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Because we are talking about physical items.
The distance I would go to pick something up is relative to me, not relative to the server I'm connecting to. Shipping I may want to limit by country of origin/destination due to taxes or available shipping services.
It also means the issue of the user above - no one from North America even has a server option, which limits use. From a physical goods perspective, there is not a single option I'm aware of that limits region by server location.
Its always by user location.
No? The instance covers a certain geographic location, for example a city. So what you want is already included in that. Federation adds nearby city instances to the mix.
AFAIK all the major classified platforms (except ebay) are location limited very similar to the above.
I'm in the United States.
Can I join and see the city closest to me? Or search by distance from me?
Me, not the server. Because the descriptions sound like thats not the case.
You chose an instance that covers the geographic location you are interested in, for example your city. I don't get what is do hard to understand about that. Afaik Craigslist or what ever you call that US platform started out the same way.
So by server.
There are no online classifieds I know of that work like that.
All the ones I know work like that here in Europe, except ebay (and even they have country specific pages).
Craigslist, freecycle, Facebook market, offerup - they all go by user region, not server region.
I literally linked you the Craigslist FAQ above that shows that they have server specific locations, just like Flohmarkt.
I think youre misunderstanding that page - those are regions, they are not server specific. You aren't connecting to a different physical server hopping between 5 different cities across the United States (well you might be with CDNs but thats kind of besides the point).
They are designations - like an MQTT topic or a community here on Lemmy/piefed.
I can start a local community for my city here on anarchist.nexus, and a friend can create one for his local city in Canada. Its the same server, but the regions covered are different.
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.
I also can't create an community on Lemmy with an account from another instance.
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 can easily create a post for any location without requiring an account for that instance.
Hashtags are only search filters, nothing gets posted anywere.
And Lemmy is designed like that because it doesn't aim to be location specific, unlike classified ads pages where that is the design goal.
Please explain to me how I, as a user in the United States, can use flohmarkt, with the current servers available and online today.
You set up a server with the software that is available to you today 🤷 Don't hide behind self-inflicted learned helplessness to be a lazy capitalist consumer...
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.
https://www.craigslist.org/about/help/posting/features/location
So what do you call this?
There aren't servers in each of those locations.
Its a designated region for users to make use of. User based, not server based.
What? That is 100% exactly like Flohmarkt works with server specific locations.
Maybe there is some miscommunication here.
Does the user determine their geographic region of themselves as a user, or is that determined by the server?
(Again, Craigslist works by the user picking a location, there is absolutely not a physical server at those locations)
You can chose your geographic location by chosing the instance that covers the geographic location you are interested in, just like you chose the location of the server in Craigslist.
Obviously the server is on the internet an can be physically hosted where ever 🙄
No, I can't.
Because as you just said, the server is limiting the region. Making it server and not user.
There is no server for my region (or continent), so its not something I can use without standing up my own server.
I would not consider that a good design. Its extremely limiting to adoption and expansion.
There is no server yet. Just like Craiglist doesn't have a server for any place outside of the US afaik. Flohmarkt is very new and apparently more popular in Europe otherwise it is the same.
I think you are confusing Flohmarkt with an online retailer market like Amazon or Alibaba.
Classified listings have always worked by being location specific, and that is their main appeal and why they are popular. Flohmarkt is copying that exact tried and true design and just expands it a bit with region based federation.
There shouldn't need to be is my point. Its an arbitrary limitation.
Thats a business decision, purely. They charge for certain types of postings.
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".
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.
Not based on where the server is set to. Based on where the user or item is.
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.
Good reply, I was coming to that conclusion based on the same response from them on my example of buying from another area. It is very odd that anyone would place such limits on functionality on an internet-bound platform.
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.
And a federated one at that! Creating silos like this is... Counter intuitive.
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.
Yes but I can hi to Facebook market place Kijiji whatever and say search here at this distance. I'm not limited to searching Sweden because I joined a Swedish server.
Well, that is the difference between a centralized system like Facebook and a decentralized system like the Fediverse.
But why would you not join a Swedish instance that lists only Swedish offers when you live in Sweden and are interested in offers near you?
Flohmarkt isn't a social media site or a global market place for ordering cheap crap from China 🤷
Decentralization is not the issue here. This is a design choice that doesn't understand how the service will be used.
In the example of my country, Canada, let's say I have two flohmarkt servers: east and west. To look for a certain make and model of car, I have to check my region first, then sign out, sign back into the other region?
Why would anyone continue to use this as a shopping mechanism?
This is for a classified page. Why would you expect to find offers from the other side of the country in it, especially for a large country like Canada?
That would be highly confusing and prevent browsing the listing for interesting offers near you.
Classified pages are not search tools for finding highly specialized offers to order by mail from the other side of the country. They are local listings for buying used stuff that that you might have not even have known you want before browsing the listing.
That is not how I nor anyone I know uses our listings on Kijiji. I go to look for specific things i don't want to buy new. I do not browse used stuff for sale. I've personally bought motorbikes 600km away because the search area has to be bigger for more niche items. I also set up the sale of a car to a guy 1800km away via kijiji.
I couldn't do either of these using flohmarkt, so it isn't really useful to me, federated or not.
Someone could set up a Flohmarkt instance specifically for motorbikes which would probably serve that niche better.
Classified pages are however not predominantly used like that, at least here.
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 this is a location specific classified page and not a global social network obviously 🙄
I really don't get how this is so hard to understand. 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.
So.... whats the point in federation?
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.
Commercial centralized online classified systems have a massive problem with ads from commercial sellers as a result, yes. Is that really what you want?
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.
There is no distinction between users and admins. You can set up your own instance if you feel like there is a demand for it in your city. That is how decentralized community owned systems work. The same is true for Lemmy.
I'm sorry, but this is an absolute horror show of a sentence.
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?
It is a good design goal to foster decentralisation.
And the creator of an instance can and should hand over responsibility to a local coop or at least a different person still interested in the location the Flohmarkt instance caters to.
And please stop demeaning yourself as a user. Are you a drug addict or what?
Its a shitty design that fosters silos.
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.
It seems like on CL the city labels are mostly for human readable convenience and behind the scenes it's by distance. You can set a distance from any point:
This is correct.
You used to have to go by city/metro area only, but now you can do it by search area. That said, you can alter your metro area or search radius at any point.