IRC log of social on 2021-01-23

Timestamps are in UTC.

14:44:03 [RRSAgent]
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14:44:03 [RRSAgent]
logging to https://www.w3.org/2021/01/23-social-irc
14:48:33 [rhiaro]
Today's meeting in 12 mins, info: https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/2021-01-23-socialcg-meeting-new-fediverse-users/1305
14:52:16 [bobwyman]
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14:54:11 [rhiaro]
Zakim, please start meeting
14:54:11 [Zakim]
RRSAgent, make logs Public
14:54:12 [Zakim]
please title this meeting ("meeting: ..."), rhiaro
14:54:26 [rhiaro]
Meeting: Social Web Incubator CG
14:54:41 [bobwyman_]
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14:54:46 [rhiaro]
chair: nightpool[m]
14:54:51 [rhiaro]
scribenick: rhiaro
14:56:06 [rhiaro]
Note all the BBB is down for unknown reasons, we'll fall back to jitsi https://meet.jit.si/ScatteredConsequencesActRegardless
14:58:01 [Erik]
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14:59:15 [rhiaro]
present+
14:59:22 [rhiaro]
present+ sl007
14:59:25 [rhiaro]
present+ bobwyman_
15:01:45 [mathew]
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15:01:48 [Cristina]
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15:01:48 [rhiaro]
BBB is back up everyone!
15:03:02 [nightpool[m]]
present+
15:04:13 [Erik_]
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15:04:40 [rhiaro]
present+ jarofgreen
15:04:50 [rhiaro]
present+ Cristina
15:04:56 [rhiaro]
present+ mathew
15:05:02 [paul]
present+
15:05:11 [rhiaro]
present+ erik
15:06:19 [rhiaro]
present+ sandro
15:07:30 [rhiaro]
Annette: Ive been working iwth the credibility group
15:07:38 [sl007]
join audio at https://bbb.w3c.social/b/rhi-vp1-fv6-vn7
15:07:45 [rhiaro]
... I'll take responsibility for pushing the email chain on the credweb public email
15:07:53 [rhiaro]
... with the idea of trying to developingsome sort of spec for social media post vetting
15:08:30 [rhiaro]
bobwyman_: also from credweb
15:08:31 [annette_g]
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15:09:11 [rhiaro]
Cristina: this is the third meeting I attend, and I'm still trying to understand better what the activities are happening around this place. I know about AP from the conferences
15:09:22 [rhiaro]
... interested in general about decentralisation
15:09:34 [rhiaro]
sl007: and cristina had 2 talks at the conferences
15:10:03 [rhiaro]
hans: Free software person, want to see what is going on
15:10:23 [rhiaro]
erik: also received an invite from sebastian, curiosu what's happening, first time
15:10:52 [rhiaro]
jarofgreen: i'm a software developer, open data around events and activitypub
15:11:25 [rhiaro]
mathew: hi, second meeting, brussels bubble, EU policy sphere, help institutions with online strategy, getting up to speed on fediverse
15:12:25 [rhiaro]
paul: interestedin DIDs in the fediverse
15:12:52 [rhiaro]
sl007: doing redaktor, a content management system and tool for journalist on the fediverse
15:13:07 [rhiaro]
... actively seeking funding at the moment, and in respect to the topic of today we are investigating what can help with content moderation
15:13:15 [rhiaro]
... things we can use immediately like external tools
15:13:25 [rhiaro]
... or blockchain based solutions like agoric alpha
15:13:33 [rhiaro]
... and how the eunomia projet can help
15:14:03 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: I'm a cochair, been involved as a mastodon developer and behind the scenes with the CG
15:14:08 [FLOX_Advocate]
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15:14:12 [rhiaro]
... my computer crashed as the meeting was starting...
15:14:22 [rhiaro]
Topic: New fediverse users
15:14:40 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: Specificallly the moderation challenges brought on by the influx of right wing users away from twitter in the past month or so
15:15:04 [rhiaro]
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/2021-01-23-socialcg-meeting-new-fediverse-users/1305
15:15:04 [jarofgreen]
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/2021-01-23-socialcg-meeting-new-fediverse-users/1305
15:15:38 [rhiaro]
... there are a couple of interesting suggestions left on the socialhub ^
15:15:45 [rhiaro]
... There have been discussions of specs of different moderation tools
15:15:58 [rhiaro]
... the initial AP standard launched as a how you communicate messages and left a lot of further extension to implementations
15:16:05 [rhiaro]
... this is one of the things where we can talk about what people have come up with
15:16:13 [rhiaro]
... what challenges still need to be addressed, and what specs are helpful in the future
15:16:19 [nightpool[m]]
q?
15:16:20 [rhiaro]
q?
