What's the point of 48-hour defederation threads?
What's the point of 48-hour defederation threads?
It seems that the issue was resolved behind closed doors, so it could have been resolved behind closed doors to begin with, and then if the defederation was to go ahead simply announce the defederation.
Making an announcement "it will be defederated in 48 hours" made for this weird countdown drama thread (we even had programming.dev people show up and be sad about defederation!) that didn't really go anywhere, and then y'all just locked it when we refederated and made it clear that you were never interested in input and you'll be running the instance as you please (which is well within your rights of course). So what was the point of the thread?
I can see how it is nice to have warning if a community you're involved in is going to be defederated, but it also drags drama to our nice little corner of the fediverse, and pins it at the top of our feeds for all to see. In fact it shows up as the top of every feed for me, Local, All, and Subscribed. I can't get away from it.
Every time these threads show up they end up blowing up. Honestly, if you didn't make these threads, I wouldn't care who you defederate. But because the thread exists, I have to come in and I have to have an opinion. That's a personal issue and I recognize that, but I would hazard a guess that I'm not the only one. People who have never interacted with Blahaj nor the instance getting defederated show up in these threads sometimes. These threads invite drama, and for me personally, whenever they come up they make this space feel significantly less safe and make me want to leave Lemmy as a whole because it feels like it's just nonstop defederation drama for days at a time, but it's pinned at the top of my feed.
Maybe these threads actually provide utility, and I should just take these threads as a sign I should take a break from the Internet for a bit. But to me, they just seem like they're all downsides.
The point to them is to inform users that it's happening before it happens, so that it doesn't catch people completely by surprise.
The fact that they can't be restricted to this instance alone, and federate to every other lemmy instance, means they become a drama point, but unfortunately, I don't have a solution for that. The moment it becomes an option, I will be using it for threads like that
There is technically a roundabout way you can do it although it involves a bit of actions
I havent fully tested it so may need some variation of the actions to work but:
- Post gets created as normal in the instance
- Post get removed through the lemmy ui so that it sends a removal federation action and removes the post everywhere it was federated to
- Post get unremoved in the database by changing the removed value to false. As this is changing the value itself rather than sending an action this does not federate and only unremoves it for the instance itself
I'd just like to say that I really appreciate how this was handled.
In order to curate a space like this, it's important to address issues swiftly and decisively, and I would absolutely consider questionable behavior on the part of an instance admin to be a major issue. It's not really feasible to start a discussion with every instance, nor should you be required to - especially when it's not clear that such a discussion would be welcomed in good faith.
The 48 hour notice is an effective courtesy for local users, and in this case resulted in immediate improvements on the other instance, which would probably have lacked motivation without the impending defederation. And with the problem addressed, the defederation was just as swiftly rescinded.
Well done!
i do agree that the timing was a bit off... if you were gonna talk to them anyway, could postpone the post until you were certain you would defederate in 48h actually... shrug
I appreciate the heads up, because Lemmy itself gives you zero clue. Stuff just vanishes from your feed.
I feel like it would still create drama, I mean it's not like the only people opposed to it were users outside here, plus it's not like people couldn't re-post it elsewhere as news since it's all public anyway, regardless of federation.
Defederation is an unpleasant topic and it's bound to cause unpleasantness, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it though, or that we should not give notice or announcements when it happens, it just means that we have to consider and account for the fact that it will come with drama, and to deal with that drama when it arises.
Though I do wish we could make certain posts local-only. I would definitely use that feature when posting, as it's quite useful when you have things you want to share with and get feedback from the instance but not necessarily the whole fediverse.
Defederation always causes drama because Lemmy is biased towards people who value "free" speech over empathy.
The difference it would make though is where the bulk of the discussion on drama occurs. Right now it occurs in our announcement threads that all of our users see. With local only, it would occur in external gossip threads that many of us would never see
The federation part was appreciated on my end at least. This instance is a big part of lemmy experience, and would have been odd for it to suddenly disappear.
I appreciate being kept informed to be honest. I'd much rather that than find out after the fact. Apart from anything else it gives the two Admin's a chance to discuss things, something that's clearly paid off here as the the other instance Admin has expressed regret the incident happened and said Admins should do better and the Admin who committed the offence has apologised. I think the apology must've been sincere as @Ada has stayed the decision to defed.
I think defederation threads in general provide utility in the form of transparency and the possibility of feedback. I did not get the sense that there was no interest in input. Hopefully we could try the suggestion from Ategon so that other instances do not see similar posts in the future.
I don't enjoy drama either. The drama infects everything and makes it difficult to have any conversation about the topic at all. There was a good faith discussion on the topic to be had and everyone in the thread made a solid effort to discuss it. It seems like most people got what they wanted as we did not defederate. To be clear, I am happy with this result as well.
