I suggested using a decentralized consensus protocol that was invented for a cryptocurrency... to help with the fediverse moderation. I feel dirty. I feel like a cryptobro, even though I did not suggest the use of a blockchain.

Send help, I'm melting. 😂

@x_cli how would a consensus protocol help with moderation? 🧐 What was your idea?

@netbroom Centralized denylists (a.k.a. RBL) are subject to arbitrary decisions. We have seen this several times in the past for emails. By using a consensus protocol, that is resistant to byzantine failures, we could reduce the risk of arbitrary decisions. Problem is that most byzantine protocols are distributed but we still have to believe a specific set of "generals" that were chosen by a central authority. Federated Byzantine Agreement might be interesting to explore. This was introduced with the Stellar Consensus Protocol but I believe it could be used for other purposes.

@x_cli But the main part of the blocklist problem is social – what evidence is needed for a server to decide to block? BFT only solves a minor technical subproblem (eventual consistency) of the whole problem, and even that problem is not strictly necessary to be solved in practice – if the evidence (in whatever form) is published openly then usually it's enough for specific servers to attempt acquiring it and make a decision locally based on the evidence they manage to access. The "making a decision" part is hard, the evidence aggregation less so.

So if I'm right (I might have misunderstood your proposal) I am sad to inform you that you committed the Cardinal Sin of Cryptobros – proposing a technical solution for a relatively simple part of a mostly social problem. ;<

// Also, this is probably not even Sybil-resistant, but I don't remember Stellar well enough to be absolutely sure.
@netbroom