@JMMaok @pensato @futurebird
@jeffjarvis @jayrosen_nyu
J, really good start, needs politics re known, well understood, provable unreliable sources, disinformation spreaders; need help from the Trust Project and the Journalism Trust Initiative from Reporters Without Borders
@craignewmark @JMMaok @pensato @futurebird @jeffjarvis @jayrosen_nyu
New, so learning, & have a question to clarify . I understand you are hoping to formalize an overall minimal standard for all instances & that would mean enforcement at some point . Which I assume would be universally having the same moderating body & list, or something similiar ? Also, want to note whatever happens the fact moderation with a fair ,open face is what happens here is an achievement & makes a difference .Ty
To talk about Mastodon in particular the moderation system is OK. I would like to see a ticket system where user reports would create a ticket that could be shared across servers (including notes and links to posts) I'd like to see an *option* to inform users who make reports about what happened.
I'd also like a true shadow-ban option-- limiting is close, but a way to mute a user over a whole server. (been dealing with people who keep making new accounts)
@futurebird yeah there are lots of opportunities for improvement in the moderation system.
@karger moderation's more than just labeling content. It's also about de-escalating situations before they turn into trashfires, protecting people and communities from bad actors, and reinforcing positive norms. People on an instance that prohibits hate speech shouldn't be able to choose "freeze peach" absolutists as their moderators. @jeffjarvis I assume @Zittrain's pitch to FB addressed this?
@karger @futurebird @jeffjarvis @Zittrain Instances are currently the primary mechanism for community in the fediverse so I'm not sure about the distinction you're making.
And Google actually does make decisions about what email to deliver and what to moderate by labeling it as social or spam.
This is analogous to how Twitch moderation works. There are service level expectations (no slurs, organized harassment, etc.) and then on a per channel basis (think instances) there are varying behavior expectations enforced by moderators for that channel (swearing? gameplay suggestions? talking about current events? sharing links?)
Service level expectations are enforced automatically when possible, but channel moderators are also responsible for enforcement.
@karger @drewww to @futurebird’s comment about channels vs instances… as far as I can tell, an instance is not a very meaningful center of community.
I have conversations about music, design, television programs, politics, etc., with different groups of people, and I don’t imagine centering those conversations around any particular instance.
Is there an equivalent of a subreddit (a place to have a conversation around a particular topic) in the fediverse?
@skuwamoto @karger @futurebird
This does seem like a big difference to me. Twitch channels have a single person as an organizing point. Subreddits have a topic. That is helpful at establishing norms and decision-making.
It's clear you're on "their" territory, as opposed to the way people say "my page" to refer to their social media presence, often. It does seem to me like the metaphors clash in a tricky way here.
Probably the best way is by following and using hash tags.
I'm on an instance with a lot of paleo-art people and paleontologists.
I care about math and bugs mostly and was worried for a bit I couldn't find the bug people. But I made a post that was just a long list of hash tags, then clicked them all, followed a bunch of the people I found AND followed the hash tags.
Last, tag your posts.
(Though I still could use more #ants people but that was thin on twitter too.)
@futurebird thanks!
My previous comment was in the context of moderation. People keep talking about how cool it is that different instances can have different moderation rules and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
To me, picking an instance is like picking an email server.
Any my question is: If I follow a topic hashtag, why would I want different people on that topic to have different moderation rules based on what server they picked?
Well that's the missing level of moderation between the fediverse and individual servers. In practice now there isn't a whole lot of difference if you are in fediverse servers although a new wave of expectations is spreading due to new users and changes in the activity of trolls.
If you aren't a mod or an admin, beyond picking a sever with a decent reputation IDEALLY *you* shouldn't need to think much about it.
Beyond maybe reporting something like once a month.
I'm not sure how following a hashtag interacts with what gets federated between servers and what safeguards are in place against harassment. I could certainly believe there are some missing aspects of moderation and/or curation that are missing.
also @skuwamoto mastodon.social is a point off the curve from experiences elsewhere on Mastodon. Many smaller servers have more community aspects. And, .social's connected to a lot of instances, so you see more of the conversation
@skuwamoto @futurebird It's an issue of governance; in general most instances have more or less the same rules, but the expected behavior of people is practically the same: Don't be racist, don't be a bigot, don't be an asshole.
Different servers have different rules because that's the nature of decentralization in a microblogging platform. It's not perfect, but it's something.
Regarding hashtags, well, I can't say they're equivalent to a subreddit. If you like to talk about a certain topic, then sure, but I'd say you can use hashtags to find people with similar interests to follow.
So yeah, you're right: There is indeed a discrepancy between your network and the hashtags you follow. The ideal would be to use something like groups or circles, but circles haven't been implemented yet on Mastodon, and to create a group you need to set up an account in some special server whose name I forgot. In short, it's complicated.
BTW, if you want something more similar to reddit, you can search for lemmy servers, where each server has its own set of rules and its own communities.
(example)
Could Guppe Groups be adapted to have moderators for each group?
IIUC, these groups are, like tags, not moderated, but have the advantage that they connect people in instances that otherwise are not connected.
Since posts/follows go thru the group's account, they could be moderated there, separately from instance moderation.
(Edit: it's a planned feature: https://github.com/immers-space/guppe/wiki/Guppe-Groups-FAQ#what-moderation-tools-are-available-for-guppe-groups)
If you think QT can be used for abuse... adding hashtags is a much more dangerous vector, especially if they are public.
If they are private, a personal system that's pretty harmless.
Mastodon Quick Start So you want to join the great migration? Great! Mastodon is like Twitter, but it's not owned by anyone, which is really good! Quick Start Tips: https://mastodonmigration.wordpress.com/2023/10/12/getting-started/ Just click 'Create account' on any open server like: https://mastodon.social https://mastodon.online https://universeodon.com https://mastodon.world https://mstdn.social or, for more options>>> https://joinmastodon.org/servers News, guidance, lists and more: https://medium.com/@mastodonmigration/sharing-advice-and-assisting-with-the-great-mastodon-migration-53c1a286b805 #twittermigration
@DrSprockets
Well, there's this: https://fedi.tips/how-to-use-mastodon-and-the-fediverse-basic-tips/
Search within for "instance".
I do think it's fair to say the median experience at this point IS those big generic instances, and the way people tend to show up is like on Twitter -- a bundle of interests, posts on a variety of topics. And I rarely see the moderation discourse here being about posts inappropriate to the theme of the instance. More about anti-social behavior generally.
Maybe norms will evolve in that direction, with topic-focused alts being more common.
@karger @skuwamoto @bhawthorne oh I was imagining something like the subreddit model — I have N accounts, one on each topic focused instance and primarily engage on “local” and don’t use following/home. Moderation is about keeping the shared local feed on topic.
This seems very clunky with current Mastadon but there are ways those practices could be facilitated in the UI.
@karger my understanding of your concept of moderation is to decouple moderation from instances and allow users to subscribe to moderation services.
Do you think of moderation mostly as filtering what I, as a subscriber, see?
@karger @drewww @bhawthorne my viewpoint is that the most harm comes from conversations around me, which blocking can’t help with.
To take an example that somewhat in the gray area… The Libs of TikTok account claims it is just spreading information. Others feel it is stoking a kind of mob mentality that could endanger people through brigading, etc
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