@atomicpoet @maxleibman @JustinDerrick

Chris, I disagree with your characterization, and although it is common to portray defederation as such, it is functionally, not just inaccurate, but completely opposite of what is actually occuring. I'll elaborate on each scenario separately :)

- Scenario #1

> Sometimes servers get defederated because they host terrible people doing terrible things.

- Scenario #2

> But also, sometimes servers get defederated because two admins have a personal, ...

To convey defederation correctly in those two scenarios above where I quote you, the sentences would prolly read as follows:

Sometimes servers defederate themselves from other servers because those other servers host terrible people doing terrible things.

And similarly:

But also, sometimes servers defederate from another server because two admins have a personal, ...

- Scenario #1:

It's not a matter, or function of, doing something punitive to someone else. Defederation is actually removing oneself from the conversation, making their own world smaller, and painting themself into a proverbial corner of self-imposed isolation.

Defederation means that YOU, the admin taking action, are REMOVING YOUR instance from a small part of the Fediverse.

The world of the person's machine that you defedrate from doesn't really experience anything at all, and quite probably doesn't even miss your machine appearing on the ActivityPub network. Aside from your particular instance, the Fediverse still looks pretty much identical to them.

It is probably far more effective to simply inform the user base to mute or block personalities they find distasteful or offensive - poof! Bad person is gone from their streams forever. On most Fediverse platforms, people can affect user level banning of instances by hostname as well. This is usually good because it doesn't affect other users on that instance who don't see the sky as the same color as the offended person.

Alternatively, if there are multiple complaints from your user base, then user level blocking by the server level by the admin might be appropriate. And of course, the most comprehensive measures are also available, and will not put undue pressure upon other user accounts to migrate away to another instance if they feel untowardly inconvenienced by such sweeping measures - and that's been happening more and more now that most platforms support migration ingress ;)

Pleroma's MRF system was fantastic for this, filtering profile pics and/or images from particular servers while still permitting their own users to engage with people from other machines where content might be disagreeable to some, or most, of the local users. Granularity is key where capable admins are concerned.

- Scenario #2:

This situation is another beast entirely, and causes harm to the entire user base of the instance defederating itself from the other. I stopped hosting minecraft servers back in the days when OpenVZ was popular because I got tired of putting out fires resulting from DDoS attacks between, the only way I can describe it would be, warring factions of gamers between minecraft server gaming clicks. It's juvenile, and a very damaging (and very real) aspect of social networking in the Fediverse today.

Furthermore, it's a classic case speaking to the advocacy for smolweb, and single user instances and platforms, which are on the rise. The following are are great examples of well maintained, mature, single-user smolweb Fediverse platforms that are gaining market share, due in part to this unfortunate phenomenon.

- Snac2
- Bovine
- MicroBlog.Pub

Lately, I've been noticing a lot of IT professionals, former masto admins, and other otherwise capable or just determined, everyday folks launching their own (often home based rPi installations) instances with the peformant, and reportedly stable:

- GoToSocial

But whereas the newcomer crowd are being increasingly subjugated by the predatory marketing tactics with respect to some fable of community by the allure of mastopub's ever encroaching positioning as yet another deprecated, monolithic silo model that is subject to the whims of veritable children as admins, and other immature admins that have no business being entrusted with the best interests of their respective user bases; it's simply a fact of life in the Fediverse that these types of actors are going to lure people to create accounts on their instances and then... poof! Here today gone tomorrow - You and I both have first hand experience with that sort of rugpulling ;) No offense to the dedicated dev who just either burned out or actually was fearful of dangerous stalking events.

For me, it was a research platform I really enjoyed and held high hopes for, yet I gather that you put some real effort into homing yourself there, and I therefore congratulate you on your new recent re-homing on your own smolweb instance :)

Anyway, I'll close now, having clarified the distinction between punishing someone else by thinking they've been defederated, and punishing oneself by defederating one's own instance from another. It's certainly a valid tool in tending to the day to day operations of a social networking platform, yet it is not a hammer to be wielded without due consideration for the people it harms most.

#tallship #FOSS #Fediverse #deferation #mutes #blocks #privacy #harm #silos

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