This is more semi-meta, so do what you will with that, but I want to explicitly tie together two conversational threads from yesterday:
I think the structure of Mastodon really amps rumors and misinfo because the mechanisms we use elsewhere to pass around and find corrections (visible replies, quote-posts, search) don't work here.
Instance admin politics are rarely discussed in a public, easily re-findable place—that, too, fuels the rumor-mill, as we saw re: Meta meeting discussions.
Whenever someone talks about structural problems like ^^^ there is a common response, which I'll paraphrase as "people are going to be weird and abusive no matter what, and [tech/design/policy] can't change that."
Yes, people are going to be weird jerks sometimes, but systems and structures are by far our best levers for changing behavior, and I think it's bizarre that this gets trotted out even by people who believe that, for instance, anti-viral features (systems!) are very successful.
@kissane Edwards’ Law ("You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem") has devolved into a thought-terminating cliche by this point. All of gamification and “nudge theory” have debunked it.
@ratkins To be fair, I am not sad about seeing the replication crisis drag Nudge Theory into hell, but yeah—I think it's super easy to underestimate how much of what we call "technology solutions" are in fact mostly sociological.
The fediverse, with all its flaws, has really given me hope that we're on the verge of much better systems built from much better structures. I really believe we can make all of these things work better, and I think starting with human behavior and desires is how we get there.
I wrote a lot about that—mostly in less Masto-specific ways—in yesterday's post about all the ways our networks can be more alive, and help us be more alive.
@tchambers I think so! I think a fedi-compliant full-text search (super granular, consent-based) would make a huge difference as well. Idk if that's ever going to happen, but I really miss it, and I think it's possible to decouple the good uses from the abusive ones.
Re the algorithmically inclined, before I started teaching many years ago, I thought I understood my subject pretty well. But having to translate ideas to people who don't know the lingo and aren't interested in learning it really put that idea out of my head. Replacing it was the idea that unless I can explain xyz in such a way that a non-specialist can sort of get it, I don't really understand it myself. And perhaps, no one does.
I've seen the exact opposite view promoted within the fediverse for the past 5 years: that its design is anti-viral, that it does not provide a good space for the dissemination of disinfo, and from my own partial view of the fediverse I would agree that it does not appear to do so.
The fediverse of the past 6 months is much bigger so it is possible it has changed.
[Facebook NDAs are a recipe for rumour; fedizens have a right to speculate about what may be happening.]
@fedi I think purely from personal observation that it goes both ways. Fediverse is antiviral because of a lack of algo, but when something does go as viral as something can here, it’s hard to keep track of (get access to) all the threads about it, and therefore if there’s any disinfo it’s quite hard to counteract. At least not quickly. I don’t think quote boosts would help this situation, but I’m curious about @kissane view on quote boosts.
@Brendanjones@fedi Yeah, I found quote-tweets incredibly helpful on science/public health Twitter because they helped collect up expert (and other) commentary on specific papers/data. They'd also make it a lot easier to find things on here, which is why they're controversial.
But fwiw, I'm also only interested in a consent-based quote feature that respects per-post settings. No one should be subject to dunk culture if they don't want to be.
@kissane@fedi yes, definitely helpful when it came to pure science. But as soon as things became even slightly opinion-based, kabooom! There’s always one person with a “look at this terrible/idiotic person” quote tweet. I don’t know if that negativity QTs bring can ever outweigh the positives.
Per-post settings are definitely a must if ever implemented here. I don’t know that I’d ever turn it on, personally.
@kissane@fedi I think the biggest reasons QTs were insidious is the lack of friction that enabled people to post the first reaction that came to their heads. See a post you don’t like, tap QT, type in “this is terrible”, post.
I know for me personally, if I do want to post about another post, the effort it takes to copy the post link is enough friction to make sure I don’t post frivolously negative crap, only things actually worth saying. I hope.
@kissane@fedi oh, and speaking of frivolous, how many QTs didn’t really add anything to the original post? If you think people should see it, boosting works, and if you have something worth adding to it that doesn’t belong in replies, then you’ll go to the effort of linking to the post. How much low effort/value posting does QT-ing enable?
Excuse the essay, was kinda thinking out loud here…
@Brendanjones@fedi I mean the science stuff was actually extremely contentious, I was on the covid data beat and got plenty of abuse.
But it also served that positive purpose. I feel like it obviously cuts both ways but that making it respect consent + modding assholes would make it a useful tool, but 🤷🏻
@kissane@seachanger My overly optimistic take regarding the first point is that this current fedidrama regarding meta defederation is helping take the first step towards this happening.
It feels like quite a lot of the admins of the big instances see themselves first and foremost as system administrators. Now they are forced to start seeing themselves as political actors that have to take a position that will certainly be controversial, regardless of what the position is. And once that mindshift start to happen, properly documenting policy choices becomes more obvious as well.
@laurenshof
Also maybe there needs to be some knowledge-sharing around governance best practices. I'm a strong believer in not trying to make a square thing a round thing. Can admins stay technical admins while other people in server community rotate in governance service positions/committee instead? @kissane@seachanger
Yea totally this. I said it a while back that admins and popular fedi-critics should start opening up dialogues with each other and the users to guide people through this episode.
Instead, by and large, admins seem to have approached the issue as another decision they have to make on behalf of their users, rather than something requiring leadership and public engagement. That's what you're highlighting. And in many ways, some of the heat of debate recently is on admins and their unwillingness to take on this "political" role. The heat came from the vacuum of guidance, engagement and transparency.
Generally speaking, this will probably be (and has been) a long arc of the fediverse ... the graduation from hacker sysadmin run instances to something more like "community leaders and organisations".
Moving away from BDFL like structures would probably be a start, and moving toward more group based structures like co-ops.
Earlier this year nova (of hachyderm) stood down as admin, and their chief reason was that they started the instance as a sys admin, didn't want to be more than that, but was clearly seen by everyone as "the leader". So they set up a co-op and walked away and let the co-op run things. Looks rather smart in hindsight from this episode.
@maegul@laurenshof@kissane yeah maybe part of a server admin or leadership covenant is clearly explaining leadership/decision making structure (or picking from set categories) so community members know what to expect. i.e. this is a co-op, this is a benevolent dictatorship etc.
i believe really strongly in the nested communities aspect of the fediverse, and think it's actually a pretty resilient model for online spaces, but accountability has to flow in so many directions to make it work!
@seachanger
Loving this idea of a community of communities. We need to move beyond just tech standards and align on governance standards and shared codes of conduct. @nonlinear @maegul@laurenshof@kissane
@kissane@seachanger I can’t ‘fix’ all those points alone but what i can do is setting up a ‘blog’ for mstdn and related instances where such things can be posted in more detail and all together?
@kissane@stux@seachanger A wiki may be a better model, if you commit the time to gardening it. That's what we have found with indieweb.org (after trying and abandoning a mailing list and a blog, we now use chat with wiki for permanence).
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