Skip to main content

FediForum March 2023

How can companies be good stewards of the Fediverse and help it grow sustainably (for people, projects, and the planet)

Topics Funding models Governance Trust & safety

Convener: Hannah Aubry

Participants (add yourself here if you want to be listed, no obligation): Name and Fediverse handle

Key points:

  • Owncast ❤️

  • fedi will thrive with for-profit present

  • protected from take over - culture will protect but need support

  • moderation & host services - customer service, and they knew how to behave here

  • companies will have to learn bad habits - some come cautiously, some not (IFTAS)

  • Moderation group on Fedi: @moderation@venera.social

  • IFTAS overview: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11417wmhW2xWZ7Le0Aw0NCgbGdZ_qOGnlfH6jZUmR-Us

  • Shannon Clark / @rycaut@mastodon.social says: “eternal September” (1993 I believe if memory serves)

  • we love to support the fediverse - here are the values of companies who want to participate - codify values

  • Jeff Jarvis says: Yes. No reason a company cannot start the discussion by putting out a proposed covenant for public comments

  • how to make it really easy for companies to support a lot of different companies

  • URI, paytube

  • Charles E. Lehner says: Possible values here? https://getdweb.net/principles/ https://dwebyvr.org/DWeb-Principles/

  • there’s always going to be landgrabs - can’t be stopped

  • rules of the road, helpful

  • what is the intention of companies coming to the space? $$, communion, marketing? NOT advertising

  • “you don’t come to my phone calls to sell me something”

  • “federation is a priv not a right”

  • NOT a replacement for Twitter

  • OpenID community - relying on technical specifications & community

  • obvious strategy for a company coming here is consuming data but never publishing back out

  • business certification set forth by the community

  • take a few weeks to listen before you start posting - encourage acculturation. somewhat baked in, but will it scale? there are already islands

  • instead of talking about a code of conduct - more productive to talk in terms of norms. what are the rules of engagement?

  • commercialization: don’t have much power as an end user. singer-user instance? too much friction, how do I get to power the invidial user?

  • Gabe Kangas says: I would love to see more single-user everything to allow people to control things. Right now it sounds crazy, but I do hope the centralization pendulum swings. Low cost, easier to operate, low friction self-hosted services.

  • operators now are hobbyists - this takes time and real money. there will be a natural change in the scenery. those who take it on the future will need to align to regulatory norms

  • some want to subscribe to and hear “advertisments” from things they care about. but it needs to be opt in.

  • we have a certain architecture (technical and governance architecture) that makes instance admins into “overlords”

  • movement needs to be more fluid, technically

  • governance models can incentivize or remove fiefdoms