all 25 comments

[–]send_nasty_stuff 9 insightful - 3 fun9 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 3 fun -  (4 children)

1)Are any of you capable and would any of you be willing to admin...

Yes.

2)Would you draft up some "bureaucracy" that defines your group...

That part is not difficult

Isolate what you like and don't like about SaidIt, Voat, Ruqqus, Reddit, etc.

Old Reddit with the RES features IMO is the ideal format. If you have that as a starting point the rest of it is just microadjustments.

3)Would your sub-communities be willing to collaborate with other communities (like what exists on SaidIt) to develop shared or separate decentralized federated forums, develop common and distinct bureaucracies that are not necessarily all the same (more on this later), and other things to foster fair, open, accountable, consistent, honest homes for free-thought?

I don't really know. As long as all the control rests with mods in individual subs than collaboration with other communities is just fine.

With FLOSS decentralized platforms other servers can pick and choose which forums they also wish to co-host.

I'm not really sure how this looks in real life so can't say whether or not I think this is a good idea. You need to hide that complexity from the normal user. All the decision making should be mod level. Admin should only have a narrow number of things they control. User power should only be the power of the 'subscribe' and of course the power of making and modding a new community if they see a niche that needs filled. That's why reddit became so powerful. They let people create their own communities and promote their own communities and they didn't fuck with them (at least not for the first 10 years or so).

4)Would your sub-communities be willing to collaborate with other communities to share expenses?

Of course.

I think we should just have a donation button to raise funds. Maybe badge type award for good comments that donates to the site would also be useful.

all documented with 100% transparency on a wiki with an open history for verification?

Makes sense but funding is a lot more complicated than that. Maybe someone with experience in these field can come in and give us guidance.

5)What questions or ideas do you think I've forgotten to bring up?

You and all the initial admins and subverse mods are going to have to be incredibly patient. You can't just instantly create a social media site. They have to have a lot of people willing to build things and just wait for users to arrive. Anybody getting involved also needs to have a hands off approach to new subverses. Let people come in and do their own thing. That's how you build social media. Make a structure, make it stable and let other people play with the structure.

I also think you need to figure out your approach to porn, cartoon porn, JB porn, and edgy porn discussion. In the political realm you're going to get groups WAY more politically edgy then we are (from both the left and right). You're going to get shit tons of bad faith mods that create sites just to make the project look terrible. If you only allow what's legal in the US you're going to have a shit load of disgusting and degenerate content. Get ready because you're also going to get criticized for being against free speech if you don't allow 'age play' subs and gross shit like that. You can't have a truly open site and avoid those types of trolls that will make subs just to get the project put on a watchlist. Maybe you could create some very very clear labels and give people well built options that let them filter certain categories of subs. Maybe that's what you are talking about with the 'FLOSS'? Are you going to have little mini federation within the project?

[–]TheJamesRocket 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Heh, I knew you would respond to this.

[–]send_nasty_stuff 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

I had too. I've been chatting with Jason for a while on this project so I wanted to support him here. The internet badly needs a decentralized social media space that can't easily be taken down. I'm not sure if THIS is that project but if it is I'd like to try to help it develop from the start.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks.

THIS is that project. If there appears something better elsewhere, then all of this can be shelved, merged, redirected or whatever towards the best options. Perhaps even several can be nurtured in parallel. THIS project is all about free-thought forum decentralization, however it manifests. I'm just trying to plant some seeds.

I made another response comment under this post you might like to read. I'm now going to start responding to your big one and try to avoid repeating myself.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

1) Are any of you capable and would any of you be willing to admin...

Yes.

So you have Linux skills, etc? Do you have any experience, preferences, etc? Have you worked in Qubes containers? Have you set up platforms, forums, wikis, domains, backups, archives, etc? Can you im/port databases? Can you build bridges and/or code new features?

When the wiki gets online it won't be pretty, but it will be a place to organize and prioritize our wish lists.

2) Would you draft up some "bureaucracy" that defines your group...

