I am gathering a list of people who want to be involved in the discussion around the formation of a "United Federation of Instances" which is an attempt to combat the fracturing of the fediverse and the general spreading of misinformation WRT moderation decisions.

If anyone is interested in being a part of it let me know in the replies. I will add you to the list, share the draft proposal, and we can start discussions. I have several people already interested.

@freemo why not just publish the draft first and have the discussion in the open? I would think you could generate more interest that way.

Have you reached out to other instance admin about this?

I feel like this could result in some negative unintended consequences. De-federation, and the social threat of de-federation is the main tool to apply pressure to instance admins that are not sufficiently moderating their community.
This seems it would make that process harder.

@ejg The intent is to do just this.. I just want a good starting point to kick off the discussion.. So im starting with a private discussion, going to refine the draft there, then im going to open it to everyone to contribute.

Yes I am working in private to get some admins and even users on board. I dont want to go public till we have a decent number of supporters just to help counter any backlash people might throw at us.

To your comment about making it harder... sort of.. an instance can always leave the UFI for starters, second, that process SHOULD be harder, at least in terms of collecting evidence and having some due process. The beauty is having curated evidence means even servers outside of the UFI can, if they wish, use us as a source of fact-checking..

@ejg Would you like to see a copy of the current draft in private?

@freemo I would be more interested in have the discussion in the open.

Follow

@ejg

1) First, was this sufficiently proofread so people don't totally freak out about a word of place and use it as a quote forever as "true intentions?"

2) Are there unnecessary and superfluous embellishments that could and must be trimmed to concisely and succinctly make the intended idea come across?

3) Are the fundamental ideas really sound? Is this really going to solve the problem, or just move the issue around for a while? Is this really workable in the opinion of interested parties who have had to actually deal with social systems for a while? Is this idea as "tight" as it can be made?

For the purpose of expediency to present something that offers better and doesn't look like a half eaten chicken sandwich offered to a vegetarian, a few days of eyeballs on it privately won't harms the larger public discussion of it. It isn't being done in secret and it isn't skulldugery to be dropped without discussion or consent unlike the actions it is trying to address.

So yeah... It'll be public, just give people a chance to scrape the ugly off before it's presented.

@freemo

@Romaq

Well said and I agree, the public forum will be critical and notthing is final without public discussion. We just want a good starting point is all.

@ejg

@Romaq @ejg @freemo

Although you intended this as a commentary on this particular proposal, these are good points to consider for *any* editing effort. Working in the open is laudable, but so too is presenting work of sufficient thoughtfulness and quality to be worth serious attention.

For instance, I think this is a fantastic set of questions that every author of a scientific paper should review and ponder while preparing their manuscript. (Maybe only the first two sentences of #3.)

@ichoran

I'm in the unfortunate position "life happens." My wife will be leaving soon to be with her adult daughter, so we are preparing. I'm also spending time together with her while her adult son is visiting with us for American Thanksgiving. Otherwise I'd have spent the time necessary to seriously chew on the document. I don't think the presentation (grammar, spelling, tone) is as serious a matter as the process behind it. I plan to cover the "dressing," to me that's easy stuff.

"Does this make sense in this context? Will it *REALLY* help? Can we *SUSTAIN* this?"

That's really the burden before presentation, and I wish I could devote the time necessary. But "life happens."

@ejg @freemo

@ichoran

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APA_styl

I wish I could afford a meat grinder using APA. I'd put in the beef and have nice, low-fat ground burger patties come out the other side, ready to cook and eat.

Unfortunately, I don't know if such a beast exists at *ANY* price. Maybe grammarly.com/plans can do some on the "free" side. I'll have to look at that tomorrow.

So much life comes so fast, and it's annoying this project becomes necessary in the first place. What's this compulsion for humans to act so human?

youtu.be/s1ysoohV_zA
Human, The Human League

@ejg @freemo

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