@skanman once i get some responses ill send out a seperate DM that shares the initial draft and opens up the floor to discussion.

@freemo Sounds good. 👍

@stevenclyman A very good question.. can you link me to previous efforts so I can review their approach and then I would be happy to tell you how/if we differ.

@stevenclyman My guess would be the big difference for us would be due process, democrattic process, and a no-defederating within the UFI policy... but again id need to see these other attempts to really say.

@freemo I believe this was it. :)

https://github.com/pixeldesu/fediverse-friendly-moderation-covenant

@stevenclyman So that seems more like a set of minimal rules you should follow for moderating your own instance... Very different from what I am proposing which is an actual federation of instances ...

I think you'd understand the differences best if i send you the draft. Would you be interested in joining the discussion and offering feedback?

@freemo thank you for invitation but I am not connect to internet most of time, therefor I would not able to provide much value to the discussion.

I am certainly looking forward to the draft.

Also I do have a suggestion, a hashtag for this would be great addition for discovery.

@stevenclyman Sure, sounds fine... would you at least like a copy of the draft when I send it. You can respond to it if you like, no pressure.

@freemo surely!.

@stevenclyman will do

@robryk I would very much welcome @pixel 's input and am happy to share the draft with him if he is interested.

@robryk Do you also want to be involved on in the conversation or nah?

@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.

@ejg The discussion WILL be int he open, we just need to refine the draft enough that it makes a good first impression.. the intent is to put it on a git instance and open it to **everyone** to submit feedback and vote before enacting anything.

@freemo @ejg considering the knee jerk reaction that started this entire brouhaha in the first place, I don't think this is a bad approach..

@dashrandom

Yea while an open forum will be an absolutely vital step before enacting the UFI I think it is critical to first curate a group of people interested in it in private, get a decent first draft, and ensure there is some degree of support before going public. Only to counteract the irrtional nonsense flying around.

That said we already have a decent following brewing so i think when we do go public with it in the next few days it will be well balanced and give us a chance to make sure everyone is heard all the same.

@ejg

@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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APA_style

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 https://www.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?

https://youtu.be/s1ysoohV_zA
Human, The Human League

@ejg @freemo

@freemo this seems to mostly add a layer of bureaucracy to the process of de-federation.

Those that are not in the UFI could be seen as bad actors.

This would penalize those that choose not to join the UFI, or that get expelled because they chose to de-federate from an instance, after a judgement went the other way, because they felt it was necessary to protect their community.

@freemo This could serve to pressure those to stay federated to instance thay feel are not moderating their community, instead of pressuring those who are not moderating their community to improve.

@freemo I do feel that dog-piling and bad-faith reporting is a problem in a lot of social network spaces. It would be nice to see beter tools and recourse on identifying and combating those forms of harassment.

@ejg The idea here is that the UFI itself wont need to be universal, but its due process log will act as a tool for those in and out of the UFI...

Any claims against or for servers in the UFI will be logged and the evidence logged and transparent.. So if an instance out of the UFI want to decide for themselves they still have access to the evidence and can make their decision in an informed way.

@freemo an opt in 3rd party/independent/community driven reporting tool/space where claims could be logged and investigated might be something I would be more interested in. This could be a good tool to help identify forms of harassment that are not easily captured by the built-in reporting tools available. (Dog-piling, bad-faith reporting, etc.)
And still be a place to appeal against disinformation, or unfounded claims.

@ejg Any such tool would be central to the UFI ideally (We can use gitlab at first)... So id support it too.

That said the problem is these people arent very rational.. providing evidence alone wont help. There needs to be a "protective bubble" of solidarity as well, everyone just saving their own ass when one instance is attacked is not sustainable. Too many good instances have been lost

@freemo I still feel that this has the potential to apply social pressure in the wrong direction (so to speak) and pressure admins to allow the more marginalized members of their community to be exposed to harassment in an effort to stay in the UFI. Protections against that should be built in from the start. Bad actors have a knack for weaponizing tools that are suppose to keep things civil. So thinking about how this could be abused/twisted could help avoid pitfalls.

@ejg the beauty of the UFI is there vcan be more than one.. if they feel marginalized, leave the community, create your own federation with the same or similar or different rules

The UFI doesnt need tto be one monolithic entity but it is meant to "group" servers that have the same code of conducts as eachother.;

@freemo if someone isn't vibing with the community or doesn't agree with the rules, of course they can move instances. But if those who are already marginalized (or anyone in this instance) are being harassed. A moderators response shouldn't be to have the harassed leave the community, but to take appreciate action against the harassers. That may include de-federation. It should be a final resort, but I wouldn't want social pressure preventing an admin from taking that step if needed.

@ejg I agree with you entierly... harassment is against the rules. If someone is being harassed they shouldnt be marginalized and kicked out, the server should report the other for harassment and they should be kicked out of the UFI

@ejg The idea is that if someone is not moderating their community then they can be czalled out for it and will be kicked out of the UFI... thats why we have a evidence based due process... as long as there is evidence then they wont last in the UFI.

@ejg The intent is to make sure that those not in the UFI are **not** seen as bad actors.. I explicitly left out any concept of assuming non-UFI members were bad actors. The idea is that if you arent in the UFI people in the UFI can judge on an inndividual basis how they want to handle you

And yes it adds a layer of beurocracy, but the intent of that layer is to ensure blocking is done in an informed and evidence based manner

@freemo

> I explicitly left out any concept of assuming non-UFI members were bad actors

Some form of explicit menten that non-UFI members are not assumed to be bad actors might be good to include.

@ejg Great idea, agreed.

@ejg I changed the last paragraph to this, better?

The solution, therefore, is to ensure due process, enable discussion and to do so in a transparent fashion visible to all parties and with all sides having a chance to present evidence. While good-actor instance shall remain unified and federated amongst each other, any instances that have not shown to be good-actors by joining the United federation of Instances (UFI) are not under any special protections, they should be allowed to be moderated by instances however an instance sees fit. However non-UFI members should not be assumed to be bad actors either simply because they are not members of the UFI.