Disclaimer

I‘m not asking if you want to federate or not and why. The question is if a defined ruleset would make it more transparent for everyone and more future proof.

Since we are seeing major divides due to the (de)federation of threads and now the federation of flipboard, we might wanna discuss future rules so to not fight about everything.

I can see arguments for both sides but some of the technical ones are more compelling since peeps who are unhappy can always move, an overextended instance will have to close. So I‘d take this as the basic principle:

  • no federation with instances bigger than half the fediverse (arbitrary number, could be no bigger than all of it as well)
  • no federation with instances that push ads with their posts
  • no Federation with instances that use altered versions or proprietary versions of AP.
  • no one way federation

These are obviously just ideas. There are several „unions“ of instances already that implement more or less of these ideas but I think its something that should be discussed instead of just yes or no.

Also, I‘d suggest we make such rules permanent as in if any instance changes in this way, it gets auto defederated.

This would make interaction more clear and easy for users to choose their instance. For example, If someone wanted the possibility of twitter federating, they‘d not go to an instance that has this ruleset.

Any other ideas?

  • FaceDeer@kbin.social
    112·
    11 months ago

    I think that having “rules” about who is allowed to federate with whom is antithetical to the open nature of ActivityPub, and I disapprove of any that don’t have a purely technical reason behind them.

    • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comOPEnglish
      16·
      11 months ago

      Which is your right. I stand on the opposite side and say I‘m not federating with „childp*rn.com“ for example. You can do so and tell everyone how you gave the child molesters a chance.

      • FaceDeer@kbin.social
        92·
        11 months ago

        Straight to the child porn, that seems like a new Godwin’s law these days.

        Obviously any instance can choose to defederate with any other for it’s own reasons. I’m talking about protocol rules. Did you see any mention of child porn in them? Going to go yell at OP for supporting child porn too?

        Edit: oh, you are OP. How ironic.

        • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comOPEnglish
          24·
          11 months ago

          Who started with an all or nothing stance? I proved you wrong, now you’re upset, I get that.

          So again, I think it is every instances right to do as they please. There already are “pacts” in place to defederate certain parties and behave a certain way. it is how laws came to existence, just so you know. Its one or more parties stating their own stance on things and if they can find others like them, they might cooperate. There is nothing wrong with this. I dont even get what your problem is.

          • FaceDeer@kbin.social
            22·
            11 months ago

            I proved you wrong

            What? I stated an opinion about how federation works, and you immediately accused me of supporting child molesters.

            But whatever. I’ll try engaging one more time.

            I dont even get what your problem is.

            Okay. You said:

            we might wanna discuss future rules so to not fight about everything.

            and in your most recent comment:

            There already are “pacts” in place to defederate certain parties and behave a certain way. it is how laws came to existence, just so you know.

            All of this implies that you’re proposing some sort of enforceable or rule-based system to decide who gets to federate with whom. That’s what I’m arguing against. You even say yourself that “it is ever instances right to do as they please.” That’s what I’m saying - that I think it’s a bad idea for there to be global “rules” for what instances can and can’t federate with. It’d be like if the HTTP protocol included rules about whether you could communicate with specific websites depending on who owned the servers they were on.

            • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comOPEnglish
              21·
              11 months ago

              Ok, so you got me wrong. No harm in that.

              Again, I think every instance should do as they please.

              My point was coordination between instances if you will.

              And I didn’t accuse you of anything. You said we should give anyone a chance and I said no and why, you countered with a reference which I dont think makes a difference.

              That was all. Have a good one. :)

              • FaceDeer@kbin.social
                22·
                11 months ago

                Heh. A passive-aggressive “It’s okay that you interpreted me wrong.” But no apology for accusing me of supporting child molesters.

                Which you did do, by the way. You responded to me describing my stance with “You can do so and tell everyone how you gave the child molesters a chance.” Since I still hold that stance, do you still think I should be telling everyone how I gave child molesters a chance? You should really be more careful about slinging accusations like that around, it’s not something people let go of lightly.

                • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comOPEnglish
                  21·
                  11 months ago

                  Today must be troll day, honestly.

                  So, I absolutely meant what I said and giving everyone a chance means exactly that, child molesters, murderers, you name it. You cant deal with that? Then you should choose your words more carefully. It is exactly where we have a problem in our society. People want all of it at once, right now, for free. Sorry, you cant get it. You cant have a space where children can run around and give peeps who have bad tendencies a chance at the same time. The same goes for nazis. You cant give them a chance and have minorities feel safe at the same time. I chose my side a long time ago. I will always protect minorities and will always speak truth to power.

                  And as I said, I‘m not blaming you for seeing it different. I‘m not making fun of you. Am I surprised? Absolutely! Am I disappointed? Very much so! But I‘m not saying youre dumb or an asshole or anything because I think you‘re entitled to your own opinion. But you’re not safe from me telling you that it has bad implications.

                  Now I have invested far more time into this convo than I would have liked. You can take my well meaning explanation and go or you can go on being mad about someone calling out the flaw in your logic. Your choice. Good bye.