3 ms·

There's a joke (can't find the comic or article, darn you Google search) that says when you make a forum with "free speech" you get one civil libertarian and 99

by wffurr 6y ago

There's a joke (can't find the comic or article, darn you Google search) that says when you make a forum with "free speech" you get one civil libertarian and 99 trolls, neo nazis, child pornographers, etc. Moderation is essential for usable communities. These block lists are a form of moderation to make Mastodon useful. Otherwise it's pushed on to the user, many of whom will just nope out back to Reddit or Facebook, or to the Mastodon server administrators, who are largely unpaid volunteer labor.

rvschuilenburg 6y ago
The person you're replying to is not referring to blocklists between mastodon instances (so for example, having mastodon.org blocking federation between them and cybre.space), but clients preventing you to login to certain instances. It's like an e-mail client that supports the POP-protocol preventing logins to pop.myemailserver.com because they don't like myemailserver.com
jaster 6y ago
Not sure if it's the one you were thinking about, but there is a similar passage in the Slate Star Codex article "Neutral vs. Conservative: The Eternal Struggle" https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservative-the-eternal-struggle/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservativ... The moral of the story is: if you’re against witch-hunts, and you promise to found your own little utopian community where witch-hunts will never happen, your new society will end up consisting of approximately three principled civil libertarians and seven zillion witches. It will be a terrible place to live even if witch-hunts are genuinely wrong.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
soundnote 6y ago
The Tusky blocklists for eg. Gab and Spinster don't impact the actual communities one iota - most Mastodon servers already block them, and the instance and user level are where the filtering should take place in Mastodon's system design. Some rando using Spinster on their phone isn't going to contaminate anyone else.

by wffurr 6y ago

rvschuilenburg 6y ago

The person you're replying to is not referring to blocklists between mastodon instances (so for example, having mastodon.org blocking federation between them and cybre.space), but clients preventing you to login to certain instances. It's like an e-mail client that supports the POP-protocol preventing logins to pop.myemailserver.com because they don't like myemailserver.com

jaster 6y ago

Not sure if it's the one you were thinking about, but there is a similar passage in the Slate Star Codex article "Neutral vs. Conservative: The Eternal Struggle" https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservative-the-eternal-struggle/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservativ... The moral of the story is: if you’re against witch-hunts, and you promise to found your own little utopian community where witch-hunts will never happen, your new society will end up consisting of approximately three principled civil libertarians and seven zillion witches. It will be a terrible place to live even if witch-hunts are genuinely wrong.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

soundnote 6y ago

The Tusky blocklists for eg. Gab and Spinster don't impact the actual communities one iota - most Mastodon servers already block them, and the instance and user level are where the filtering should take place in Mastodon's system design. Some rando using Spinster on their phone isn't going to contaminate anyone else.