ISP would host a news server for their users.
As a user, you’d dial in, sync your newsreader software, and later whenever you want you can go through all the threads in the groups you’re subscribed to and respond at your leisure. Your posts go out next time you sync up.
Could be worth looking at what worked and what failed over the various forms forums have taken over the years – email lists, usenet, web forums, etc.