From: yeti@tilde.institute   
      
   Marco Moock  wrote:   
      
   > I've tried fediverse, but I still don't like the concept of the short   
   > messages, especially when people post long text on multiple posts.   
      
   The nodes in the Fediverse are very diverse:   
      
   + Message lengths range from 500 chars to unlimited.   
      
   + Some nodes have no ways to format stuff, others can use simple text,   
     MarkDown and HTML to spice up things.  "Simple text" unfortunately   
     isn't fit for code snippets.  So they even got plain text wrong by   
     reflowing it and butchering indentation.   
      
   + Some nodes can use hashtags, some cannot.   
     (Or has that changed meanwhile?)   
      
   And can you imagine sitting in an instance without usable markup and   
   limited to 500 chars and then huge beautifully formatted posts from   
   other instances fly by?   
      
   I think this feature inequality will doom the Fediverse in the long run.   
      
   > I enjoy Usenet and I enjoy that it is text-only   
      
   Plain text that does not get butchered on the fly is more useful than   
   even MarkDown in the Fediverse and I have never had a post rejected   
   because of its size.[0]   
      
   I clearly prefer Email and NNTP[1] over the new global noise.  Hashtags   
   not being able to mimic newsgroups even when they are supported leaves   
   you with only some separated typically very noisy timelines.  On small   
   instances the purely server local TL is kind of bearable like a small   
   forum, but big instances' local TLs aren't much different from the   
   global TL which imo is just noise.  Even assuming hashtags would work on   
   all instances, hashtag hygiene is near to impossible to reach in large   
   crowds.  So groups, rooms or however you may want to call them need   
   "solid walls" and I see no way ti get those there..   
      
   > and not full of pictures and memes.   
      
   I definitely have no problem with HTML and images in posts gated from   
   RSS or mailing lists to NNTP.  Those origins have their own rules and   
   having all this side by side with Usenet in the same reader definitely   
   is nicer than needing to get used to an extra program, UI, keystrokes,   
   ... for each type of those.   
      
   ____________   
      
   0: I've even disabled "beautifying" *b*, /i/, _ul_ in my newsreader to   
      not disturb tables and ASCII art and I expect every serious Usenet   
      user to use a monospaced font as default or to know how to toggle   
      their reader's rendering on the fly.  This might be kept for an other   
      rant in some long winter night.   
      
   1: IMO: SMTP + NNTP = the original Fediverse   
      
   --   
                     Sent from an EmacsOS app named GNUS.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)