Jesse"Voting with your feet" is a backstop not a first resort. The first resort should be democratic decision making. We should not accept instances where the users don't collectively have ultimate authority over policy and defederation decisions.
As long as each instance is a (hopefully benevolent) dictatorship, you can't really say this isn't feudalism. As long as users are in charge, you can't really say it is. That's the difference.
That was an atrocious construction but you know what I mean.
We need to start another fedi pact for democratic governance. And a complimentary user pact not to join another instance that is not a signatory.
Kyle Thayer@misc do you know of any descriptions or guides or recommendations for community run instances?
(Also, I think individually run personal instances should be exempt)
@kylethayer The ones I know of are cosocial.ca and social.coop. My understanding is that hachyderm.io, while not fully user governed, takes care to be transparent with its rules and decision making process. I’m not aware of a guide, but I think that would be good. Certainly single user instances should be exempt - I’d even think very small ones that are effectively consensus driven. This are definitely standards that would need to evolve.
@misc Ok, this is a thread of my first pass of what a #FediGovernancePact might look like.
Anyone feel free to copy/change anything if you think there is something useful here. And if people like this (or something like it) let's try to figure out how to share and get more input (and community buy-in) on this:
#FediGovernancePact (post 1)
Goals:
- community governance of Fedi projects and instances
- make the Fediverse more welcoming
@misc #FediGovernancePact (post 2)
Why these goals?
- Community governance: having individually-run projects/instances leads to a feudalistic system, where the "benevolent dictators" duke it out over legitimate or petty conflicts. Users on those systems/servers have little say in these conflicts and may be forced to migrate servers (and only some things migrate). Also, this puts an unfair burden on the lone "benevolent dictator" to act perfectly always.
@misc #FediGovernancePact (post 3)
- make the Fediverse more welcoming: There are groups of people who have found the Fediverse unwelcoming, such as Black users, journalists, non-technical background users. We want to make this a more welcoming place for them. (note: we do **NOT** want to be welcoming to racism, transphobia, harassment, etc.). (further reading in next post):
@misc #FediGovernancePact (post 4)
- The Whiteness of Mastodon: https://techpolicy.press/the-whiteness-of-mastodon/
- Black Twitter, quoting, and white views of toxicity on Mastodon: https://privacy.thenexus.today/black-twitter-quoting-and-white-toxicity-on-mastodon/
- The Affordance Loop: https://erinkissane.com/the-affordance-loop
- Mastodon is easy and fun except when it isn’t: https://erinkissane.com/mastodon-is-easy-and-fun-except-when-it-isnt
- Some history: https://privacy.thenexus.today/mastodon-a-partial-history/#dogpiling-weaponized-content-warning-discourse-and-a-fig-leaf-for-mundane-white-supremacy
- The Whiteness of Mastodon: https://techpolicy.press/the-whiteness-of-mastodon/
- Black Twitter, quoting, and white views of toxicity on Mastodon: https://privacy.thenexus.today/black-twitter-quoting-and-white-toxicity-on-mastodon/
- The Affordance Loop: https://erinkissane.com/the-affordance-loop
- Mastodon is easy and fun except when it isn’t: https://erinkissane.com/mastodon-is-easy-and-fun-except-when-it-isnt
- Some history: https://privacy.thenexus.today/mastodon-a-partial-history/#dogpiling-weaponized-content-warning-discourse-and-a-fig-leaf-for-mundane-white-supremacy
@misc #FediGovernancePact (post 5)
How:
- To join the Pact, all instances/projects over a certain size should be community run (e.g., democracy, transparent foundation)
- TODO: define governance models
- Additionally, joining the pact means making efforts to include historically unwelcomed communities in governance (E.g., Black users, non-tech users, etc.) and keep up with the concerns of those groups.
- Make a way for users to see what servers have agreed to (and are following) the Pact
@misc #FediGovernancePact (post 6)
Examples of community governance I've seen people mention (un-vetted):
- https://cosocial.ca/
- https://hachyderm.io/
- https://digitalcourage.social/
- https://social.coop/
- https://kolectiva.social/
(Please tell me if you know of more examples, or if any of these examples are problematic and I should delete them from the list)
@misc #FediGovernancePact (post 7, final post)
This is just my first pass at thinking through a #FediGovernancePact. Feel free to copy this, modify it, and make it your own. I don't feel any need or desire to own this (it should be community owned if the Fedi community wants it!). I just want to help get the ball rolling toward better community governance.
@kylethayer This is a great thread to kick things off. Subscribed to the hashtag!