A month ago, everyone: "Yay, the freedom of decentralized social media where communities can form around their own values and according to their own internal rules."
Today, everyone: "What we need is a central code of conduct by which everyone must conform or risk punishment imposed by people outside their community."
New boss, same as the old boss.
@Frankenbeans the discussion I've seen is more nuanced--or could at least be applied in a more nuanced fashion--than that summary seems to suggest. I see room for growth and improvement.
@jason Maybe. I just don't buy that the remedy is a central code of conduct enforced by a self-appointed council of behavior monitors. Octodon has a very clear code of conduct by which this instance will permit internal behavior and who it will federate with. There is no need for instance mods to get together to issue rulings on who is welcome and who is shunned.
@Frankenbeans if instances can have their own rules, what’s the problem with some instances sharing a common set of rules?
@Frankenbeans
> Because that ceases to be a matter of purely internal affairs.
I’m not really clear on what this means or why it’s a problem.
> It also punishes people who belong to an instance judged problematic who have done nothing wrong by blocking their association with other instances.
This happens already and has nothing to do with whether or not instances join together in their codes of conduct. Plus, I can still follow whoever I want on a banned instance.
@jason If I'm an instance moderator, I have every right to pick who can belong and who can federate. If I join a council that issues edicts on the internal behavior of other instances, I am no longer setting rules for my own users. I am setting rules for moderators of other instances by threatening a boycott of federation, which in Mastodon world is the same as a boycott of trade.
@Frankenbeans that makes sense. I can see how that would be problematic.
I guess the talk I’ve seen wouldn’t necessarily lead to that conclusion, though it is a possible outcome. I’ve seen talk of agreeing on a CoC and working together when a “bad” instance persists in acting poorly, which doesn’t have lead to what you mentioned above.
Bottom line for me: why can’t people who want a safe space to interact have one? That seems to be the heart of it, and I hate that it seems impossible.
@jason Because that ceases to be a matter of purely internal affairs. It also punishes people who belong to an instance judged problematic who have done nothing wrong by blocking their association with other instances.