this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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Idea for future corporations trying to federate (lemmy.giftedmc.com)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Disclaimer

I‘m not asking if you want to federate or not and why. The question is if a defined ruleset would make it more transparent for everyone and more future proof.

Since we are seeing major divides due to the (de)federation of threads and now the federation of flipboard, we might wanna discuss future rules so to not fight about everything.

I can see arguments for both sides but some of the technical ones are more compelling since peeps who are unhappy can always move, an overextended instance will have to close. So I‘d take this as the basic principle:

  • no federation with instances bigger than half the fediverse (arbitrary number, could be no bigger than all of it as well)
  • no federation with instances that push ads with their posts
  • no Federation with instances that use altered versions or proprietary versions of AP.
  • no one way federation

These are obviously just ideas. There are several „unions“ of instances already that implement more or less of these ideas but I think its something that should be discussed instead of just yes or no.

Also, I‘d suggest we make such rules permanent as in if any instance changes in this way, it gets auto defederated.

This would make interaction more clear and easy for users to choose their instance. For example, If someone wanted the possibility of twitter federating, they‘d not go to an instance that has this ruleset.

Any other ideas?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I don't know if you know this, but Lemmy is also using an altered version of ActivityPub to federate things like downvotes.

Your rules are flawed.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Downvotes federate as Dislike activity which are part of the standard. There are some nonstandard parts eg for locking posts distinguishing comments. But most platforms including Mastodon or Peertube have such custom fields.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Ah, must have gotten those mixed up then, my bad

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No I didnt. Thanks for letting me know.

And my rules are flawed by design. They‘re my first draft. If what I did was perfect I would rule the world, but I am not and nobody is.

Thats why we have democracy. To find common ground. They‘re just an idea, something to help understand an idea and to work off of.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

How would these rules be enforced in the first place?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Same answer as before. We would need to find solutions for this as well, together. Thats how teamwork is done.

I‘d say something automatic for things that are pure numbers like the member count. A server is running dozens of operations anyway. If a new server asks for federation, it could get checked for member count and if the count exceeds the arbitrary number (in my example it was 50 or 100 of the rest of the fediverse) the request gets denied.

For more complicated things like pushing ads, one can report a post, moderators bump the report up to the admin and they press „block server“.

Changing the protocol is a little more complicated still. We‘d need to agree what constitutes a „change“, if there are exceptions. Then we‘d look in the logs for suspicious behavior (more like have a script look) and get notified if a server was only sending unusable resonses for certain requests of whathaveyou.

Again, its an idea, something to spark more ideas and lead to more solutions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The ideas aren't bad, but they need to be broken down into atoms to build a solid foundation for such a rule base.

  • What is the motivation behind limiting member counts? Right now this would indiscriminately punish anyone with an existing userbase looking to open up to ActivityPub. Are there alternative rules that would tackle your motivation better?
  • What constitutes an ad? Community is horribly split on this. There's the obvious banner ad, but there's also instance sponsors or users simply proclaiming how overly happy they've been with a certain product. People are calling each other sheeps and bought shills left and right. Go to a tech community, advocate for a browser that isn't a derivative of Firefox and you'll see what I mean.
  • As for altering the protocol, again: What are your motivations for this, and could another rule tackle them better?

Before we establish any rules, it might be best to establish a communally agreed set of motivations and goals for the fediverse first.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

I am pretty baffled at how genius your questions are. This is exactly what I was hoping to achieve. Spark discussion and ideas.

Rn, my motivation behind the user number is that no single corporation or entity can flood a democratic system, which is by definition then immediately under their control, provided their users are agreeing or being influenced which we have seen time and time again. This is why a large entity would need to break their instances down into smaller instances to avoid this and would need to put them under different management. Same as with the EUs anti monopoly laws. I suppose there could be alternatives. Anyone should feel free to propose them.

Again, an excellent question. I have only thought as far as „this post has been powered by meta, get an account at“ and so on… obviously, there are less overt ways of doing this but for swiftness sake I‘d start with obvious ones and take them out, leave the others until a very good proposal is forming.

The motivation against altering the protocol alone is to keep EEE attacks from happening. So, they can propose a change for all, keep to the agreed solution or leave, imo. That way they are encouraged to argue and not just do their thing. One could say if its open source its still okay bit proprietary is absolute no go.

And yes, I agree full. Feel free to write your own ideas of motivations down so we can discuss them. :)