Aurynn ShawWell, if you're interested in such things, I wrote up a case study on the Raspberry Pi thing that happened yesterday/today
https://eiara.nz/posts/2022/Dec/09/a-case-study-on-raspberry-pis-incident-on-the-fediverse/
Matt Brown@aurynn I’m just glad to see that “main character” drama has survived the journey from Twitter
@mattbrown I’d rather it didn’t, and I’d rather we as admins suppressed it
@aurynn I don't think you can. The cat's out the bag, Mastodon's popular now. It's eternal September on here.
@mattbrown I mean, I can, I can just delete posts
@aurynn how exactly would that work? Will you delete all the posts on your instance that discuss the controversy to deter similar future pile-ons?
@mattbrown all I can affect is my own instance, and ask other admins to think about how to prevent pile-on behaviour on theirs
@aurynn so are you going to delete all the posts on your instance that reference RPi? Otherwise I'm confused what the plan of action is to avoid main characters in the future
@mattbrown Okay you're going seriously into reply guy territory here
@aurynn I'm sorry, that's not my intention! Let's start over. Though I've had accounts over the years, I've really only been on Mastodon for a month. Speaking personally, I'm not looking for an all-new experience. I'm looking for a Twitter-like experience, but without the Musk dude running it. I donate to a couple of instances in the hopes that Mastodon can become a viable off-ramp for much of Twitter.
@mattbrown Right. A lot of us here don't want the Twitter culture like that to take hold, and that negativity to take root. That it's happening isn't great, and as an admin I want to keep the positive vibes here around longer.
@aurynn you type too fast! I see you trying to keep as Mastodon a kindler, gentler place, but I don't think that can work unless you designate a network of instances that share both a specific set of left-wing values and a desire to avoid drama. It's the second one that I think is a bigger sticking point, because many humans of every possible political persuasion find drama interesting.
@mattbrown It's an emergent effect that's already happening to some extent - this blog post really goes into why it's so interesting:
https://escapingtech.com/tech/opinions/i-was-wrong-about-mastodon-moderation.html
@aurynn sure, but what does a no-pile-on moderation policy look like? For example, lots of users on your instance are making pretty reasonable posts with the RPi hashtag. In the aggregate it looks like a villain-of-the-week pile-on, but most of the posts aren't really abusive. And I can't find anything in your CoC that explicitly prohibits that behaviour (absent a request from the RPi that people stop talking about them).
@mattbrown hmm I thought I had no dogpiling in my CoC
@aurynn it's only against the CoC if you're encouraging others to reply to someone who has asked people to stop. It's also often hard for people to imagine what they're posting constitutes harrassment, because they can be writing something that to them seems completely reasonable.
Even moreso if the villain-of-the-week is successful in business, so the negative comments can be seen as "punching up". And extra-especially if the villain-of-the-week has defended *policing*.
@aurynn given that context I don't see how you would go about deleting users' posts without them saying you're "on the side of the oppressor".
Chilly Dee Williams@aurynn This was a really good explanation of how it works. Thanks for sharing this.
@rogerriddle Thank you!
🍵 holly@mattbrown @aurynn One of my favorite websites, Metafilter, deletes posts that pile on, instigate drama, or otherwise seek to derail genuine discussions. The result is it’s a site where I read the comments first and the linked content after. Yes: deleting posts is an effective way to moderate. It should come with up-front communication from moderators on what content they will delete, and followed up with letting the poster know the reason for deletion.
@mattbrown @aurynn There are instances that will delete your post if you use the letter “e”. Another that will delete your post if you post anything other than “e” (dolphin.town). And I believe there’s another where you must post as the Star Trek character of you avatar. Instances have the freedom to set whatever rules they want, and rules around preserving civil discourse are entirely reasonable.
@mattbrown @aurynn Each instance can choose to remove what posts it wants from its own instance. This place works because people are free to make those decisions locally, and if the decisions they make are good, more people stay federated with them. The question is, will not deleting drama-inciting posts get your instance defederated and isolated? Because no instance here is forced to keep hosting another instance’s annoying content.
@mattbrown @aurynn But please reassure him that I do read the links before I post in the comments on Metafilter so I don’t get in trouble 😉
@holly the problem is in identifying drama-inciting posts. It’s one thing if they’re all responding to a single post, but what if they’re independent of it? And how do you delete without seeming to side with the target (which might be, for example, a decent-sized company that can probably take the heat)
Trisha Lynn 🇵🇭 🇺🇸 🇨🇦@mattbrown @aurynn Lovely discussion you're having. Mind if I join?
I think that humans are fallible and for the most part, there will always be the urge to point and pick at vulnerable situations and people. However, I think I may have a little more faith in how much people would rather feel safe than enjoy drama.
Helping encourage the creation and proliferation of stronger moderation tools and the tech-setting in which it would thrive would be a good thing, hey?
@trishalynn @mattbrown I personally want better moderation tools, but unfortunately we are at the whim of Eugen, much to my frustration
@aurynn @mattbrown I'll have to look into more about how Masto works before I can participate further.