That part is not difficult

I agree, yet it is a huge task, but I don't think it's a huge ask. I stopped trying to get M7 to share his future plans. For 2 months I've been asking Larry for his. We started a wiki exclusively for projects, whatever they may be, big or small, articles, lists, blogs, albums, manifestos, essays, production management, etc. Until it's fixed again and finally online I can only talk about it. One of the projects I'd like to organize on it is all of this forum bureaucracy stuff.

Old Reddit with the RES features IMO is the ideal format. If you have that as a starting point the rest of it is just microadjustments.

That's a clear solid benchmark. Saved.

3) Would your sub-communities be willing to collaborate with other communities [...]?

I don't really know. As long as all the control rests with mods in individual subs than collaboration with other communities is just fine.

I asked this direct question because some folks seem completely intolerant to other viewpoints, yet, perhaps ironically, all views exist on SaidIt, so they're already coexisting on common ground. Any community that can do that is good for me and can therefor collaborate on the ground rules.

Any community that can't is still welcome to develop their own project, perhaps in parallel and maybe even with collaborative help and brainstorming up until the sites become functional, and hopefully even after.

With FLOSS decentralized platforms other servers can pick and choose which forums they also wish to co-host.

I'm not really sure how this looks in real life so can't say whether or not I think this is a good idea. [...]

Yes, we need to see Lenny in action before I make any grand guarantees, including for individual subs, mod powers, etc. With a strong community I'm hoping we can get strong coders to help out in taking on the features wish list on the wiki that can be openly discussed and prioritized on the forum.

I've also stated several times that I'd like to see 4 user levels in all things: plug-n-play, basic beginner, advanced, and expert. I'd like to see this applied to users, mods, admins, GUIs, etc.

I think we should just have a donation button to raise funds. Maybe badge type award for good comments that donates to the site would also be useful.

Yes, a prominent donate button and a progress bar. WikiSpooks added one and he just announced that they're finally covering expenses monthly. I don't understand M7's lack of trying harder on this and other fronts. With success grows success and with money grows opportunity to have code bounties for features or to hire folks.

all documented with 100% transparency on a wiki with an open history for verification?

Makes sense but funding is a lot more complicated than that. Maybe someone with experience in these field can come in and give us guidance.

I'm certainly open to input. I figure that an open ledger with simple in and out columns like a bank account should be pretty simple and transparent. It need not get complex until it needs to. Furthermore I would never want to set myself up to be screwed over by random accusations that I couldn't defend with verification. Critically, I'm not hiding behind an alias that can be dropped like someone might if they wanted to run away with the mother load.

5)What questions or ideas do you think I've forgotten to bring up?

You and all the initial admins and subverse mods are going to have to be incredibly patient. [...] Make a structure, make it stable and let other people play with the structure.

1000%. People will also have to be patient with us. We'll all need to learn how to tweak the extant systems, learn the limitations, learn how to hack them, and learn how to evolve and code new things - within an overall plan with specific goals and directions. That's just on the technical side. The social management side will also require fine tuning, ideally through template-sets. And I want to make more simple graphic guides like the Pyramid of Debate. Further, others in the federation can quickly pick and choose how they want to set up their instances with template-sets too. Perhaps there may be several federations with overlapping commonality sets (and I can make Venn diagrams for that).

I also think you need to figure out your approach to porn, cartoon porn, JB porn, and edgy porn discussion.

Took me a bit to figure out what JB porn was. Not sure about the edgy discussion but it seems to me that SaidIt's anti-smut rule seems best. We don't need to be all things to all people. Further, if folks want to set up their own instances for that they can do that. We aim to offer tutorials and help in /s/Decentralize4Dummies.

In the political realm you're going to get groups WAY more politically edgy then we are (from both the left and right).

Take it back to the fundamentals. My server = ultimate veto. Same for every single instance out there. Personally on my instance "my rules" will be established with my trusted-team. We will develop and refine as we go, openly, include and exclude who we like as we go, from trusted-team members to groups to individuals, and we will always refer to our fundamentals in our manifesto-constitution. I have no interest in being political edgy, unless you consider free-thought, alternative economics, voluntaryism, solutions, exposing corruption of authority, and counter-propaganda edgy. Everything else should be pretty safe. The rest should be safe.

