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.
🍵 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 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)