Dan HonNov 25, 2022

Please understand that some of us are both optimistic and see wonderful potential here *and* don't want the same or similar mistakes to be made again.

There's so much experience to be drawn on, and it feels like excitement and optimism in technical protocols is pushing aside lessons. Everyone wants a better social network. There are real concerns.

Felipe LavínNov 26, 2022
Show threadDan Hon
For over 30 years we've seen the patterns and skills required when an individual starts an online community *regardless of protocol or software* and there are a bunch of invariants that have *nothing* to do with the skill of "administering and operating a software service". Community management is different from content moderation is different from system administration and we're *lucky* whenever a person or group happens to be good enough at all three.
Nov 25, 2022 at 8:27pmWeb
Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022

The trite version of this is: Being an instance admin/starting one is much more for life than your regular co-opted pagan holiday now associated with a dominant global soft drink brand.

And the cost is if you get it wrong -- the different community management and content moderation parts -- then we collectively lose trust. Protocols won't ever fix that. They might make good management and moderation *easier* through tools, but they'll always be human decisions.

Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022
Like my friend @fraying said, *federation doesn't fix the problems of community management and moderation*, but it is certainly *is* a tool. It is also an exceedingly blunt one. And like many tools because it is powerful, it can also make it easy to ignore or set aside the depth, context and difficulty of decisions.
Show threadblaineNov 25, 2022

@danhon @fraying 💯 to all of this. The one thing I'd add and meant to earlier on one of @fraying's threads (but just totally overloaded) is that topological determinism *is a thing* in the corporate-owned monopoly scenario. There is only *one* outcome there, and it's "do what the landlord says." If you're lucky, he'll agree with you, but it's Machiavellian *at best*.

Here, we at least have the *possibility* to break out of that. Not guaranteed by any stretch, but *possible*.

Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 25, 2022
@blaine @danhon the idea that “more landlords is better than fewer landlords” seems ahistorical to me at best. As for determinism, well, again, citation needed.
Show threadblaineNov 25, 2022

@fraying @danhon so much respect, but this is a very America-centric/colonial perspective.

We have *so many* conversations where the answer is "just regulate it, speak to your congressperson" and I and 7.6 billion other people are like IN WHAT JURISDICTION!?

Also: they don't have to be landlords. @timbray and @evan and others are working on setting up an Actual Cooperative and others exist, too. This can be collaborative if we let it be & do the work.

Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 25, 2022
@blaine @danhon @timbray @evan you are attributing things to me that I did not say.
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 25, 2022
@blaine @danhon the corporate web gave us Elon running Twitter but it also gave us Craig thumbing his nose at the growth mentality and running Craigslist in a totally different way. It gave us Zuck but it also gave us Wikipedia. Saying it only ends one way is overstating things a bit.
Show threadblaineNov 25, 2022
@fraying @danhon Craigslist is irrelevant in 2022, 100% replaced by FB marketplace. Wikipedia edit culture is toxic as fuck and has been for some time and needs to be forked, but also can't be. These aren't great examples, unfortunately.
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 25, 2022
@blaine @danhon irrelevant by what standard? 100% Are you serious? You’re making blanket statements and then ignoring any examples you don’t like, which is not a great way to have a conversation
Show threadblaineNov 25, 2022
@fraying @danhon I can't speak for everywhere, but Craigslist is 100% spam around here and London, where I have lived. You couldn't safely give something away there.
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 25, 2022
@blaine @danhon where I live in rural America it’s still basically core infrastructure. So maybe you’re the one who needs to expand your thinking a bit.
Show threadblaineNov 25, 2022
@fraying @danhon I think you're arguing for a federated model here? I'm really confused. All I was saying is that Craigslist isn't a monopolistic infrastructure. It just isn't a good example of something that "owns the space globally"
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 25, 2022
@blaine @danhon go back and read my very short thread again and stop putting words in my mouth.
Show threadblaineNov 25, 2022

@fraying @danhon https://xoxo.zone/@fraying/109406594323469992 "the idea that more landlords is better than fewer landlords is ahistorical" I read as "the Empire was good, actually"

I realize that's not what you said, but that's how it comes across to people on the wrong side of landlords. I think your statement is categorically wrong, and would need to see volumes and volumes of citations to believe otherwise.

Derek Powazek (@[email protected])

@[email protected] @[email protected] the idea that “more landlords is better than fewer landlords” seems ahistorical to me at best. As for determinism, well, again, citation needed.

XOXO Zone
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 25, 2022

@blaine @danhon let me be clear because you’re clearly bad at reading:

Fuck off.

Show threadDmitri | 🇺🇦Nov 25, 2022

@fraying
hey.. that's more than a bit rude. you ok mate?