I could be wrong, but I thought the intention of the 48 hours was to make it clear that the process would be concise and not dragged out. I think framing the post that way did not have the desired effect, for the reasons that you have listed. Mainly it created a countdown drama. The original post from programming.dev had its own share of drama as well which got carried over into the meta thread to a certain degree and again made the discussion harder than it should have been.
I think there is tension between wanting to create a safe place for trans people, as this is the stated goal of the instance, and wanting to be connected to the larger social media community, as that is part of the fun of a social media platform. As far as I can tell, Beehaw solves this problem by preemptively defederating with most of the Fediverse. This at least avoids all of the drama which is good, but then they are a more isolated instance. Hexbear seems to revel in being problematic for the sake of virtue signaling. I like that Blåhaj has not gone in either of those directions. In fact I think Blåhaj is striking the correct balance for moderation.
The federated nature of lemmy means we need to moderate against transphobia on an instance by instance basis. I think if the mods and admins here continue to be receptive to discussion then in the long run this community will continue to have positive interactions with the majority of lemmy instances. I think the nature of this continual process is not what most people expected from the Fediverse. I recall most people assuming things would settle down after an initial period of defederation. The fact is we are a part of a marginalized minority group which means there is more effort required to make this space happen than a space of similar size that benefits from heteronormative and cis privilege. Communication takes time and energy which our team of mods and admins have to provide for free. The process takes work, but I think the end result is worth it.
What I am hoping is that we will be able to learn from these early experiences and make the process as smooth as humanly possible. I don't believe it will be completely without bumps. Hopefully future defederation threads will minimize drama and maximize efficient and fruitful discourse. edit: typos
i guess it opened up a way to consider staying federated? idk.. it was my first so im not yet exhausted, but i can see that coming along eventually, yeah...
It's to give a timeframe for negotiation between server admins to resolve the issue, for users on both servers a chance to weigh in whether they do or do not support either admin's position (whether admins listen or not), and notice for users who may suddenly find communities they frequented lacking in new posts.
Negotiation across opposing positions is very tough but sometimes a necessary process to promote healthier online discourse. Regardless of the defederation is immediate or not, or if there was no decision to reverse it, there would be drama about it. I think that unless there's a different agreed upon process between server admins to handle issues they may feel is cause for defederation, this is about as smooth and mutually understanding way to go about it as you can.
I think the point is to be informative, also it is important to realize how it affects people which many of the people providing feedback showed. I'm not a believer that Fediverse should cater to "user choice" or "free speech" and I do believe defederation is justified and necessary, but sometimes it is too much, or too early to properly tell.
I can definitely see how it would be unpleasant to have a countdown thread pinned in the feed though, and the announcement of defederation in general. Defederation is an unpleasant subject and does start drama, though I feel it would be just as bad if not worse if we didn't get a warning or announcement. So it is necessary to talk about it and understand how it impacts people, especially with bigger and well established instances.
(I wouldn't say this is necessary for an instance that is new or has never contacted us or vice versa, in that case us defederating them would be as if we never existed to them, this argument about considering impact doesn't apply to threads or any other instance which hasn't gotten off the ground).
Personally I wasn't a fan of seeing the post pinned in my community (especially after lurking on Reddit and seeing a troll post claiming that Snowe needs to hand over Programming.dev to hexbear, made it seem like we were trollbaited) but I'd still prefer it to not noticing anything for months until I inevitably tried to respond or search for something there and couldn't find it, or replied/posted in their communities and get no response. Even though it's unpleasant I'd still take notice over ignorance.
Yes, hello. As an uninvolved person, I would like to say that I was tempted to join the fun simply because it was there, regardless of the request not to.
Sadly, I had no popcorn readily at hand and so had to refrain from stoking the fire.
You are quite correct that these threads attract drama lovers, regardless of background, and it does create more hassle for those trying to maintain order.Perhaps a one-sided instance-wide announcement, notification or message for users from its admins might be coded in as an option if possible?
Though, then again, that might create a wave of posts asking about what happened and such...
Some level of interaction is needed for these kind of things. The problem is figuring out how to balance them at reasonable levels to avoid exhaustion.
Perhaps an automated bot that temporarily bans users from other instances? Sounds like a fun thing to have around for admins.
Regardless, as long as the windows are open, buzzing flies will always show up sooner or later.
I think these sorts of conflicts between instance administrations should be handled more quietly than this. The 48 hour defedration announcement was the top ranked post when I logged into lemmy world. I don't think conflicts between administration teams should be made this big unless more sensible means of conflict resolution have already failed.
Blahaj's admins had reasonable concerns. Programming dev's admins made reasonable concessions to avoid de-federation. This seems like something that could have, and should have been handled by direct negotiations between the admin teams. Public threads on the issue are valuable for community discussion during a dispute, but they should probably be kept in a place where interested users can find it, rather than a major announcement that users of every instance will be informed of.
It's good to inform users if a community will be defederated. But please keep it as a last resort instead of an opening salvo.
Is there a way to hide individual threads/posts in one's feed?
Not on the browser ui. A number of mobile apps have the feature, though.