curbstickle

It is very odd that anyone would place such limits on functionality on an internet-bound platform.

And a federated one at that! Creating silos like this is… Counter intuitive.

I’m having trouble understanding if this person is representative of flohmarkt or not, but either way, I don’t think they understand any of our questions or arguments.

They admin slrpnk.net, no idea of their involvement with flohmarkt.

I think its safe to say they don’t understand or don’t care about any concerns though, agreed.

It is a good design goal to foster decentralisation.

Its a shitty design that fosters silos.

And please stop demeaning yourself as a user. Are you a drug addict or what?

Stop being an asshole. I’m explaining a position and a use case, which is used for good software design.

This is a shit design. Many others have said the same and expressed their concern. You have decided to act like an asshole for no reason while I tried to explain why its a problematic design. You do that from a user perspective.

There is zero reason for you to suddenly behave like a rotten kid who was just told his toy wasn’t made well. Grow the fuck up.

Ok, now you’re just being an asshole rather than understanding why its a design problem.

We are absolutely done with this conversation now. Goodbye.

So what I’m reading is basically:

All the people who would like to use flohmarkt but can’t today can shut up or set up a server.

That is a really shitty answer.

There is no distinction between users and admins.

I’m sorry, but this is an absolute horror show of a sentence.

You can set up your own instance if you feel like there is a demand for it in your city.

Why would I need a whole new instance for that? What benefit is there to locking an instance to a region rather than a listing to a region?

Its not a technical limitation. Its not even a functional limitation for the trade or sale of someone’s stuff.

What happens when that server owner changes their region that they live?

Do you expect each person to stand up their own instance?

How do I, as a user, and lets assume I don’t have the technical ability or the infrastructure necessary to support standing up my own instance, use flohmarkt in the United States?

What technical reason is there for this limitation?

What functional reason is there for this limitation?

Please explain to me how I, as a user in the United States, can use flohmarkt, with the current servers available and online today.

Yes you need an account from the specific Mastodon instance to post on that Mastodon instance.

That was a Lemmy comment, but my mastadon post goes to all mastodon instances, regardless of region. Filtering or subscription is by hashtag or user. I do not get region-locked by my server to make a post, to read a post, to interact with a post.

But anyways, that is besides the point. A classified listing is by design lioation specific. All your argument seems to boil down to is that you are annoyed that you don’t have centralized accounts to log into different classified pages 🤷

No, that is not my complaint.

I, as a user, cannot use this solution. I have no way to use it, as a user, because the server determines region, not the user. I, as a user, have no way to interact with flohmarkt or my local or regional community, for reasons of a design decision that is not relevant in any way to a user or a listing.

I, as a user, can’t use flohmarkt, because the design of it does not allow me to. An arbitrary, unnecessary, forced limitation. Simple as that.

Commercial centralized online classified systems have a massive problem with ads from commercial sellers as a result, yes.

Lets go to the example from earlier - craigslist. They do not do advertisements. Specific types of listings cost money. That is how craigslist makes money.

Do you mean sellers who make listings in many locations? Does flohmarkt have any controls to prevent that? Because from what I can see… no, it doesn’t.

Again, lets return to the actual problem:

How do I, as a user in the United States, join and participate? As a user, not an admin. Right now.

I can’t post on a Mastodon instance with another instance account, only comment on people’s posts. This is the same way Flohmarkt does federation.

Can you create a hashtag for australia with your account on a US server? Can you create a hashtag for France while living in Poland? Can you create a post with a hashtag for Romania while living in Scotland?

I also can’t create an community on Lemmy with an account from another instance.

I can easily create a post for any location without requiring an account for that instance.

not a global social network obviously

So… whats the point in federation?

This is how all of these classified pages have always worked all the way back to when they were still printed in local newspapers or were just a pinboard in the local supermarket.

It is exactly how classifieds in newspapers or a board at a supermarket works, yes!

It is in no way how an online classified system (craigslist, ebay, offerup, etc) works.

Why would a classified site for Berlin allow you to post ads for Chicago? Just use a classifed site for Chicago 🤷

Because the same user regularly travels to both. A separate post would be absolutely fine, but I shouldn’t need an entirely different site for that. Its a listing.

And no, the Federation model of Flohmarkt is like Mastodon, Lemmy is the odd one out, but also Lemmy does not allow starting communities on other servers. You need a local account for that.

I do not need to create an account on a different server to post on that server.

I only need the one account. I am not blocked from posting in lemmy.ca because I live in the US, I’m not blocked from posting in midwest.social because I don’t live in the midwest.

Reputation via buyer/seller history on eBay. Not so much on craigslist.

