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wet forest moon folklorist

I 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

26 comments
wet forest moon folklorist

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

wet forest moon folklorist

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

Amy (she/her/hers)

@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)?

Amy (she/her/hers)

@seachanger@alaskan.social user reviews are really, really hard to make into a consistent standard, unfortunately

Serval

@seachanger@alaskan.social I agree that we need more transparent instance policies and moderation, but I disagree on a star rating system. New users would naturally gravitate to the five stars because obviously they want the best. But just because a server blocks more instances and is technically safer does not mean is better. If a new user joined an instance and then tried to follow BBC and could not they would likely get frustrated unless it was clearly laid out what the star rating means. In which case we should just lay out what the instance blocks in a clear format instead of trying to reduce it to a misleading star system.

@seachanger@alaskan.social I agree that we need more transparent instance policies and moderation, but I disagree on a star rating system. New users would naturally gravitate to the five stars because obviously they want the best. But just because a server blocks more instances and is technically safer does not mean is better. If a new user joined an instance and then tried to follow BBC and could not they would likely get frustrated unless it was clearly laid out what the star rating means. In which...

Weyoun 6

@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.

wet forest moon folklorist

@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

DELETED

@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

Weyoun 6

@almostconverge @seachanger combined with a out page automatically displaying block / allow list that would be a big improvement.

DELETED

@weyoun6 @seachanger there are also very good reasons not to advertise your block list publicly

joel b

@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.

Jason Walter

@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 🤔

Jason Walter

@seachanger Ah, I missed your follow up comments about the reviews. I think these are all great ideas.

wet forest moon folklorist

@mrwalter were on the same page! reviews are easy to add since they are developed for everything already…

Black Chic with the Red Truck

@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)
But how to choose a new one where things like that are less likely to happen?

wet forest moon folklorist

@ReneeWestberry exactly! And sorry you are having to deal with these questions and a possible move…

Probably Paul

@ReneeWestberry@universeodon.com @seachanger@alaskan.social I'm on my fourth instance because of bad moderation and/or inter-admin beefs. I love the fedi, but it's the one aspect of decentralisation that I dislike. I mean how is it your fault if one of your admins or mods turns out to be a dick, right? And people demanding you move immediately or they won't be friends with you, really grinds my gears! Migrating takes time.

There are around 22,000 instances on the fedi, to answer one of your questions, so there's plenty of choice. There
is definitely an ideal and safe home for everyone, but finding it could take some time.

@ReneeWestberry@universeodon.com @seachanger@alaskan.social I'm on my fourth instance because of bad moderation and/or inter-admin beefs. I love the fedi, but it's the one aspect of decentralisation that I dislike. I mean how is it your fault if one of your admins or mods turns out to be a dick, right? And people demanding you move immediately or they won't be friends with you, really grinds my gears! Migrating takes time.

There are around 22,000 instances on the fedi, to answer one of your questions,...

Ubermarionette

@seachanger I think that having a star system would also only work if you go by the Roger Ebert system of judging them by how well they set out to do what they aim to do - as you said, different people have different needs, some people want an absolute safe space and other people want a more rough and tumble environment but obviously still want the dregs of the fediverse filtered out, so you'd have to rate them by how well they do each of those things, in the same way Ebert always judged the art film on how good of an art film it was and the action film on how good of an action film it was, but didn't judge the action film by the standards of the art film or vice versa

@seachanger I think that having a star system would also only work if you go by the Roger Ebert system of judging them by how well they set out to do what they aim to do - as you said, different people have different needs, some people want an absolute safe space and other people want a more rough and tumble environment but obviously still want the dregs of the fediverse filtered out, so you'd have to rate them by how well they do each of those things, in the same way Ebert always judged the art...

Dendan Setia (Nins)

@seachanger
Do you know what's painful to admit? The qoto about page has something like this extensively. But there's implications to the idea, and I don't know what's the technical solution to prevent brigading based on info like this

Amy (she/her/hers)

@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

on this i'd support more "universal
presence" than "universal standardization", giving the option to view it but it not being an inherent part of protocols, given the inherent necessity of flexibility with activitypub

fulanigirl

@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.

slyborg

@seachanger @fediversereport Doesn’t instances.social/ basically do this already? It doesn’t show blocks, but the each server shows that once you pick one.

Regezi

@slyborg
Ich könnte mit aber durchaus auch vorstellen, dass manche Menschen die Fragen: "wer bin ich, was suche ich?" noch nicht so klar für sich beantwortet haben...

(thanks to Deepl...in case of a missing translation option)
But I could also imagine that some people have not yet answered the questions: "who am I, what am I looking for?)

@seachanger @fediversereport

DELETED

@seachanger The descriptions under instances is piss poor, making it very hard to choose which to sign up to.

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