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   supernovae (supernovae@universeodon.com)'s status on Saturday, 22-Jul-2023 22:10:14 JST supernovae

   The hardest thing about being a mastodon admin isn't the moderation, running servers, paying bills, dealing with users or anything like that.

   It's dealing with other admins.

   There is a very thin camaraderie that is easily pierced not because of people being bad, but because of differences of opinions.

   Those opinions don't get talked about - they create tribes of people who champion them without rational discourse. Say something they don't want to hear and *boom* the tribe attacks and those who may have other perspectives let it happen without saying anything because who wants to face ridicule?

   This lack of rationality is systemic and problematic - so much so that talking about things in safe spaces is no longer safe.

   There are no safe spaces.

   I'm sorry, we need to do better. We need to realize we have differing perspectives but common goals and that doesn't make each other bad or enemies.

   Advocating for user agency is not a crime.

   • AnthonyJK-Admin repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Mox Fulder (moxfulder@mastodon.online)'s status on Saturday, 22-Jul-2023 22:10:13 JST Mox Fulder

     in reply to

     For anyone reading this and thinking 'wow, Byron's doing some good honorable work here that sounds really difficult', what he means when he says 'dealing with other admins' is going into the Mastodon Discord and suggesting changes to Mastodon that would harm community instances, like removing the local feed, and then getting told by other admins that that's a bad idea.

     There's plenty of rational discourse, it's just not in favor of his idea, which must be a pretty new thing for a white guy.🧵

     clacke likes this.
     AnthonyJK-Admin repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Mox Fulder (moxfulder@mastodon.online)'s status on Saturday, 22-Jul-2023 22:10:18 JST Mox Fulder

     in reply to

     There's no 'lack of rationality'. What he means is, he's brought up these ideas before, and opinion hasn't changed. He can't understand why local feeds are valuable to instances that run as communities, so any opposition to it is considred 'irrational' and 'tribalism' to him. He's a white guy in tech, he's not used to having his opinions challenged, especially when they're being challenged in favor of building safe spaces* for communities that normally face oppression and discrimination. 🧵

     clacke likes this.
     AnthonyJK-Admin repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Mox Fulder (moxfulder@mastodon.online)'s status on Saturday, 22-Jul-2023 22:10:23 JST Mox Fulder

     in reply to

     * No, Byron, 'safe space' does not mean 'a public Discord server where my posts can be copy-pasted or screenshotted elsewhere'. Safe spaces are places where marginalised people can exist in safety, where there are safeguards in place to protect against harassment, discrimination, hate speech, etc. I can understand not knowing this, as you've probably never needed a safe space in your life. It is very disingenous to claim 'there are no safe spaces' when this is your interpretation of safe space.🧵

     AnthonyJK-Admin repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Mox Fulder (moxfulder@mastodon.online)'s status on Saturday, 22-Jul-2023 22:10:32 JST Mox Fulder

     in reply to

     When the people in the Mastodon Discord call you out on co-opting and generalising the 'HOA' analogy from Black folk, that's an attempt to create a safe space - not for you, but for people vastly more in need of actual safe spaces. You interpret this as 'problematic', as lack of rational discourse, because you're being held accountable for the things you say and for the harm those things perpetuate.

     You are framing the people who are trying to create genuine safe spaces as irrational - 🧵

     AnthonyJK-Admin repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Mox Fulder (moxfulder@mastodon.online)'s status on Saturday, 22-Jul-2023 22:10:47 JST Mox Fulder

     in reply to

     - and you're doing it disingenuously, without providing the full context, which means anyone reading your posts will just take your word for it, nodding along in sympathy, imagining you facing off against these nasty admins and their ridicule and their tribalism and their irrational attacks, when all that's really happened is you made a suggestion in a Discord room, it was responded to by a bunch of people explaining why it's not a good idea, and your privilege did not know how to handle that.🧵

     AnthonyJK-Admin repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Mox Fulder (moxfulder@mastodon.online)'s status on Saturday, 22-Jul-2023 22:10:53 JST Mox Fulder

     in reply to

     You are advocating for a safe space where the things you say into a public channel are never shared outside of that channel. The fact that this is what your idea of 'safe space' means speaks volumes about the kind of life you get to live.

     *You* need to do better. Not us. *You* need to realise that in November 2022 you entered a space that had been existing for six years as safer place for the systemically oppressed, and we're not going to let you take that away without fighting for it.

   • Embed this notice
     Arne Babenhauserheide (arnebab@rollenspiel.social)'s status on Saturday, 22-Jul-2023 22:11:33 JST Arne Babenhauserheide

     in reply to

     • Mox Fulder

     @moxfulder the phrase “lack of rationality” was kind of a red flag: similar arguments are far too often used to push a point. “if you’re not with me, you must be irrational, because I know the objective truth”.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     supernovae (supernovae@universeodon.com)'s status on Sunday, 23-Jul-2023 04:38:00 JST supernovae

     in reply to

     • Mox Fulder
     • benny

     @benny @moxfulder

     Admins have conversations about big picture things. It's ok to discuss big "fediverse" things beyond the context of our local instances - see a problem, fix it kind of thing.

     There is a big picture problem of the HOA vibe on mastodon and a lack of user agency when their default post goes to local.

     I don't have a problem with local chat. I want it to survive in some fashion - maybe as "local only" or better yet as some kind of group. A group that can be moderated independent of a user's agency to their own timeline.

     This HOA vibe is cited as a reason why people are leaving the fediverse in general. It's not a problem i face on my local instance per se because i don't moderate the local chat to a specific vibe.

     But i still don't want people to leave the fediverse because other admins essentially wield power over people's agency.

     Being open source doesn't fix our HOA vibe. Changing inherent designs in the platform that powers a chunk of fedi could

   • Embed this notice
     Mox Fulder (moxfulder@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 23-Jul-2023 04:38:00 JST Mox Fulder

     in reply to

     • benny

     @supernovae @benny "There is a big picture problem of the HOA vibe on mastodon" There isn't. There are hundreds of instances who love their local feeds, who love public posts, whose users love having those things, and whose users are happy having those things and having the moderation teams of their instances being responsive, accountable, and willing to put in the work to keep them safe.

     Keeping people proactively safe is not 'taking away their agency'. Their agency to what -not get harassed?

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     benny (benny@kirche.social)'s status on Sunday, 23-Jul-2023 04:38:09 JST benny

     in reply to

     • Mox Fulder

     @moxfulder @supernovae now I'm curious: How would removing local feeds be a feature one would want?
     Or to put it in another way: If you are an admin and want local feeds gone, why in hell don't you just do it? Imean it's FLOSS. Change the code, deploy it, boom, everyone's got their way. No need to further argue.

   • Embed this notice
     Mox Fulder (moxfulder@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 23-Jul-2023 04:38:11 JST Mox Fulder

     in reply to

     • benny

     @supernovae @benny You're ignoring these 100s of instances who are happy and protective of their local communities and whose communities don't feel *at all* that agency is being witheld from them, because you don't like moderation. We've known for years that Eugen isn't a fan of local instance communities (I've been here since 2016), but he has so far listened to the will of the people in not taking those away from us, because our voices in keeping the local feed have been strong and unanimous.

     clacke likes this.