You're going to get shit tons of bad faith mods that create sites just to make the project look terrible.

I might like there to be no subs at all and have multiple meta-tags for better sorting and searching. I don't code so that may be a dream.

_If you only allow what's legal in the US you're going to have a shit load of disgusting and degenerate content.

Canadian C-10 law is looming over our Internet here. Among our top priorities after getting some platforms online is to get them on TOR, ZeroNet, IPFS, I2P, etc. I don't expect to have to go underground right away but we need to get ready well before it becomes urgent.

Get ready because you're also going to get criticized for being against free speech if you don't allow 'age play' subs and gross shit like that.

I don't give a fuck about retarded criticisms, but we'll be happy to seriously consider all borderline and reasonable criticisms that will ultimately go through the trusted-team. I expect my veto power to be used very rarely, if ever at all.

You're list of things to brace for are certainly worth noting and can be dealt with easily. We can make up black lists of things we don't allow and of course white lists if necessary. These lists can sub-categories and sub-sub-cateogories, etc etc etc. It could even go in a dedicated wiki.

You can't have a truly open site and avoid those types of trolls that will make subs just to get the project put on a watchlist.

All of my platform instances will be invite or by request only. I will never be open to unknown-anons. Unknown-anons may prove themselves on SaidIt or other instances or platforms first. By recommendation, by request to join, or by invitation they will be admitted as anon-with-identities. The community will watch each other and problems will easily be rooted out.

Maybe you could create some very very clear labels and give people well built options that let them filter certain categories of subs.

Yes! I want to have clear labels (meta-tags) on the different types of subs, content, users, and have filters. The filters may be a dream for now, but ideally with strong filters in place and people tagging responsibly (we'd need measures for this), there should be no need to censor anything but the illegal stuff. Even ads and spam could just be labelled and filtered as such.

Maybe that's what you are talking about with the 'FLOSS'?

/s/FLOSS = Free Libré Open Source Software.

Are you going to have little mini federation within the project?

It seems necessary, unless there are other Lenny or Lemmy projects worth joining. Lemmy code is decentralized but they are SJWs and censor words. "F-word" means "fuck" and everyone knows it, yet some idiots get offended by one and not the other. I don't know what words they do or do not censor and I don't care. On the other hand Lenny has their complicated embedded censorship (not just a bad words list) removed.

Just as Mastodon instances have fractured into SJWs vs degenerate Nazis, I expect something like it could happen in any federation. Since Lemmy is already for SJWs, I figure we can see how the Lenny federation evolves. I honestly wouldn't mind overlapping with Lemmy if they aren't intolerable, but if they're all like socks then I don't need it. I also don't have time to waste on Chipit or Nazis or commies - or dunce normies. Bring on normies that are intelligent free-thought truth-seeking folks willing to learn with their minds open but not letting their brains fall out.

[–]Dragonerne 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (17 children)

1) Sure 2) This seems like a huge task that would take hours but I can put some initial thoughts. Things I like about the platforms is the data gathering, which enables searches, network detections and other such useful information. Some problems with the platforms: Censorship, like reddit popular, their moderators, their admins. Anything that allows leftists to centralize deplatforming is a big negative. Good thing about reddit is that it takes 0 seconds to create a user.
Power is a bad thing because power corrupts, so leave all power to the users

3) I wouldn't be willing to collaborate with leftist communities. I don't believe that they deserve a voice or to exist in any civilized country. For me personally, it is about survival and it is just not something I am willing to compromise on, because I see them as active genociders. I would tolerate them on the platform but I wouldn't actively collaborate with them.

4) Sure

5) How would you attract normies? And how would you avoid bots/shills/spam?

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (13 children)

1) To be clear, administration is not moderation. It's all the Linux technical skills and wherewithal, along with prompt and timely servicing to keep the site up.

2) & 3) I'm asking for all this "bureaucracy" for several reasons.

  • It would show you're serious about it.
  • It's like a business plan, with firm foundations yet obviously adaptable.
  • It should leave leave little room for confusion or doubt regarding what the forum is about.
  • It would allow different forums to determine what they can and can't agree on for collaborative efforts to better resist censorship and tyranny.

