NOTE: If anyone wants to be added to this list just let me know.

Ok so this seems to be most of the people who publicly stated they had interest in developing the "United Federation of Instances". All of you should have gotten the first draft and opinions were heard and discussed.

Today I will be moving the first draft over to git (either git.qoto.org or gitlab.com). From there I will encourage each of you to provide suggestions as to edits there, and raise discussions in issues. This way we will be public and have an open transparent forum that keeps the changes on record.

While public feedback is being debated on the proposal I will begin a rough draft on the complete by laws (which will try to represent the broader points in the proposal document). That too will be on gitlab and open to discussion

From there as the movement grows we can begin discussing launching it.

I suggest all communication on the fediverse about this use the hashtag so it is easily searchable.

Since this is a public post I will now share the link to the early draft here, please keep in mind everything here is open for discussion so if anyone doesnt like the current direction, please speak up, we want you to be heard.

jeffreyfreeman.me/files/united

@skanman @floppy @john @stevenclyman @robryk @ejg @dashrandom @Romaq @ichoran @AlanOutback @tsomof @aebrockwell @Ryle @tatzelbrumm @Gaythia @ichoran @realcaseyrollins @stux @stux @trinsec @khird @darnell @jq

Follow

@freemo

- getting the wording of point 1 of the coc absolutely water-tight is critical. it was fine in the previous qoto tos, but when you apply it to a broader scale that a federation of servers is "Hate-based racism, sexism, and other hateful speech,[...]" isn't going to cut it. everything can be hateful speech with enough twisting. ideally it would be something like from hacker ethics: "Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.". then, meritocracy has fallen from grace.

- put down what the expected response time for moderation is. people sleep, have other things to do, etc. you can't always have a moderation in place after an hour.

@skanman @floppy @john @stevenclyman @robryk @ejg @dashrandom @Romaq @ichoran @AlanOutback @tsomof @aebrockwell @Ryle @tatzelbrumm @Gaythia @realcaseyrollins @stux @stux @trinsec @khird @darnell @jq

@bonifartius

I agree.. the proposal is meant to summarize the basic jist of it.. the bylaws document and Code of Ethics/Conduct documetn I write seperately will be much more detailed. I also agree the wording is very critical to strike a balance between justice and freedom.

@skanman @floppy @john @stevenclyman @robryk @ejg @dashrandom @Romaq @ichoran @AlanOutback @tsomof @aebrockwell @Ryle @tatzelbrumm @Gaythia @realcaseyrollins @stux @stux @trinsec @khird @darnell @jq

@freemo At the moment I'm flailing, but I'm not yet in a position to edit and I want to get this thing out of my head: "... communicating disrespect targeting a person's identity rather than their character. This behavior would often be characterized as (but not limited to) racism, sexism... (extend definitive list, avoid "hate speech" as a phrase.. and again "including but not limited to" is a wonderful phrase to use.)

TRUST ME, when I interact with flat earthers, I get mighty cranky and I'm sure they could label it as "hate speech." But I'm clearly not attacking their identity, just their bloody-minded stupidity.

@Romaq Can you at least crete and issue ther eand just copy and paste it in, this way we keep it.

@freemo Yeah, I just need to get moving to recover from work. Gawd this thing keeps moving and I want to follow what's going on while I'm doing what I really ought to be doing instead.

@freemo I now have the git repository local. The Git GUI doesn't show me branches and changes, so I did it wrong. OF COURSE. But that's ok, my opportunity to learn, and being able to see changes would be more useful, I'd think. I'll post my message where the issue is already being discussed if there is anything it would contribute at that point.

@freemo AND I deleted the local copy as it didn't show me anything of what has currently been changed, so I'm not clear it will do what I intended and I didn't want a "this doesn't work" project folder where I've begun putting Mastodon stuff.

I'll figure out what I need to know in due course.

There's a discussion on the hate language on https://gitlab.com/ufoi/constitution/-/issues/1 -- You should definitely post any ideas there so that it all gets considered.

@Ryle Thank you. I missed seeing this before I posted a suggestion about it, but I was intent I not lose the thought I had at that moment. My current situation has me hella distracted to where I'm setting alarms for myself so I don't miss going to the loo when I need to.

I'll jump in there once I've shed my work funk off.

@Romaq @Romaq @Ryle And there's the rub. "Hate speech" is a meaningless term. ANY speech is hate speech to somebody. So if you ban it, you can't say ANYTHING. It mostly bans talk about the middle of the bell curve. There ARE statistical differences between people, and many of them correlate with group membership. But the standard deviation is usually large, hence general statements are only useful if you don't have time to consider individuals. When walking home late at night in a bad part of town, that kind of thinking is useful, life-saving even. In a normal safe environment, not so much.

It is a silly word. Hate speech had a very clear legal definition, but it has since been used for political benefit by those controlling a narrative. They use genocide selectively, too. The same as ‘war crime’. Others are ‘hate crime’ or ‘gender based violence’. They are useful if a definition is agreed upon, but that never happens.

What is the desperate need for a code and censorship, anyway? We all behave differently. We have different things we hate to hear. That’s why we can choose with whom we associate. Pretending we all agree that words are harmful, then continuing to reach some code as to what can be said and how, must have some other motive.

Apparently, the same reasons that cause freedom loving people to throw Assange under the bus, is what drives this appeasing fascists bull. Who would have guessed. It’s all about doing business

@Ryle And I've posted there, hopefully a useful approach. I have seen "Hate speech had a very clear legal definition", but then you have the problem of how one jurisdiction may currently define the term legally vs. another jurisdiction, if they define it at *all*. We could use the UN version, which may be totally disagreeable to people in countries who never signed off on that.

But... hopefully there is a solution that simply does without the specific term "hate speech."

Sign in to participate in the conversation
Qoto Mastodon

QOTO: Question Others to Teach Ourselves
An inclusive, Academic Freedom, instance
All cultures welcome.
Hate speech and harassment strictly forbidden.