this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2024
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Discussion about ClubsAll (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 weeks ago by kersploosh@sh.itjust.works to c/main@sh.itjust.works
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Hello, sh.itjust.works community. I am curious what you think about ClubsAll, and whether you think we should stay federated with them. A few other Lemmy instances have recently defederated so this seems like a timely topic for discussion.

In short, ClubsAll is an ActivityPub-compatible Reddit clone. The site currently has one-way federation with no attribution: ClubsAll pulls content from Lemmy and displays it as local ClubsAll content. For example, you can visit https://clubsall.com/c/196 and there is no indication that the content is from https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/c/196.

Here are relevant posts with more information and context:

In the first post the ClubsAll founder commented that they plan to eventually have two-way federation, and to make the project open source. Whether those things actually happens is anyone's guess.

What do you think?

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[–] nyahlathotep@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 weeks ago

I don't want to strangle anyone's project in the crib, but it needs post attribution at the very least. I can understand it being a project in the early stages, but it's not hard to include info on the source of the posts.

However, if they had that but weren't yet open source and had only one-way federation, I would be open to giving them a date to hit for those. I don't like the idea of one-way federation, nor of federation with a closed-source project, but to take the dev at face value and allow them a time frame of 6 months or so to clear it up would be acceptable.

All that being said, as it stands now I would vote to defederate due to the lack of attribution. It is the very least that could be done and shouldn't be hard to implement.

[–] kersploosh@sh.itjust.works 15 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

I will leave my personal opinions down here in the comments.

On one hand, no harm is being done. It's possible this is a temporary situation due to ClubsAll being young and in development. Also, all our data on Lemmy is public anyway; we cannot stop others from scraping it.

On the other hand, on principle I don't like one-way interaction and the way ClubsAll presents Lemmy content as their own. It feels deceptive. Defederation would be a symbolic way to protest that behavior.

I am torn. At the moment I am slightly in favor of defederation.

[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 19 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

How about giving some leeway if they have indicated the intent to fully federate? Say, if they don't support bidirectional federation with 6 months (?), they will be defederated provisionally until they do. That way, we're still taking their declared intent in good faith, but not being a pushover.

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 weeks ago

I like this solution.

[–] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Seems reasonable. I don't have any technical complaint with what they're doing, but it feels icky as long as there's no attribution.

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Our challenge has been that many people feel differently to what is fair. So I have been requesting if all admins can agree to a common set of rules so we can comply with it and be upstanding community members. Is that reasonable request?

[–] CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 weeks ago

That seems fair.

[–] kersploosh@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I like this. I will put a reminder on my calendar to check on ClubsAll in a few months. If more users complain about it then we can reconsider the approach.

[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

I'm not sure if they're aware of this thread, but I think the important part would be to notify them of the intended consequence. The point of the deadline is so that the other party is incentivised to implement compliance in a reasonably timely fashion.

Otherwise, the arbitrary date of now isn't much different than that of a few months later.

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thank you. I request the defederation being traffic based rather than time based. Would that be fair?

[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

I mean, ultimately I'm just a user making a suggestion, of what sort of approach seems fair. I'm not certain what a reasonable time (or traffic) limit would be, exactly. I think if you were to make a suggestion to the admins, they'd likely accept it so long as it's reasonable.

[–] BillibusMaximus@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I've been around the block a few times, so maybe I'm just jaded.

My take is that it's a proprietary platform, siphoning user data/content to redisplay and monetize.

Additionally, my gut feeling is that they don't care about the community at all, and are just trying to leverage it to make money. They want to be the next reddit, and think the fediverse is their ticket. And I don't think anything I've seen so far indicates otherwise.

We block Threads, and I think we should block this, too, immediately. If, in the future, the situation changes and they actually "give and take" rather than just "take" , then it should be simple enough to refederate.

My 2c.

[–] baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If I wanted to start another Reddit, this is what I would do. Hell, siphoning content from Reddit is still done in many places on Lemmy to stock the pond. In this case, we have the opportunity to stop it before a competing platform takes off. If they’re not going to play by the rules of federation, they don’t deserve the bounty.

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hello @baggachipz@sh.itjust.works are there some documented rules of federation that I am missing? Please point me.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

rules of federation that I am missing

If you federate content in, federate your own content out

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is based on what feels fair to you and not a documented rule. The issue is that everyone has their own version of what is fair - federate out, self hosted, open source, attribution, usernames shown in particular way, exemption (or no exemption) for smaller sites based on time or traffic and so on.