I aim to develop many template-sets with many variables for many types of communities, including some that may be completely at odds. These many template-sets would be very simple self-identifying universal labels. For example, CreativeCommons has seven regularly used licenses (I think they should have more, but that's another story) to choose from if you wish to share your content. Why not have simple quick-reference labels like these that can apply to all forums on a collectively standardized set of criteria?

3) You're already collaborating with leftist communities, though not so much the SJWs thankfully. The left exists here on SaidIt, our shared platform. I appreciate much on both sides and generally lean a little left of center but mostly I am a anarcho-voluntaryist.

IMO, it makes more sense to survive by being smart, collaborating to conserve, fortify what we share in common, and agree to disagree on the minor trivialities under the Zionist corporatocracy oppression (which includes the GOP, NeoCons, Christian Zionists, etc) as capitalism and communism merge into global totalitarianism.

To tolerate them on the platform means you would all need to have common ground rules and the bills paid. That's what I mean by collaboration. That's also #4).

5) If we can make the template-sets to categorize feeds/forums/platforms, then I think we can also make tag-labels for content and/or users that we can filter out. I've outlined this several times before but here are some tag-labels:

  1. site and instance owner(s)
  2. administrators
  3. moderating trusted-team
  4. active non-partisan users
  5. centrist users
  6. right-leaning users
  7. left-leaning users
  8. alt-right users
  9. far-left users
  10. rare users and lurkers
  11. STABs (shills, trolls, and bots)
  12. banned asstrolls (their filtered content remains uncensored on the record)

Turn on and off the filters as you like. There's be no more need for censorship. Obviously we could rework this and/or other lists until sets of standard filter options exist.

At present this is just a vapourware idea that would require serious coding effort.

At present there's no leadership for SaidIt. I'm not going to tell you I'm better. However, I'm proposing we develop better fair systems so that it's not all on one flakey dude. With the fundamental foundation that things be fair, open, accountable, consistent, and honest we can build upon that. Anything that violates that fundamental should be shunned. There will be ups and downs and ebbs and flows but a transparent process can only be better. In time the normies will find us.

/u/Dinosaurysus also wisely stated:

" And we should have representatives talk about it, advertise, drum up support. We don't have enough people here but most of us aren't just on Saidit. We'd need some kind of promo package so everyone isn't doing it ad hoc. "

He summarized in a nutshell our ideal forum policy: janitorial rather than editorial and opinion moderation - to just clean up junk without policing.

[–]Dragonerne 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (12 children)

The left exists here on SaidIt

Just so we're clear. You are not a leftist from my perspective.

IMO, it makes more sense to survive by being smart, collaborating to conserve, fortify what we share in common, and agree to disagree on the minor trivialities under the Zionist corporatocracy oppression (which includes the GOP, NeoCons, Christian Zionists, etc) as capitalism and communism merge into global totalitarianism.

I don't know what you mean by this but I cannot collaborate with leftists who wants to silence me.

At present there's no leadership for SaidIt.

There is leadership. It is garbage but it is currently silencing s/DAR from s/all This is what I mean by admins shouldn't have that kind of power over communities. It was the same failure for reddit. Admins destroyed the alt right through censorship, not the moderators. Your tag ideas are good but might need some work, but I think it is moving in the right direction.

Remove admin power.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (11 children)

Just so we're clear. You are not a leftist from my perspective.

That's good. I don't consider myself left. I'm voluntarist and don't buy into the left-right paradigm. I used to be left-ish and still consider myself old-left true-progressive (like Jimmy Dore) on many things (very different than SJW fake-progressives and Dems). I like the Green and Libertarian parties, if I must choose to protest vote against the dominant establishment.

I don't know what you mean by this but I cannot collaborate with leftists who wants to silence me.

Can you pay rent in the same building as leftists? Same thing.

