As a moderator of a Lemmy instance, you currently have two options to take: pushing users first to your local content or content from all instances you federate with. These options come with the costs seen in the picture. The moderator of another instance has the same choice. However, in this scenario, they will both always switch to promoting the local-feed. I don’t want to say its wrong - it’s just the most sensible way to act on Lemmy currently. However, if everybody does it, it is bad for the overall discussion quality of the Threadiverse.

Its a classical prisoner’s dilemma from game theory, which sometimes happen in society, for example with supply shortage during lockdowns. A way to solve it is by making action B more positive and option A more negative. This would lead to more moderators choosing Action B over A.

Mastodon solved this with an Explore-Feed, which consolidates the Local- and All-Feed. I think this could also be a solution for Lemmy. It would result in less engagement decrease AND an overall positive effect on discussion quality.

Additionally, a general acknowledgement that instance protectionism is a problem and should be avoided could help to make A more negative. In other words: increasing the pressure by the community. This would put a negative social effect on option A. So: start talking about it with your moderators.

Do you think these two measure would do (additionally to more powerful moderation tools, which would only enable a working explore-feed in the first place)? Is this a problem on other services on the Fediverse too (at least Mastodon seems to have handled it quite well)?

  • SpziEnglish
    2•10 months ago

    If you promote the local feed, your posts get attention, which means user engagement. So, user engagement would have a trend to stay in its own instance, which results in bubbles and is certainly not good for discussion quality.

    I think this is too much of a generalization. Certain discussions even benefit from a certain amount of shielding from the outside world. I think there are mechanics working both ways, and to generally equate local feeds with reduced discussion quality is a poor argument.

    Also, how would the addition of another feed (read: the selectable option for another feed) change anything about that? Instance owners who “push users” to their Local feed (as you unecessarily dramatize it) could still choose Local as their default, even if you requested new feed was implemented.

    In both scenarios (with and without the new feed), users can freely select another feed anytime (because no one actually pushes them), or even define one permanently in their settings, overriding whatever default the instance owner had selected.

    The new feed would do nothing about the situation but give instance owners another option to “push users”, and users another option to select from.

    • @blue_berry@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1•10 months ago

      I think this is too much of a generalization. Certain discussions even benefit from a certain amount of shielding from the outside world. I think there are mechanics working both ways, and to generally equate local feeds with reduced discussion quality is a poor argument.

      I’m not saying Local feed in general, but showing users the Local feed first. Because I’m speaking about the average user, who will usually go with the default settings. Then this user will only see content of their instance and that’s bad.

      Also, how would the addition of another feed (read: the selectable option for another feed) change anything about that? Instance owners who “push users” to their Local feed (as you unecessarily dramatize it) could still choose Local as their default, even if you requested new feed was implemented. In both scenarios (with and without the new feed), users can freely select another feed anytime (because no one actually pushes them), or even define one permanently in their settings, overriding whatever default the instance owner had selected.

      I’m always speaking about the average user. Not even the average Lemmy-User currently but let’s say: non-nerdy users that will be more present in the future. They don’t tinker with settings and maybe switch instances if they don’t like their experience. Choosing default settings is therefore important.

      The new feed would do nothing about the situation but give instance owners another option to “push users”, and users another option to select from.

      Every admin has the motivation for their instance to survive. They need to have some handle to ensure that. As long as it is transparent and applies to basic rules I’m fine with it. The rest is handled by federation.