[nyanpasu64]

I'm convinced decentralization is viable for local applications and services like offline document editors and Syncthing, somewhat so for geographically dispersed but closed systems like 1:1 DMs and group chats/video calls (Tailscale sharing might work for static sets of people like friend groups and polycules), but I'm not sure the moderation and inter-server conflicts are workable for publicly visible posts where you expect anyone on any server to be able to reply to people on another server.

[ilyt]

I'm almost sure they are not. Moderator of some server deciding that their users do not deserve to communicate with someone from some other server is just terrible model from every perspective. It should be always up to user to decide who they want to communicate with. I want to decide to ban user, or ban topic/tag, or even ban server, not have decision deferred to whoever is running the server, that's no better than twatter.

Yet of course that doesn't scale well to bigger social discussions, it's way too easy for malicious agents to destroy any chance for sensible wider discussion when there is no moderation present. HN/Reddit-esque "just let people downvote and push the downvoted stuff down" works somewhat in most cases, up until some group decides to vote brigade the conversation, and in wider discussion there is also the problem of "I downvote not because the comment is bad but because it disagrees with me.

[ekidd]

> It should be always up to user to decide who they want to communicate with. I want to decide to ban user, or ban topic/tag, or even ban server, not have decision deferred to whoever is running the server, that's no better than twatter."

You can pay someone to host a server for you, starting at $4/month. (Well, MastoHost is a little behind on signups this week, but they'll catch up.) If you do this, then you'll have total control over your moderation policy.

My instance is run by someone who mostly only blocks the absolute worst, including instances that are illegal under European law. I'm fine with those blocks! Other instances are focused on serving people who are regularly harassed, and those instances ban aggressively. There's even a "co-op" instance where users vote on policy.

I think it's worth remembering that for many users, a pleasant experience without harassment is a valuable service. I've moderated niche communities for years, and it has become obvious that if you let a handful of jerks abuse everyone else, then dozens of amazing community members will quit.

[aghostincarrot]

>If you do this, then you'll have total control over your moderation policy.

My impression was that many apply transitive banning? So that if I peer with a “bad” server A then good server B will block me even though my personal posts may be fine.

[ilyt]

Oh, that's even worse

[yunohn]

> If you do this, then you'll have total control over your moderation policy.

The solution to fragmented servers is not another self hosted disconnected server?

[dsr_]

Suppose that everyone who participated ran their own server, population 1.

Then choosing to block other servers would be equivalent to blocking other people, which we agree is a good thing.

Now someone comes up with an adblock list: subscribe to it, and these servers will not bother you. It's probably not perfect, but it improves your experience a lot. If you don't like it, switch to another, or don't subscribe to any.

And now we are back where we started: you can choose to either subscribe to a policy (join an existing server) or be independent.

[luckylion]

Is it public which servers an instance is blocking / what servers they are federating with?

[ekidd]

Normally, yes. Different kinds of blocks are listed at the bottom of an instance's "About" page. Often there's a note for each blocked instance, too, though some admins leave that blank.

I've seen a couple of servers which only show the block list to users with accounts. These tend to be restricted-membership servers, ones which don't publish their member directory or local feed, either.

[berkes]

Most servers even have an API endpoint for this.

[ekidd]

Why would your server be disconnected? Plenty of people are on self-hosted servers, and we can follow each other with no problem.

[oaiey]

And what is the difference to SMTP? That is literally the decentralized messaging platform which is alive for 40 (?) years and still kicking.

There will be problems but there is evidence that it can work.

[csande17]

SMTP being created 40 years ago is probably why it still works today. Just like the telephone network, it has a historical exception from the moral obligation to prevent Bad People from using the network to say harmful or incorrect things. (Section 230 didn't exist back then, so it wasn't clear that that kind of moderation was even legal without taking full responsibility for everything users say.)

Mastodon doesn't have this kind of exception, so it suffers from a lot of conflict about who exactly the Bad People are and whether accepting messages from them causes you to become a Bad Person yourself.

[dsr_]

You don't have a spam problem?

Lacking a universal definition of bad actors does not prevent coordinated action to stop the bad actors.

[csande17]

Anti-spam measures exist in SMTP, but the broader moral imperative does not.

I can disable my spam filter, and no one will know or care except for me (if I get a lot of spam). On the other hand, it is generally considered immoral to allow people to disable anti-Bad Person filters, because then two Bad People could use the network to communicate. That creates a lot of potential for drama, large public arguments, and network fracturing that isn't present in legacy systems.

[Turing_Machine]

Define "Bad People".

People who use the service to plan murders? People who disagree with your politics? People who (accurately) quote a book written 200 years ago that uses a word you don't like? People whose skin color you don't like?

[mftrhu]

I don't see anything wrong with the people who manage and pay for the server - usually for themselves and their friends, or because they are passionate about decentralization, and hardly ever because they set out to provide a platform for everyone to be able to say everything to anyone else - to be able to decide who their server will interact with.

In the fediverse, after all, users who don't like that decision can always move to another instance, or set up their own - you can't do that on twitter, HN, Reddit, and the barrier to entry for setting up one's e-mail server is high enough that the capability to do that is only theoretical.

[guerrilla]

> It should be always up to user to decide who they want to communicate with

But it is, because the accounts are portable, so they can just move to another instance... it's an actually free market. In the end, you can always self-host if you literally can't agree with a single admin out there.

[Kinrany]

> I'm not sure the moderation and inter-server conflicts are workable for publicly visible posts where you expect anyone on any server to be able to reply to people on another server

I don't think that's a desirable goal. It's up to individual services to host centralized forums and deal with the ensuing moderation issues.