@blaine @danhon

Show threadCharles RoperNov 25, 2022
@blaine @fraying @danhon Craigslist has always been poor in UK as far as I can remember. Never had a good experience with it. Gumtree and ebay much better. Didn't even realise FB Marketplace was a thing until you mentioned it. Never heard it come up in general conversation either (as in "I got it on FB Marketplace"), so not sure it is culturally embedded like ebay/gumtree.
Show threadblaineNov 25, 2022

@fraying @danhon but I didn't say it ends badly! I just said it ends, inevitably, with a landlord that you hope you agree with.

To think that this is okay is a colonial mindset, in my mind. It's hard; this is our world. Maybe it's better for most people. Indigenous people around here would disagree. 💔

Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 25, 2022

@blaine @danhon Blane, you’re purposely misrepresenting what I’ve said and you’ve offended me by calling me colonial when I’ve said nothing of the sort.

It’s almost like federation hasn’t stopped you from acting like you’re on Twitter, which was my original point.

Show threadblaineNov 25, 2022

@fraying @danhon I mean, same. 💜

We've had this out before and patched it up. Let's not go down the other path.

Our job right now is to hold eachother to account. @harper has been bullying me, in a nice way, on Signal, for a while. It's good, and I appreciate the challenge.

I'm not saying you're a bad person. Far from it. You're the opposite, and I have so much respect for you.

Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 25, 2022
@blaine @danhon @harper I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about anymore. I haven’t said the things you’re responding to, I haven’t called you any names, and I suggest you spend more time listening before you reply like this.
Show threadblaineNov 25, 2022
@fraying @danhon @harper but we do have biases, and as someone who doesn't have an American passport and can't vote there, I need you to hear that when an American says that topologically centralized regulation or moderation isn't necessarily a bad thing, it lands very differently than it would if we were on equal footings from a regulatory perspective. 💜
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 25, 2022

@blaine @danhon @harper show me where I said anything like that.

And ad hominems aren’t “holding to account.”

Show threadblaineNov 25, 2022
@fraying @danhon @harper having a colonial bias isn't an ad-hominem. That frankly shitty perspective is getting anarchists banned on twitter right now. I have a colonial perspective that I have to fight against every day. I'm not attacking you; I'm saying your privilege is showing. 💜
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 25, 2022

@blaine @danhon @harper

Just stop.

If you want to be a leader in this space, which you clearly do, you need to work on the way you talk to people.

But for now, stop. This is going nowhere.

Show threadblaineNov 25, 2022
@fraying @danhon @harper same, dude, same. 😢
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 25, 2022
@blaine @danhon @harper And for the record, my people have been kicked out of every place we’ve ever been allowed to live, shoved into ovens and ghettos, and my father was born in a displaced persons camp after a fucking Holocaust, so calling me a colonizer (ahem “colonialist mindset”) is both wrong and fucking insulting. So maybe think twice before jumping to that line next time someone has a point that doesn’t perfectly line up with yours.
Show threadfilipa mvNov 26, 2022

@blaine @fraying @danhon

i don’t know any of you & i apologize for weighing in on a fraught post; but i read this a few hours ago and i’ve been thinking about it ever since.

the pain & displacement you describe is real and awful, but i think it’s worth reflecting that all people of non-Indigenous descent in N. America are settler-colonizers.

the land we occupy was stolen; we’re all a little complicit. cheers,

Show threadFrederik ElwertNov 26, 2022
@fraying Huh, how did Wikipedia end up being an example for the corporate web? 🤔
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 26, 2022
@felwert a nonprofit corporation is still a corporation.
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 26, 2022
@[email protected] @danhon to be clear, Airbnb gave us way more landlords and it has been terrible for communities.
Show threadThornbill9Nov 25, 2022
@blaine @danhon @fraying I guess I’m at heart a socialist rather than an anarchist because I would rather have (try) to have a central institution to establish standards of moderation, no matter how flawed, than have a million different instances try to go their own way and the rest of us be overrun by the most permissive. The reality is community moderation is expensive, and it’s really not sustainable to not pay for it nor have some centralized community standards to be accountable to
Show threadjrgNov 26, 2022
@danhon What a show. Is it really that complicated? A simplified answer is people will use what is best for them and the underlying sociological implications are usually not relevant to a typical user.
Show threadDan HonNov 26, 2022
@jrg Edge cases -- your "non-typical user" -- are people.
Show threadjrgNov 26, 2022
@danhon Agreed. In the case of of the above, the conversation seems to revolve around debating whether or not a methodology of services is good or evil. That is a matter of perspective as we have all seen with this mess. Edge users will choose a corner. At least #mastodon has shown people that they do not have to be vendor locked.
Show threadShoqNov 25, 2022
@danhon Dan, if asked to point out 3 great community founders we can all learn from, who might you suggest?