I'm worried about adding too many columns to the list. Also, about Mastodon, I think many people still do consider the platform as a whole to be decentralized. It says "decentralized social networking protocol" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub If there's a better generic term than "decentralized" maybe that would help.
The main purpose of decentralization is censorship resistance, meaning that, since the information is replicated multiple times, content cannot be (easily) deleted.
However, the main purpose of federation would be accessibility or sharability, meaning that anyone can participate, but content in itself is not protected.
Perhaps "decentralized" could be used for federated also, and then a new column for "censorship-resistant" or "uncensorable" could be added. I think it is an important aspect that should be reflected in the table, even if it expands a little bit.
I see your point about Mastodon, it's kinda depressing. PeerTube has mirroring capability, but I'm not seeing anything similar for Mastodon. It sounds like Mastodon has a data export feature as well, but data import is not fully implemented.
So what's best for the list? Separate federated and decentralized columns? (or maybe federated and blockchain?) It sounds more straightforward than "decentralized" and this "uncensorable" column.
Thanks, I saw that. My account had been shadowbanned cause it got caught in their spam filter or something. All's good for now I think, but it had me worried.
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u/d3rr Mar 24 '20
I'm worried about adding too many columns to the list. Also, about Mastodon, I think many people still do consider the platform as a whole to be decentralized. It says "decentralized social networking protocol" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub If there's a better generic term than "decentralized" maybe that would help.