The unrealized potential of federation
Start this labyrinth from the end point. Why are giants attracting 95%+ of users?<p>1. Among other things, because of a dead-simple user experience that lets even grandpa post content after a few clicks. Federation, if it adds any level of complexity past the grandpa UX, would defeat the goal.<p>2. Next, identity. If grandpa can post, so can the bots, how do you ensure accounts don’t go to fake entities? What if an account has to pass a quality threshold before it can publish in public, but can be used privately any time. HN has similar model, but here you limit public posting until 10 random other users have seen and upvoted the new user’s post. Add to that possible additional authentication for payment of a pro feature, or a human check mark, and you’ve put a hurdle on spam.<p>3. To keep culture from running amuck provide positive and negative feedback. Public content has a span problem, not so much private behavior. Content ratings and discussion licenses can come into play as well, where any group can limit posts to PG content, or discussion that gets moderated automatically or manually if it passes certain thresholds.<p>Happy to suggest more if needed. I run <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dreamlist.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dreamlist.com</a>