[ulrikrasmussen]

I'm sorry, but aren't web sites already federated? I don't understand what the technical contribution is here. If we wanted to build a federated network of wikis (do we?), then links to articles are just links and identity is provided by OpenID Connect.

What have I misunderstood?

> Instead of individual, centralized websites there will be an interconnected network of encyclopedias. This means the same topic can be treated in completely different ways. For example geology.wiki/article/Mountain may be completely different different from poetry.wiki/article/Mountain. There can be Ibis instances strictly focused on a particular topic with a high quality standard, and others covering many areas in layman’s terms. Others may document fictional universes from television series or videogames. If one instance is badly moderated or presents manipulated information, an alternative can easily be created. Yet all of them will be interconnected, and users can read and edit without leaving their home website.

This is absurd. You are describing WWW, except for the "without leaving their home website" bit, but I don't know why that feature is so important to you. You can just replace that by "without leaving their home browser of choice".

[kemayo]

I think the bit that makes it "federated" is that they want to use ActivityPub to synchronize articles between servers.

Based on https://github.com/Nutomic/ibis#federation I think the practical impact of this would be that it'd be easy to have your personal Ibis instance be a fork of some big mainstream one, where the only difference is that e.g. your version of the Pigeons article explains that birds aren't real, but everything else is automatically kept in sync.

I'm not convinced this is particularly worthwhile, or much of an improvement over the existing "run a wiki" workflow.

[mdaniel]

My experience with the Fediverse thus far also implies that one could run a copy of any such "federated wiki" that has all the same(?) content as other origins but that actually renders on mobile or without JavaScript or via the Gemini protocol or whatever else since it decouples content from presentation. In theory, I would guess that if this also went so far as to incorporate IPFS it could also share the actual storage burden, too, so there wouldn't have to be 4999 copies of the exact same pigeon text (along with 4999 cute pigeon pictures) stored on 4999 different servers plus the one where birds aren't real

[oefrha]

My impression as well. I could be totally wrong, but it feels like the work of someone who’s got the fediverse hammer and who’s also too immersed in the social media one-place-to-consume-them-all mindset to realize the absurdity.

[hirako2000]

There are aspects of federation that are stricter than the web.

It isn't that you are wrong as there is some overlap but here are a few properties that federation assures, that the web doesn't.

The web is decentralized. What's served on the web isn't necessarily decentralized.

- Server Decentralization: Federated systems use a decentralized network (www), and are themselves decentralized, meaning the servers that forms the federated network are decentralized, there is no single central authority controlling the network. multiple servers run by different individuals or organizations communicate with each other to share content and data, via:

- Interoperability: different platforms can communicate and share data seamlessly, and also enables easier:

- Privacy and Control as users are given alternative servers, which may operate very different policies, or can run their own if policies from this or that server don't fit their liking, compared to centralized platforms. all ultimately run on the same web but since users can choose which server to join or even host their own, they have more autonomy over their online presence and data.

Analogy with selling buckets of paint:

- Centralization of that service is a one stop shop re-selling exclusive delux white and blue paints.

- Federation of that service is multiple shops, selling white and blue paints. By a maker not moved about the idea of shops selling to each others, not interested in making it exclusive and letting any shops offering other colors.

- the web is all the streets