Planning for Decent Social 2023
Matt Noyes
Public
Seen by 12
On Feb 5th we talked about doing 2x 40 min sessions during Decent Social.
One session will be for folks from the social.coop instance to share about their operations
Another session will be for a facilitated discussion about folks who have some democratic or collectively managed aspect to their instances, as well as folks who want to move towards this types of organization
After corresponding with the organizers Danny learned that they are not setting these sessions in advance. Rather they will allow 1min/potential session for a pitch during the opening (1PM EST in the Americas room) then we can claim a slot via a collaboratively edited spreadsheet. No need to have a big description or anything, seems like 1-3 sentences is more than sufficient.
#DecentSocial, #DecentSocial2023, or #DecentSocialTopics can be used this week to chat with folks, throw other ideas around, and invite them to the conference. Particularly if folks are able to publicly invite admins or members identified by the lists we brought together in the Participants thread and indicate that you reached out to them on the Cryptpad that would help draw more attention to this event.
Jaz-Michael King Tue 7 Feb 2023 2:44PM
Sorry I missed the conversation over the weekend, I'm circulating with our mod team to see if there's interest in the second session. Is there a way to invite some of the mod team in here?
Danny Tue 7 Feb 2023 3:09PM
Yes one should be able to invite them to the thread by using the invite button under the context (see image). If you think they may want to inhabit this Loomio subgroup for a longer period then I'm also happy to add them to the subgroup (you should also be able to do this, but I'm happy to do it too if you provide their emails)
Danny Sat 11 Feb 2023 10:42PM
The raw notes can be found here and below is an edited version
Who is present and what is your relation to democratic/collectively run instances?
Danny Chan (Scholar.social; DC) Not on a democratically run instance our instance is all about relationship with admin. However there is a conference we run (#SummerSchool) on Fedi (Mastodon) that has more of a collectively run organisation
Hamish Campell (campaign.openworlds.info; HC): We need tools for pushing new methods into something, by organizing the people who do things... Users need to take control. Current systems are all basically feudalism
HC: Ability to form instances allows for democracy -- scale by sprouting new instances.
Mastodon typically is a money loser for admins, if you give users control you can get more resources.
Leo Sammallahti (social.coop; LS): bargaining position of the users is higher due to exit option, if we combine that with democracy we give users more power. One barrier to this is founders, who are reluctant to surrender control...
Dick Hardt (verified.coop; DH): run two instances, running on AWS, motivation proof point for identity... another instance is press.coop, send only instance, news sources unsure if this will ... read only... email for feedback...
Jaz-Michael (toot.wales; JM): US-based, 501c3 to own and govern instance... only moderator with 3 volunteers, but then November, and people started sending money to support the instance...
People are willing to donate, how best to manage and govern that?
How to grow mod team?
JM: Community council to advise, code of conduct, mod processes, messaging... Now seeking to compensate moderators for their time... We took on Loomio (saw it in social.coop). Goal is community management. Board of Directors is hands off, community council, moderators execute, others set policy...
How to cede control to community at large?
JM: hachyderm has an interesting model... Git.hub, Loomio, looking for ways to get full membership consulted.
Charles Lehner (woodbine.nyc; CL) no explicit democratic control, hackerspace nested in community center, do-ocracy... Mobilizon for geographical basis for organizing...
Steve Ediger (social.coop; SE) Chicommons—starting to provide last mile internet service in Chicago, with community owned and operated servers, multi-stakeholder coop. worker/consumer members. We would be interested in producing activitypub or social web protocols for time-banking. Asset Based Community Development methodologies and resources... ABCD looks at community from assets. We provide tools, training, recruit kids from neighbourhood to run servers. Not sure Mastodon is the vehicle we should use.
Moderation
Scholar.social — use mastodon tools, reports or DMs. We comply with admin policies, red flags, rules
Toot.Wales — Jaz write policy, vetted by community council, moderators use moderation process manual (happy to share), Do as much as possible within Mastodon tools for moderation... We record content that is deleted, audit trail... use notes feature for DMs... use role-based account for communication about moderation
Social.coop — Community working group was set up after a near collapse in 2018 with a influx of Twitter users. This is when a code of conduct and conflict resolution doc was created. It covers abuse off-instance as well. Ops team is elected and they execute this work as well as build strategy. This is a large task. Moderation is approached as a communication process. Further discussion may happen on Loomio.
Scholar.Social — aggressive suspending policy to deal with other instances lowers the burden of moderation -- no CoC or open registration leads to suspension or block. Also has a role-based account for communication about moderation
SE: we want to avoid "no" moderation like NextDoor in their potential future instance... we want to balance ... seeking to serve folks who are not empowered within society, so want people's voices heard, community vote on a post could be a good system
Maybe need a new term: Moderator -> Facilitator
Final words
Social.Coop members eager to help others start up instances.
Matt Noyes Sun 12 Feb 2023 2:35AM
Thanks Danny! Excellent facilitation, by the way.
Danny · Mon 6 Feb 2023 9:20PM
@Matt Noyes I think it's good we're asking the thread about times they are available because it will let folks who are attending the Opening session to stake a session time then. I will make sure to be in the Opening to do that based on the outcomes of the polls.