Anyone who wants on the platform I help make will be there for free-thought. That means rational discourse without censorship. Juvenile free speech idiots and STABs will be kicked off/censored until we can build filters so no one will need to be censored other than criminals (breaking laws). Essentially just like SaidIt, except that issues will be dealt with by a trusted-team instead of by one admin in secret. People will have the freedom to ask for others to be silenced all they want but no one will be silenced in silence without a fair hearing. The irrational may waste their breath calling for silencing and if they waste our time may be dealt with or filtered.

There is leadership. It is garbage but it is currently silencing s/DAR from s/all

The community is limited not silenced.

Admins destroyed the alt right through censorship, not the moderators.

This will not end. In a way it's a good thing. It's forcing us to find decentralized alternatives. The idea that everyone can host their own instance free of the corporatocracy cloud is the end goal. Not everyone will want to host edgy, fringe, or political content - yet some will be free to.

Remove admin power.

IFIFY: Remove centralized power.

[–]Dragonerne 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (10 children)

People will have the freedom to ask for others to be silenced all they want but no one will be silenced in silence without a fair hearing.

It is not a platform for me then. "fair hearing" I've heard enough of this type of language. Not interested in this platform, but good luck.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (9 children)

An open fair hearing with my trusted-team is not perfect but it's better than an arbitrary judgement from some secretive dictator with an ego.

Better than you coming to my platform would be for all of us to build our own decentralized platforms and federate them. You decide what you want on your server, with or without your own trusted-team, and I decide what I want on mine, etc. We can share the stuff we have in common and omit the unwanted. That's how the federation works.

The SJWs take it to an entirely different level (even more extreme than your intolerance) and have cleaved the Mastodon federation with cancel culture. I'm not sure if there can ever be any solution to this, and if Lemmy doesn't interact with Lenny then it's essentially the same thing. Regardless, getting decentralized is critically important and figuring out how to resolve intolerance division is of secondary concern. (For fuck sakes, if they can make an advanced FLOSS app like Blender, then we can surely build some decent filters in a forum with some decent database analysis that doesn't just serve the deep state surveillance and control system.)

It all has to start somewhere. I suspect this project would work even better if there were a few of us that were co-starting our own servers. We can consult each other and help get things running, tweak the software, etc.

The left already has Lemmy (including censorship of some words). Centrists and the right (and non-SJW left) folks need to embrace Lenny (uncensored) or be left floundering when they (ICAAN) start taking down centralized Internet sites.

[–]Dragonerne 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (8 children)

If there is an authority, then the project is not for me.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

I don't like "authority" at all either. But I also won't have STABs (shills, trolls, and bots) on my server. How can that happen without someone being the "authority".

Offer a better solution.

[–]Dragonerne 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

I liked your tag suggestion. Users could choose their own moderators/admins.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

That's a novel interesting twist.

If I understand you correctly:
If you choose your own "leader(s)" then you are held responsible to them and their standards. If there's a greater problem with one or more individuals under their supervision then the problematic individual(s) and leaders in question might be held accountable (whatever that means) and the other folks under their supervision may need to find new moderators.

I don't like hierarchy but recognize it's often necessary. I don't like my terms here. Leader, mentor, supervisor, etc. I could spend forever trying to find alternative terms to adopt but I don't care that much. I just wish everyone could behave civilly without need for any of this.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

moderators

Moderators almost always suck. I don't think we should have any.

[–]send_nasty_stuff 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Moderators suck on reddit because the site got so large that moderators who were modding as a part time hobby got tapped by corporate reddit to help spread the political messages of reddit. Moderators that didn't buy in were forced out and many new fake bought and paid for mods were put in charge of large influential communities. This wouldn't have been a problem if people could make competing communities but many of those communities were kicked off of reddit. In general though a community essentially gets the mods it deserves. Good faith mods do a lot of good things. They keep off trolls. The can quickly identify people breaking rules. They can identify people shilling products or ideas that don't fit the spirit of the sub.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I've been called a troll plenty of times, a shill just yesterday. Not that there really aren't trolls and shills, but it's often used to justify silencing points of views the moderator doesn't agree with or to quash any threats to their power.

A good mod is invaluable, unfortunately they're rare.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 4 fun3 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 4 fun -  (1 child)

This is like the prolix version of my girl thing :D

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Kinda.