Reading group for the "Governance on Fediverse Microblogging Servers" Report, First call: Sept 30

General Discussions
,
1

Events are up on Luma!

This report came up in conversation at our AGM, I think there is value in reviewing the findings and seeing whether there are considerations and improvements for CoSocial we should consider. This is a personal task I set for myself but also thought would be the perfect thing to do with others.

Context

Erin Kissane and Darius Kazemi’s report Governance on Fediverse Microblogging Servers was released in August.

:spider_web: Web version
:page_facing_up: PDF version

Their initial research question was: “What are the most effective governance and administration models/structures in place on medium-to-large sized Fediverse servers, and what infrastructural gaps (human and digital) persist?”

Their main takeaway was: “we don’t think that the Fediverse is likely to realize the potential benefits [of thoughtfully governed, medium-sized Fediverse servers] without ongoing and intentional emphasis on—and funding for—addressing the cultural, financial, legal, and technical governance needs and gaps highlighted by our research participants.”

… so let’s read this report together and identify those gaps?

Plan for our calls

Sept 30 1: Read “Fediverse Governance Drop” Post and “How to Use These Findings” and “Our Goals” Sections (page 1-7 of the PDF version)
Oct 21 2: Read page 18-61 in the PDF version (web version):

  • Section 1: Overall Observations
  • Section 2: Moderation

Nov 11 3: Read page 62-88 in the PDF version (web version):

  • Section 3: Server Leadership
  • Section 4: Federated Diplomacy

Dec 2 4: Read page 89-116 in the PDF version (web version):

  • Section 5: Tooling
  • Section 6: The Case for the Fediverse

Early Dec 5: (to confirm) tentative Q&A with the authors

We can use this thread for conversation and notes.

2

I also posted about this and got some interest so will move this to our General Discussions section.

3

Notes from September 30

Who

  • Melissa
  • Django
  • Gene
  • Austin
  • Dawn

Notes

  • Decided to take notes locally and post them on the thread after (we can shift this later)
  • Decided for high-level notes, not attributed to individuals and a link dump
  • Chatted about our interest in this report and themes we are thinking about elsewhere
  • Big theme of the report that idea of a social component of the open web (“pre-platform”), yet need structure of some sort, how does the coop model suits it
  • What want to get a sense long-term: how are things appropriately moderated without retraumatising people?
  • What is in all the “governance tooling”, beyond just about governance on the fediverse (posts on masto, moderation on masto)?
  • Thinking about how governance happens:
    • What things needs to be affordances and interfaces?
    • What things need to be known in a stance (maybe guided by specific values)?
    • What things need to be written out processes?
  • Noticing server admin burnout, mastodon servers shutting down, it not being a sustainable space
  • Mostly interested in social aspects of how this gets dealt with, what the tech makes easy is also important
  • We are all interested in trying a new things with social media!
  • How do we encourage people to go into the coop-style fediverse instead of tiktok, treads, insta?
  • What is and how do we describe the value of mastodon and our servers?
  • How are things “sticky” for people when they join us?
  • Some cooperative and Cosocial-specific questions
    • Values of the cooperative beyond the coop principles, what are those ancillary values? Are we a values-based coop?
    • How appeals processes could work in moderation that are compatible with the processes we might have in the coop
      • In CoSocial there is a process for terminating membership and appeal (from the Coop Act), and we have a sense of escalation in our Code of Conduct, but more laying out concrete details important
    • Report mentioned legal liability requirements, what are they for a legal entity like a coop? What should we be thinking about?

Links

Next steps

4

I completely missed all the prep for this, but very much appreciate these detailed notes so i can follow along and meet you at the next session.