Convener: Anthony Zone (@ozoned@social.ozoned.net)

Participants who chose to record their names here:

• Chris (@sturmsucht@mastodon.social)
• narF (@narF@mstdn.ca)
• Mark Reeves (@heymarkreeves@mstdn.social)
• Jaz-Michael King (@jaz@toot.wales, @jaz@mastodon.iftas.org)
• Scott M. Stolz (@scott@loves.tech, @scott@codejournal.dev, @scott.codejournal.dev)
• Sean Tilley (@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org)

Notes

Anthony tried to pitch the idea of a local fediverse server to a local martial school of about 200 kids. The response was quite welcoming.

Bonfire looks interesting for small community.

• https://bonfirenetworks.org/posts/bonfire_social_rc/
• Is it on Yunohost? -> yes! https://yunohost.org/

Matrix is also an interesting alternative, decentral but chat based

• https://matrix.org/

Jaz: Two resources I use to advocate:

1. map of fedi services by language/comunity: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/mastodon-near-me-fediverse-communities-by-country-_828094#3/25.80/29.79
2. template I want to start sharing for instances: https://croeso.toot.wales

Talking about liability

• Who is liable in case of legal issues?
• Fediverse server softwares are always public by default. That’s dangerous for kids.
• Maybe the default should be closed by default, especially for kids.
• Federation should be off by default, and work with an allow-list.
• Jaz: We are hopeful that Bonfire will address this

As server admins, we have a duty of care

• Moderation is difficult. Rarely 24/7. Rarely paid work.

[Narf] Talking about how to attract communities, building servers, for existing communities. Maybe one step too far. Most ppl are still on FB, they don’t know about Fediverse. They don’t know it’s there let alone why they should be there.

• That’s why we have to sell it to them :o)

[Narf] Most ppl have heard big tech social is toxic, but they don’t know how and where to go. We’ve been doing a workshop en francais how to quit meta and x, we can help them find a server, any server, we pick one for them. Then we exchange newly created profiles so we can all follow each other. In effect, building /new/ community instead of advocating for existing community.

• https://www.facebook.com/events/1157457318886060

[Ozoned] I do a podcast, I will be uploading where the eyeballs are. It seems ironic but that’s where everyone is. it’s a necessity to be there. We have to organise together to get a message.

[CZ] In the interview with Cory we heard it must be easy for people to switch over.

Jaz: We could start a business with just hosting + safety for communities

We had whole campaigns for bakeries, very specific, you could do similar with Bonfire, “we can build you a social media service just for your community”. That’s a business opportunity.

Jaz: We cannot just throw stuff on the internet and waive our hands: “not my problem”

• Countries now have regulations, age verification, etc
• Would need legal support for the business model.

Is this for enterprise solutions? - More like “Fedi as a Service”. Finding small communities and attracting them away from toxic services. - Would they have a staff of moderators? - The idea is to allow the ocmmunity to self-moderate along with a web of trust to federate with other ocmmunities at their discretion. it would be THEM moderating theirselves. probably can’t do this on a largew scale unfunded. NPR has trouble, unlikely “we” can do it. We go to spercific communites. Churches, libraries, sports groups.

Built the second fedi hosting company space host. Talked with media. They were not interested in decentralised. People want to follow celbrities, they want to be entertained. If there’s a business opportunity for them they could be interested. You have to throw all the platforms together to present a groundswell. Need to be able to communicate the message for switching.

We’re not considering designing for the user’s goal. Devs have a great idea, and act on /their/ view, as opposed to acting on the need that other humans have. Who are the users, how do we model the user, how do we determine what the user needs? Fedi so far is reactive, “we want to get out of surveillance capitalism”, but on scale that’s not what most people are worried about. We need to connect with the ocmmunity first, model what they need.

• [narf] that’s why we do the workshops, bring the people together who already know they want to leave Twitter/X, and are looking for alternatives, and we talk with them why they want to quit, ascertain the needs. We act only as faciliatators.
• “what were you doing on facebook in the first place. what are you there to accomplish”