On reddit, you’d have a bot that tracked purchases and sales and their successes, which would automatically post reputation on new posts/comments in each thread.

Lets say I live in the United Stats for 6 months out of the year, Spain for 2 months, Japan for 2 months, and Brazil for 2 months. Based on this design, I need servers to exist in 4 different regions.

Why?

If I’m on anarchist.nexus, I can browse lemmy.ca. I can make a local community on anarchist.nexus for my town. A user from feddit.dk can then browse and chat with me. Maybe they lived there? Maybe they’ll be back for a month in a few weeks! They can post about that in my extremely localized community.

If we switch that to items - that user from feddit.dk can’t post a listing to my local community, can they?

Why is it determined by a server region? Why isn’t it, for example, a server dedicated to listings about sports memorabilia? Do I care where the signed baseball I want to buy is? Do I care where the buyer is from that wants my tennis racket I’ve put up for sale?

What relevance is the region to the server? The relevance is to the listing.

Because the ability to post is locked to a server’s region.

As you said, I can’t go in and browse the United States listings. Why? What technical reason is there to prevent me, as a user, from wanting to join?

NOT as an admin. As a user.

Lets think of this like mastodon and hashtags for a second. If the hashtag were a location, why would I need to join aus.social to see the hashtag location for Australia? Why would I need to join mstdn.ca to see the hashtags for Canada?

I think the flohmarkt design inherently works the opposite of other federated designs. It is limiting by design, limiting server use by region, rather than what a user is choosing to follow.

I’m concerned I’m not explaining something properly, so if there is a part that isn’t making sense to you, let me know.

No, I’m complaining that the server determines a user and items location.

You don’t need centralization for that. If I’m making a post, I should be able to set the location for the item at that point - this information is federated, so then the user’s server is irrelevant, only the location the user sets is relevant.

That is what makes this a bad design. It has nothing to do with centralization.

Sites are not physical. Sites are not locked at signup. You are misunderstanding how Craigslist (and others) work.

What this page is saying is “If you post in the Berlin section, and want to offer it in Los Angeles, you need to make a new post”.

You don’t need a different account, a different server, or to otherwise associate with a different region.

I’d be happy to explain if there is a part here that is confusing, I’m really not sure what you are not understanding on this.

I’m also not putting down the idea of a federated marketplace, I would love it.

I just think its a bad design to rely on a server setting that users have no control over. What happens if that host moves to an entirely different region? They have to keep serving that region? They can change it and all those listings are invalid?

It isnt a good design.

This is like all the popular classified websites work.

You would be better off describing this like newspaper classifieds.

Flohmarket does not, in any way thats relevant, work the way that Craigslist, OfferUp, eBay, etc work. There is no region locking with those services by server location.

There is no server yet

There shouldn’t need to be is my point. Its an arbitrary limitation.

Just like Craiglist doesn’t have a server for any place outside of the US afaik.

Thats a business decision, purely. They charge for certain types of postings.

Flohmarkt is very new and apparently more popular in Europe otherwise it is the same.

Its really not though - there is no technical reason to lock a user to a region or business reason like with Craigslist. It was a design decision.

One that limits use and adoption.

I’m glad its working out well in Europe! I, as an american, can’t use it without standing up a server and then being host to all of the United States (or North America? No idea).

Not “don’t want to” but “can’t”.

I think you are confusing Flohmarkt with an online retailer market like Amazon or Alibaba.

All of my earlier examples are direct comparisons. I’m not confusing it with anything.

I just think it wasn’t a well thought out design.

Classified listings have always worked by being location specific

Not based on where the server is set to. Based on where the user or item is.

Flohmarkt is copying that exact tried and true design

I would say they are copying hyper-localized newspaper classifieds, including the hyper-localized aspect, which caused newspaper classifieds to stop being used by the overwhelming majority of people when alternatives like Craigslist, eBay, and even Facebook market came about.

Tried, yes. True… Well, I’d have to disagree.

Craigslist does not work that way, no.

You can change the region you are looking at any time you’d like. You are in no way locked in by a region or the signup process.

You are asked for a location to direct you to your local community/topic/subdirectory. You can then change that location at any time by browsing the location section of the site. You can see this now if you’d like, go to Craigslist and click the location dropdown in the upper left, and you can change where you want to browse at any time.

This isn’t a centralized platform.

Its federated, thats not really a problem.

No you can’t.

Thats the problem.

I’ll ask again - can I join any server and set my location and get local content for me, here in the United States where there is currently no server listed as being online or available?

Edit: to be clear, if I can - great! The descriptions kind of suck then and should be changed.

If not, then yeah - I would not consider that a good design/model for classifieds.