# United Federation of Instances Proposal

https://gitlab.com/ufoi/constitution

I tagged below everyone who asked me to tag them. I have now started a gitlab group and project where we can discuss the #UFoI proposal transparently and with a good recorded history.

Please start discussions by creating issues, and any edits you have to the proposal please edit on gitlab and submit as a merge request, which can then be discussed.

I will write the CI code to make sure the document gets compiled.

I will try to leave the mass-message like here just to the major developments as it feels a bit spammy. I will only send out one more notification once the by laws draft is up. Of course if anyone does not want to get notified let me know and ill leave you off from future discussions.

@timezoneless @floppy @ufi @ufoi @skanman @john @stevenclyman @robryk @ejg @dashrandom @Romaq @ichoran @AlanOutback @tsomof @aebrockwell @Ryle @tatzelbrumm @Gaythia @realcaseyrollins @stux@mstdn.social @stux@masto.ai @trinsec @khird @darnell @jq

Just FYI, I now set it up so any changed to the document at the link in my last post, once accepted, will automatically compile to a PDF and update teh version hosted here automatically.

So you can follow this link if you want to see the latest version of the document at any time:

https://ufoi.gitlab.io/constitution/united_federation_of_instances_proposal.pdf

Im now working ont he more technical bylaws document. Which I will update everyone on soon.

@timezoneless
@floppy @ufoi @skanman @john @stevenclyman @robryk @ejg @dashrandom @Romaq @ichoran @AlanOutback @tsomof @aebrockwell @Ryle @tatzelbrumm @Gaythia @realcaseyrollins @stux@mstdn.social @stux@masto.ai @trinsec @khird @darnell @jq

@freemo what does "post unlisted" mean? From

"All accounts which engage in commercial activity as their primary purpose or posts explicitly intended to advertise must be posted unlisted."

Also I would probably word that in such a way that it doesn't also mean content creators, artists, musicians, looking to promote their work...

@battaglia01 content creators can not use this platform to advertise anymore than others... with that said its ok if they share their content so long as they dont try to sell it here (such as including purchase links).. We try to conside rit on a case by case basis but generally if your posting with the intent to make money, content creator or not, its a no go. but you can talk about things you make money off of indirectly.

Unlisted is one of the privacy options on a post (see the little globe, hit that when writing a post). It means that only people who go to the post and followers will see it. It wont show up in the local or federated timelines.

This is likely very damaging to the furry demographic that usually are artists where their primary income is through things like art comissions. I think that this policy will make furry instances unlikely to participate. I can certainly see it being fine to agree to content warnings, tagging of such content and allow different servers in the federation decide if they want to filter that content out or not.

@Ryle Sorry I had a brain fart, I thought for a se3cond I was talking about QOTO and not the UFoI

I take back what I said and agree with @battaglia01 that an exception for content creators should be allowed in the UFoI's constitution. QOTO will remain non-commercial however.

Hey do you want to try to create a merge request with your proposed change (either of you can)... also add yourself to the contributors if you arent already there.

@freemo @Ryle yes I meant this "UFOI" thing. There are now a bunch of famous or quasi famous celebrities on Mastodon, including STEM people - if John Baez, Eugenia Cheng, Sabine Hossenfelder, George Takei, etc write a book I would want them to be allowed to post a link for me to buy it... They probably will anyway. Many of these people barely know how to use Mastodon and I doubt they even know what unlisted means or how to do it.

Of course QOTO can have its own rules for its own instance if you want it to be non-commercial, but I don't think it should be a federation wide rule, also for the reasons Ryle said above. I'm not sure if my suggestion would be just to get rid of that rule entirely, or if there is some way to reword it. Maybe I will leave that to Ryle as I am still pretty new here

@battaglia01

Maybe we want to remove the whole "no-commercial" rule entierly.. youve convinced me of that personally.. Can you throw up an issue or merge request and ill be happy to back you up as we are in agreement.

@Ryle

@freemo @Ryle OK sounds good. I saw Ryle was about to make a merge request already so maybe will leave that to him

@battaglia01

Was he?

@Ryle

Yes; I am working on a proposal now. Although, my proposals is more about changing it to a tagging requirement than removing it all together. This gives instances operators the maximum flexibility to filter or not filter without feeling the need to defederate.

Merge request is here, can discuss on ticket - https://gitlab.com/ufoi/constitution/-/merge_requests/1

@Ryle

Wonderful, thank you!

@battaglia01

@freemo @Ryle

I think most of the changes are good. I'd probably just ditch the commercial requirement entirely. If some individual instance wants to have that requirement then that's alright, but I don't think it should be a federation-wide rule. Like you were saying, there isn't much for artists on here to do except for promote their stuff, which should probably be encouraged if anything. Instances primarily for artists should be permitted to let their artists post w/o special tags if they want to. Same with STEM authors promoting books.

My only concern behind this is if some instances would rather not federate if they couldn't filter it out. I personally don't mind it being removed otherwise.

@Ryle

You mean like filter out a whole instance?

@battaglia01

Hypothetically, lets say you run an instance that is doesn't allow any commercial activity posts. If your choice with federating with another set of instances becomes do not federate to stop content you don't want.

Or, in my proposal, just filter out unwanted messages based on hashtags.

@Ryle

This is actually sort of where coalitions come in. Their job can be to document subsets of the rules and provide lists which users can use.. for example if we decide to allow nudity then maybe as a compromise we can create coalition whose job it is to document instances that allow different types of nudity and then users can use that as a block list if they want or even as an allow list.

@battaglia01