Gregory's ServerI think mastodon and the fediverse could benefit from a more universal system of clearly classifying server communities by moderation activity and fediblock level. it’s ok for servers to have different priorities, but part of helping people pick the right one has to be helping people easily understand their differences at sign up. I know others have called for this, just add my name to the petition
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it’s ok for many of us to use a safety tier that has trade offs, as long as we consent to these trade offs at sign up. For example, I’m comfortable federating with mainstream media who are often problematic (NYT or BBC for example) and believe the benefits out weigh the costs. For me, the relative loss in safety is worth the trade off of being able to have a direct relationship with the news source. That kind of trade off should be named and listed in my server’s safety rating  @seachanger@alaskan.social what about in the cases where, say, you have a server which only blocks at fediblock level (low n) but blocks a lot of other instances independently (that aren't in fediblock yet but that are problematic)? @seachanger@alaskan.social user reviews are really, really hard to make into a consistent standard, unfortunately @seachanger I would like to see full transparency of server moderation policies available for users to see. Since people have to pick a server as their gateway to the Fediverse, it's important to surface how the decisions of admins will affect their experience. @weyoun6 most servers do have these in their “about” section. I know becuase before we set ours up I looked closely at many of them to see how people do it. But that is time consuming and also what people say is not necessarily what they do or are able to do in practice. And they’re all different and may use terms in different ways. So I think masto should maintain a list of servers where (1) user reviews (as with apps) and (2) a standardized safety tier level appear with the name @seachanger @weyoun6 just having each server's "About" displayed on joinmastodon would be a massive (and as far as I can see, relatively easy to implement) step @almostconverge @seachanger combined with a out page automatically displaying block / allow list that would be a big improvement. @weyoun6 @seachanger there are also very good reasons not to advertise your block list publicly  @weyoun6 @seachanger do you think this could open admins and moderators up to constant brigading and second guessing of their moderation activities? I get they must be held responsible somehow but it’s already a lot of work to moderate. Doing so in full view of everyone can be a vector for abuse. I think it’s sensible to trust those in charge until you have a reason not to, then leave. @seachanger Agreed. The way I settled where I am was by joining a bunch of servers around the same time and seeing what I liked the most after several months, but I’m an outlier in being someone prepared to do that - most people wouldn’t think or care to go through the effort and instead end up making their choice without knowing whether their server sucks or not. Another idea could be servers/communities having some sort of review system visible to newcomers 🤔 @seachanger Ah, I missed your follow up comments about the reviews. I think these are all great ideas.  @seachanger I would really love something like this. I’m realizing I may have to make a change- even though I personally have had no problems with my instance- but others have had problems with the person running my instance so we’re about to be defederated from- I’m not even sure how many instances (it’s not clear) @ReneeWestberry exactly! And sorry you are having to deal with these questions and a possible move… @seachanger @seachanger@alaskan.social i think it should be something adopted, perhaps first into firefish/hajkey/whateverthatoneotherforkwas, maybe eventually as an option into the "mastodon" server software @seachanger I agree. It doesn't have to be complicated. Just a set of symbols to reflect moderation practices.Was just recommending a similar thing today..yesterday? whenever Monday was.  @seachanger @fediversereport Doesn’t https://instances.social/ basically do this already? It doesn’t show blocks, but the each server shows that once you pick one. @slyborg (thanks to Deepl...in case of a missing translation option) @seachanger The descriptions under instances is piss poor, making it very hard to choose which to sign up to. |
Casual users might not know that each server “fediblocks” some other servers for safety. many of us use shared lists of bad servers to block that we manually upload.
What I’ve seen suggested (and what I believe mastodon is working on) is making these fediblock lists *part of our moderation interface* so we all use the same system.
Which tier we use plus how well we enforce our own rules could earn us a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ safety rating that could also be at least partially generated by user reviews