As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022

Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.

@Gargron That is a personal choice and one which I totally respect. But I do think Mastodon should be big enough, and open enough, to allow an "AI community" to form, even thrive.

Too many people in my replies don't seem to agree with that.

@cratermoon @scottjenson @Gargron This is a very rich ethics question hidden in a specific example.

Would you permit or allow any community with which you disagree to participate on a platform, even if you’re not forced to participate?

A shortlist of thought experiments, to broaden the perspective, some of which are already here, some not…
- The oil & gas community
- Forestry workers (logging)
- The cryptocurrency community
- Workers at a chick rendering plant
- The finance industry
- Adult content creators
- Religious communities

Is there a litmus test for topics that you can or can’t discuss on the fediverse? Specific servers sure, but the whole fediverse?

Does that align with the values put forth by mastodon or the fediverse in general?

I don’t have the answers.

@trisweb @cratermoon @scottjenson @Gargron by definition, no. Literally anyone can spin up a server and talk about anything/try to get more folk to listen…

But other folk have to want to listen to whatever they are saying. Servers and individuals can just decide not to. No one is guaranteed an audience, just the ability to speak.

@pmdj @dalias

That is the exact opposite of what I said. I'm saying the fediverse gives you the tools to follow/block/filter/ to your hearts content to create the space you want.

What is corrosive is people ACTIVELY going after people they don't agree with. Just look at the replies to my post to get small sample.

My point was, I thought, very simple, and very reasonable: we should be more welcoming of more opinions. If you don't like them, then don't follow them. That should be the fedi-way. To be clear, I'm NOT endorsing AI, it just used it as an example.

Instead I'm living the very point I was trying to make. I've been told to leave, called a racist, and had ad hominem attacks leveled at me.

Now to be fair, my original post was poorly worded. I've owned that
https://social.coop/@scottjenson/116358195717244835

@pmdj @scottjenson Those problems would be largely fixed by reply controls and a working* block function, but for some reason Mastodon team can't give us those.

(*) By "working", I mean a block function that detaches all past replies by the account you're blocking from your posts, so that you're not serving as a billboard for their opinions every time someone expands your toot.

@pmdj @dalias
First, I'm using AI as an example, I'm not endorsing AI at all.
Second, and only as an example, there are open source people working on ethically trained local small language models. Again, I'm NOT endorsing them, but I can pretty confidently say that they would NOT be welcome here.

The same applies to journalism, there are VERY strong emotions here, basically telling them to fuck off (their words, not mine)

My point is that there is a pattern here: there are topics this community actively hates and "patrols" against. If that's what the community wants, cool, I'm not here to dictate anything. My point is that it might be nice to have a slightly more open way of sharing ideas: Follow, block, filter. You have the tools to make the feed you want (there are clearly more tools that would be helpful)

I'm just saying that focusing on your feed seems more healthy that attacking people whose opinions you don't like. Here, let me me give you an example of what I got 10 min ago

@scottjenson I'm with @pmdj on his point that, there's no good reason to consider that the opinion of all or even the majority of people here. The way this works, wouldn't even make that any individual is connected to every other individual, same applies to instances. This by itself would make it likely not representative, but people might even be blocking topics and words and accounts about AI and have no idea of what's happening on AI threads.

@dalias

@scottjenson we also know that nay sayers and assholes are usually more vocal than, people who like, or aren't concerned about something, and who are polite and respectful.

This doesn't mean that this noisy people aren't problematic, or act problematic about some particular topic, just that they need to be put into perspective, reported and blocked.

@pmdj @dalias