Emelia πΈπ»
Okay, so, remember how I had some big news? Well, I didn't get to announce it yesterday as I was unwell (I've been unwell most of the month and could really do with extra financial support right now!) The big news is that my FIRES project has been granted funding by NLNet (@NGIZero) Entrust fund. What is FIRES? It's a project I've been slowly working since September last year, and provides a server for maintaining and distributing moderation advisories and recommendations. 28 comments
Emelia πΈπ»
FIRES stands for Fediverse Intelligence Recommendations and Replication Endpoint Server; The name is a bit of a pun, in that moderation is usually about dealing with little fires continuously. The model I've used is that we'd have data providers and software to help manage moderation recommendations and advisories, and software to integrate those into existing Fediverse software. The API is designed to allow easy periodic synchronisation of data, specifically handling retractions.
Emelia πΈπ»
There is a paper written proposing FIRES, which was written with the financial support of @nivenly. I'd reached out and received extensive peer review from various active members of the fediverse who specialise either in technical, trust & safety, or social areas. Following their peer-review, I decided that I needed to rework the proposal to outline things clearer, which is why I've not yet published it.
Emelia πΈπ»
FIRES outlines a few different things, one of those being a different model of federation management, not centered on binary decisions of "blocking or not", but instead a more firewall based approach: allow / filter / reject. FIRES is also not focused exclusively on domain based federation management, but looks at issues that will become more pertinent as the Fediverse grows, for instance Hashtag or Link management.
Emelia πΈπ»
Another idea it puts forwards is the use of structured data for labeling decisions, for instance, maybe you trust a providers' recommendations related to racism but not transphobia, or maybe you want the CSAM and DNI data, but not to block bridges. This is all possible if we've more structured data.
Emelia πΈπ»
Finally, FIRES makes zero opinions on how data enters the system: whether it's through a collective voting on taking specific action, or an algorithmic sourcing of data, this is up to upstream software to decide, FIRES will just keep a record of those decisions over time. Within scope of funding may be building some of these tools, that's still to be decided. I look forwards to working with NLNet to help bring distributed moderation data to the Fediverse.
Emelia πΈπ»
Just to be absolutely clear: I'm not entering the business of curating a blocklist, I'm writing the software to help distribute moderation recommendations and advisories.
Emelia πΈπ»
@polotek for this month, I'm mostly needing financial backing (since I've been unwell & my billable hours are down significantly) The reference implementation of the FIRES server will be written in Node.js though, so once I start building it out perhaps there's room to bring on paid collaborators? (I need NLNet's approval for this, afaik) https://support.thisismissem.social (one-time at bottom, addresses only used for invoices)      
Johanna, CanCon variant
@thisismissem That's amaaaaazing to hear! Congrats, we are looking forward to these tools.      
Erin Kissane
@thisismissem @NGIZero Congratulations, Emelia!! This is exceptionally good news, and I'm so excited to see where FIRES goes. 
ocdtrekkie
@thisismissem @NGIZero I am so thrilled you got funding for this, NLnet continues to *deliver*. 
Emelia πΈπ»
Uriel Fanelli
just a little question: who the heck are you to tell others how to manage their own instances? 
dansup
@thisismissem @NGIZero Soooo happy for you girl!! I remember the miscommunication and how difficult that was, and Iβm glad you did resolve it because this project will have such an impact across many fediverse projects!! You totally deserve this, and Iβm glad your hard work is being acknowledged and funded! Youβre a fucking fediverse rockstar, and now youβll shine even brighter with the grant and resources to see this through. Gosh Iβm just so happy for you β€οΈ |
Gregory's Server
@thisismissem @NGIZero that's fantastic, well done!