In any case, this is a goal we are working towards. As we discussed before, this will be done before ClubsAll has any meaningful traffic.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But, to be honest, what I am bothered by, is the fact that the website doesn’t give an attribution in the UI about which instance certain users are from and which instance certain certain community are from.

https://slrpnk.net/comment/12723802

blocked for technical reason: scraper.

https://moist.catsweat.com/m/fediverse@lemmy.world/t/670763/-/comment/5352039

My concern in this is the integrity of the fediverse and its users. Yours, apparently, is “saving” a platform that leeches content off federated platforms to make a buck off those users. I don’t see much chance of agreement on “what is fair”.

https://kbin.earth/m/fediverse@lemmy.world/t/741461/-/comment/4153987

Can’t have it both ways of leeching the posts from other large instances while simultaneously making it an exclusive club where only local users can participate, it goes contrary to the social contract and spirit of the Fediverse.

https://lemmy.ca/comment/13413542

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

A few others have expressed concerns with attribution. So as suggested we will be changing username from /u/xyz to /u/xyz@domain.com . I hope that addresses your concern.

As you know, the comments are federated. Also, our development was blocked due to sublinks development being blocked. Also as I mentioned elsewhere we have 10 users with no posts, so users are missing out on exactly 0 posts. I am not having it both ways. At present we are sharing what we have (comments and 0 posts).

Also, we are working on making it better. I agree definition of fairness varies, but giving some time to new instances, especially the ones who are developing from scratch, is fairly reasonable. Let's say average 1 comment a day (i.e. 30 comments a month) can be seen by everyone (as we are federating) and is a very basic ask without hurting any other instances in community.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 2 points 4 days ago

If you fix the attribution, that would probably be good enough for a lot of people.

In the meantime, be ready for this kind of posts every 2-3 months.

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hi there, I am creator of clubsall. We absolutely do care about community.

There were many discussion few months ago. There were also private discussions with some admins. Because we are not lemmy based, so our development takes time (plus my developer left, plus we were trying to move to sublinks which itself has federation issues). So federation for us is not a config setting. Also, we are a very niche site with almost no traffic.

Additionally, different admins feel different rules are fair, so it is hard for us to know how to be good community members. I request a common set of rules, preferably based on traffic, so any newbie can get the breathing room to develop and participate. Does that sound fair?

[–] BillibusMaximus@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

We absolutely do care about community.

You can say that all you want, but actions speak louder than words.

Because we are not lemmy based, so our development takes time (plus my developer left, plus we were trying to move to sublinks which itself has federation issues). So federation for us is not a config setting.

You launched what you apparently considered to be your MVP, and it's a one-way leech of fediverse user content.

The fact that you were willing to launch without federation in place signals, at least to me, that you care far less about community participation than you do about the content the community produces.

Additionally, different admins feel different rules are fair, so it is hard for us to know how to be good community members.

Welcome to the fediverse, where every software stack works a little differently, and every server has its own rules.

I request a common set of rules, preferably based on traffic, so any newbie can get the breathing room to develop and participate. Does that sound fair?

You're asking for someone to give you a set of common rules across all instances? For unpaid users and/or volunteer admins to spend their time compiling this information just to provide it to you?

No, actually. To me that doesn't sound fair at all.

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Hi there, I am creator of clubsall.

Please see my updates. We are not intentionally blocking federation, we just do not have that capability (as we are not a lemmy instance). So I am requesting common fair set of rules, so I can save clubsall.

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I agree with this opinion. Do what you gotta do.

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Please see my updates. Let me know if my proposal is fair.

[–] PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Personally, I'm not too opposed to one-way federation, at least for the moment. They're not a large platform, nor particularly competitve with the more open Fediverse (for the moment). The lack of attribution on the other hand, is iffy, both in terms of giving OC creators proper attribution for their work, and in terms of reducing misinformation (IE showing .ml posts as standard news posts).

All that said, I don't think its a large enough issue to be concerned about for now. Give it like 3-6 months and see if things have changed (or if the problem has disappeared). This isn't like Threads where we have to worry about a billion dollar Embrace Extend Extinguish campaign. Who knows, if we're esspecially lucky, the site might grow into a better Fediverse alternative to Lemmy, or will grow and die in a way that sends positive users our way - something that would greatly benifit the Fediverse in it's current state.

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I am the creator of ClubsAll. Thank you for very well thought out and objective post. I am absolutely 110% hoping to create a better Fediverse alternative to lemmy.

While I am doing that, community support is highly appreciated. Thank you again.

[–] baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 weeks ago

ClubsAll is an ActivityPub-compatible Reddit clone.

Uh… I thought that’s what I’m on right now

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

One issue with the lack of attribution with canonical tags is it could break SEO, if that matters to you.

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I am creator of ClubsAll, can you ELI5 this to me. What is attribution with canonical tags and how does that break SEO for others?

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm on my phone at the moment, but this explains it pretty well https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/1418

Basically without it Google could either down rank both versions as duplicates, or find your version first and assume it's the original.

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Thank you. I will read it in detail and try to understand how to fix it. I am hoping this is easier fix than implementing federation out, so maybe I can have someone do this sooner.