Back when I was active on Usenet it was considered pretty normal to have house rules for any newsgroup, you were also expected to refrain from posting long enough to notice and learn the unspoken customs (this was called "lurking").
Nowadays people see it as an orchestrated attack against free speech, shout references to 1984, and threaten to move elsewhere.
Yet the ones asking us all to behave politely are called "hypersensitive"?
@jkb I seem to recall at least one usenet FAQ suggesting the lurking period to be 30 days. Can you imagine? That seems very resonable in this type of federated system, where each instance is likely to have its own norms, customs, and culture.
Hang out. Start slow. Maybe you'll like the company, maybe you won't. Maybe a different instance will be a better fit.
(Note: I just jumped in, tho', so ...)
@emdeesee We're getting used to faster and faster communication and more and more instant gratification I guess. I also started talking to people immediately after joining Octodon, mostly assuming things to be the same as they are in the birdhouse, I'm also guilty of rudeness.
Let's see how things shape up, let's try and make the place comfortable for most if not everyone. Knowing the admin I'm confident it will turn out just fine.
@sp A comparison to IRC, mailing lists, or even Web forums would also hold I think.
@jkb I was thinking particularly of Usenet because of the issues of propagating articles around and retaining them in a meaningful order
@jkb I think for me, I would rather see those posts, and ignore/block what I find offensive than have moderators decide what I should see. Maybe I want to see those posts so that there is a change for debate and dialogue? Breaking LEGAL terms I totally agree should be instaban - but otherwise I feel like it should be up to each individual user to choose what they want to see and don't want to see. Otherwise we are left with places like Gab.
@Birch I agree with this, that's why I'm glad that on my instance the rules ask for content warnings for things pretty much anyone would find disturbing instead of simply deleting toots.
Managing people is hard, moderating debates even moreso; let's all keep it civil and see where that takes us.
@jkb isn't it hard to determine what people would find disturbing? i only know what I find disturbing - but no idea what it would mean for the general public
@b_cavello @jkb - thanks for response. I did lurk actually. I also read this: "Untagged pornography and sexually explicit content
Untagged gore and extremely graphic violence" at https://mastodon.social/about/more. I hadn't read anything else about content warning and for all those flooding in, they likely haven't either unless its on their own instances TOS etc. Also, cap locks weren't really necessary :D
@jkb It seems to me there's a distinction between managing abusive content and asking people to self censor because an individual doesn't want to see a particular topic.
But I've already learned my lesson about asking questions or having opinions here. So I'll just go lurk some more.
@Jonesing Well if you are asked to not put your shoes on train seats, is that self-censorship?
The good thing here on Mastodon is that each instance can have its own level of permissiveness, so anybody can find a place they can call home.
Honestly so far I've had more civil and nuanced discussions in two days on Mastodon than in eight years on Twitter, I don't think conflicting opinions are impossible over here.
@jkb that was before Eternal September.
@profoundlynerdy Oh please I'm not THAT old.
@jkb Ha! Me either, but I am passingly familiar with the reference.
@jkb Yes people are very fast to proclaim 'censorship' nowadays.
Some seem of the opinion that every online community must be like a public lavatory, without moderation or even basic behavior rules.
I like mastodon's approach in that individual instance admin can decide on these things so that there is choice.
@orionwl Exactly, I like the choice we have. If someone disagrees with a particular instance's rules they are free to move to a more permissive one. No one is forced out of Mastodon, only in certain parts they are asked to keep a given level of decency.
@jkb the problem is that it is not a newsgroup where people participate depending on their interests, with a defined group of people.
Here if somebody I follow boosts a tweet with 3 people on 3 different instances and I answer, I cannot be expected to know the sometimes cryptic rules of their instances.
Instances are not closed groups, they interact, so this is a very different situation.
Either you go with common decency, or global censorship basically.
@Vaevix One could see instances as also being groups of people sharing a common interest, but you have a point.
On the instance I'm on the rules are pretty lax, content is unlikely to be removed but we're asked to be a little cautions with hard subject matter and use content warnings to hide them from people who may not want to see them. That's a good compromise I think
@jkb I think it is perfectly valid to have rules for your own instance, so that people who browse their local TL know what to expect. On that point, you can be very specific if you want, people will choose their instance accordingly.
However, I'm strongly against trying to enforce the rules of your own instance on other instances / the fedverse. That's really the point of contention there.
Your instance, your rules, the fedverse : you know the rules are varied.
@Vaevix We'll see how this takes shape but I think most people agree with you (I know I do), enforcing rules on the fediverse is not feasible anyway.
@jkb Some are trying by blocking instances, which could balkanize the network and ultimately break it into smaller filter bubbles (possibly with "neutral" instances doing the link).
This is a real risk in my opinion.
@Vaevix If the consensus on a given instance is that a given other one is a cesspool of trolls it makes sense to block it altogether doesn't it? In more nuanced cases it can be harmful indeed but these nuanced cases don't warrant a whole instance block anyway.
There is a risk, but because we are all free to move from instance to instance that risk is limited IMHO.
@jkb If it is exceptional, that's not much of a problem. If it becomes frequent this is far more problematic.
@jkb
It's just social peer pressure to establish the rules by creating a discourse about acceptability...
Don't forget many people are living their first hands on experience of a federated network.
Rules are then a reassuring thing, knowing them and showing it, means belonging to the in-group in their minds.
@jansegers I think this happens in every social group, offline or online. Sometimes It's more blatant as is the case here because we explicitly discuss these matters, but every group has its own definition of politeness and good manners.
@jkb lurking is still a thing - I dunno - seems to me it is. It's more that more people on the internet means more shouting people by default - you cannot protect yourself from the world :)
@jkb (or actually maybe you can now - simply need to defederate your instance)
@jkb Back then, we came to an online community understanding the value of that community, both to itself and to each other. We didn't go to a group just to spout and spew to satisfy our own personal desires for attention. We came to alt.cyberpunk and comp.sys.mac to be part of something bigger than ourselves, and to return something to the group in appreciation. Canter and Seigel kinda broke that, and it's been downhill and Eternal September ever since.
@jkb That would deserve a full blog post to talk about it I would be really interested to read it
@jkb yes! I can't imagine what the birdsite trolls and facebookers would have done in the face of the rules for some of the forums I was on in the early 00s.
Like, manual account approval, heavy banhammer, strict content rules (including minimum length of post, style, etc)
That was considered normal. Some places were kinder about it than others, but serious deviation was cut down quickly.
@jkb I agree. I think Federation gives us the ability, like newsgroups, to specify the behaviour we want to see on our servers and exclude/de-federate groups that don't comply with our views.
I think ultimately, there is no way to force (socially or otherwise) a behaviour norm across all federated servers though
Tell someone to play nice these days and half of 'em will lash back at you with "Beta cuck fascist, what's the mater, you need a safe space?" or worse. It's like empathy is utterly alien to these guys (and it's almost slways guys)....
@jkb it's like they've never been to a bar or club. If you act like an obnoxious drunk, you get kicked out by the bouncer, because you're ruining everyone else's experience.
@jkb demander de foutre un CW sur un plat de viande cuit oui c'est être hypersensible ... :joy: