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>But doesn't that simply shift the problem? The largest instance(s) can still moderate maliciously, while the rest are insignificant. The effect of this on Mas

>But doesn't that simply shift the problem? The largest instance(s) can still moderate maliciously, while the rest are insignificant. The effect of this on Mastodon was to establish walls between the big servers over moderation disputes, controlling their growth.

mzajc 2y ago
I think this works much better for social media than it would for an encyclopedia - while a Mastodon user I'm interested in is likely on a single instance, a topic an encyclopedia would cover might be present on many instances, each hosting a different version. I don't think it's feasible to expect users to read every single one.
- whatshisface 2y ago
  That would only be likely to happen when communities identify by their bias (see: "conservapedia.") Existing wiki communities tend to divide based on topic, without a lot of overlap. (See: fandom). A federated alternative to fandom.com is what I would imagine when someone says "federated wiki."
wkat4242 2y ago
The problem there was also that it attracted some pretty seriously incompatible ideologies. Like neonazis on gab.com and tankies on lemmy.ml for example. That was never going to end well. How are they supposed to come to an agreement on moderation :) And then in the middle of that you have the German instances that demand everyone else pledges to follow their peculiar local laws precisely to the latter or get banned. Fwiw I'm with none of the above groups, I'm pro LGBT/progressive for which there's also a lot of instances but I'm just sad that the fediverse didn't come out. Having said that, some instances have really made a name for themselves like beehive <3
- whatshisface 2y ago
  They're not supposed to come to an agreement on moderation. The whole idea behind federation is that a company is not trying to navigate a middle ground between Nazis and chinese communists! :-)
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Hmm yeah but the idea was not to duplicate moderation a thousand times. And then where is your community? My problem is that the fediverse is tearing itself apart on tiny differences. Lots of instances have banned others from the same ideology because one little time someone said something one of the founders didn't agree with. It's just not working like this. I think ideological choices should be made by the end user. I think the instance should be agnostic like an internet browser. And moderation done by the groups the user subscribes to. That's the model that works. We had exactly this in Usenet which is just not really used anymore due to complex technical implementation.
    - whatshisface 2y ago
      In fediverse terminology your idea would be for accounts to seamlessly hop between instances (which are usenet groups), and a lot of other people think that would be a good change too. The only difficulty is engineering something where no individual server has authority over a login identity. It would all be so easy if browsers could sign POST requests with keypairs that the browser managed, but that's been resisted in web standards for decades.
      - wkat4242 2y ago
        Hmm no, I imagine they would stay on an instance (similar to the Usenet provider) and join groups or whatever they're called on mastodon, similar to the Usenet newsgroups. And then the moderators would come from the management of each group, independently from which instance they're on. There would be no central authentication necessary. Just some way for moderators to prove their ownership, perhaps some kind of public key. This way each group can do their own moderation. Of course some instances could decide not to carry some groups that go totally counter to them, but it should be a rare phenomenon. Similar to the old Usenet providers blocking binary groups (before that was the only thing Usenet was being used for anymore :) )
- nobodywillobsrv 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    I don't think denying child rape is a progressive talking point. Most progressives I know are against religion of all forms. They'd have no incentive to silence the horrors committed by the catholic church for example. What I do see on Wikipedia is a strong preference for trustworthy sources though.
    - AStonesThrow 2y ago
      [flagged]
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
That’s what I don’t get about mastodon. Big servers use commonly shared block lists for others that don’t abide by their censorship rules. Now we’re back to something similar to what existed anyways - big powerful centralized social media separated from smaller ones that don’t benefit from networks.

mzajc 2y ago

I think this works much better for social media than it would for an encyclopedia - while a Mastodon user I'm interested in is likely on a single instance, a topic an encyclopedia would cover might be present on many instances, each hosting a different version. I don't think it's feasible to expect users to read every single one.

whatshisface 2y ago
That would only be likely to happen when communities identify by their bias (see: "conservapedia.") Existing wiki communities tend to divide based on topic, without a lot of overlap. (See: fandom). A federated alternative to fandom.com is what I would imagine when someone says "federated wiki."

wkat4242 2y ago

The problem there was also that it attracted some pretty seriously incompatible ideologies. Like neonazis on gab.com and tankies on lemmy.ml for example. That was never going to end well. How are they supposed to come to an agreement on moderation :) And then in the middle of that you have the German instances that demand everyone else pledges to follow their peculiar local laws precisely to the latter or get banned. Fwiw I'm with none of the above groups, I'm pro LGBT/progressive for which there's also a lot of instances but I'm just sad that the fediverse didn't come out. Having said that, some instances have really made a name for themselves like beehive <3

whatshisface 2y ago
They're not supposed to come to an agreement on moderation. The whole idea behind federation is that a company is not trying to navigate a middle ground between Nazis and chinese communists! :-)
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Hmm yeah but the idea was not to duplicate moderation a thousand times. And then where is your community? My problem is that the fediverse is tearing itself apart on tiny differences. Lots of instances have banned others from the same ideology because one little time someone said something one of the founders didn't agree with. It's just not working like this. I think ideological choices should be made by the end user. I think the instance should be agnostic like an internet browser. And moderation done by the groups the user subscribes to. That's the model that works. We had exactly this in Usenet which is just not really used anymore due to complex technical implementation.
  - whatshisface 2y ago
    In fediverse terminology your idea would be for accounts to seamlessly hop between instances (which are usenet groups), and a lot of other people think that would be a good change too. The only difficulty is engineering something where no individual server has authority over a login identity. It would all be so easy if browsers could sign POST requests with keypairs that the browser managed, but that's been resisted in web standards for decades.
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      Hmm no, I imagine they would stay on an instance (similar to the Usenet provider) and join groups or whatever they're called on mastodon, similar to the Usenet newsgroups. And then the moderators would come from the management of each group, independently from which instance they're on. There would be no central authentication necessary. Just some way for moderators to prove their ownership, perhaps some kind of public key. This way each group can do their own moderation. Of course some instances could decide not to carry some groups that go totally counter to them, but it should be a rare phenomenon. Similar to the old Usenet providers blocking binary groups (before that was the only thing Usenet was being used for anymore :) )
nobodywillobsrv 2y ago
[flagged]
- wkat4242 2y ago
  I don't think denying child rape is a progressive talking point. Most progressives I know are against religion of all forms. They'd have no incentive to silence the horrors committed by the catholic church for example. What I do see on Wikipedia is a strong preference for trustworthy sources though.
  - AStonesThrow 2y ago
    [flagged]

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

That’s what I don’t get about mastodon. Big servers use commonly shared block lists for others that don’t abide by their censorship rules. Now we’re back to something similar to what existed anyways - big powerful centralized social media separated from smaller ones that don’t benefit from networks.