15:17:37 [rhiaro]
mathew: I'm new to this, but not new to the 'splinternet'
15:17:41 [rhiaro]
... when everyone was using blogs and forums
15:17:46 [rhiaro]
... before everything centralised
15:17:52 [sl007]
q+
15:18:10 [rhiaro]
... was wondeirng how much people who were involved in the fediverse debate now have the experience of the blogosphere 15 years ago and the fears back then about the emergencence of a fragmented space with echo chambers
15:18:17 [rhiaro]
... this was before the idea of filter bubbles
15:18:38 [rhiaro]
... trying to get up to speed about what ideas people have about trying to avoid the bad things which happened in the blogosphere and the splinternet 1.0
15:18:50 [rhiaro]
... can anybody share anything about what has been written about that today?
15:19:07 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: I was mostly invovled in phpbb forums 15 years ago
15:19:22 [rhiaro]
... one thing is that it seems like we've been lurnching between two extremes. Everyone hadi their own blogs, very fragmented, no interaction
15:19:34 [rhiaro]
... there are standards that address some of that, early on wordpress pingbacks
15:19:45 [rhiaro]
... with the centralised thing everybody is in the same social place
15:19:57 [rhiaro]
... it seems that what we're trying to do in the conversations I've heard is find a happy medium between those two places
15:20:01 [rhiaro]
mathew: that's what I'm hoping we do
15:20:10 [rhiaro]
... you have to be careful what you wish for
15:20:15 [rhiaro]
... let's not go into this blind to what happened in the past
15:20:22 [rhiaro]
... best of both worlds in the future, and not swing between extremes
15:20:31 [rhiaro]
... any proposals, so relevant to the subject of moderation and trust levels
15:20:39 [rhiaro]
... a copule of people from the credibility group, sounds intriguing
15:20:40 [rhiaro]
q?
15:20:49 [nightpool[m]]
ack sl
15:20:55 [rhiaro]
sl007: my direct proposals to the fediverse
15:21:11 [rhiaro]
... I doubt access contorl lists and blocking whole instances
15:21:33 [rhiaro]
... if you have a large instance of 1mil users and half are facists but the other way are within the democratic spectrum, then it is very hard to block the whole instance in terms of democracy and freedom of speech
15:21:45 [rhiaro]
... this does not mean any political direction, it just means the boundaries of the democratic spectrum
15:22:01 [bobwyman_]
You don't need algorithms to produce the effect of "filter bubbles." The same effect can be produced when people make individual decisions about the blogs they will follow, what email lists to join, etc. Filter bubbles are a problem whether or not you have algorithms.
15:22:02 [rhiaro]
... my proposal is that the very diverse AP implementers who have now blocked gab for example are coming together to have another layer above the AP
15:22:09 [rhiaro]
... which is a governance layer, which might be on a blockchain or something
15:22:50 [rhiaro]
... my dream would be that, I know it is very hard to achieve, it begins with wanting election justice, only every human has one vote, but apart from that I am proposing a governance model based on the free city of hamburg
15:22:55 [rhiaro]
... for maximum level of transparency and justice
15:23:11 [rhiaro]
... my idea is to have blockchain based token system with every fediverse user joing an instance gets a citizen right and can elect moderators
15:23:30 [rhiaro]
... and together with tools by eunomia for example we can have a thing like a trust layer where i'ts easier to react
15:23:40 [rhiaro]
... the basic assumption must be that we limit instance sizes
15:23:53 [rhiaro]
... an instance of 1mil users with moderators who are directly involved in the instance and not transparently elected is not acceptable
15:23:56 [rhiaro]
q?
15:24:22 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: some background info here, when sebastian is talking about instances he is talking about a server or collection of servers that share software, mod team and database
15:24:28 [rhiaro]
... it is a common term in the fediverse today
15:24:34 [mathew]
@sebastian, using liquid democracy?
15:24:40 [rhiaro]
... it's not a term defined by a standard. It's one installation of a piece of software
15:24:50 [rhiaro]
... a lot of the current mod tools are based around working with individual user accounts and instance accounts
15:25:11 [sandro_]
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15:25:16 [rhiaro]
... on mastodon and pleroma those are the main tools that admins have to block content, restrict connection, mostly in a blocklist type situation,r estrict content from being processed from other domain names
15:25:23 [rhiaro]
... that's where we are today, there are other nuances
15:25:32 [rhiaro]
... every instance can be different as far as its moderation policy. Some are heavily moderated, some are light
15:25:36 [rhiaro]
... some are 5 people or one person
15:25:49 [rhiaro]
... some instances as big as mastodon.social where you have a group of 10 moderators
15:25:56 [sandro_]
q+
15:26:05 [rhiaro]
... if anyone has other questions about the state today, happy to answer those
15:26:37 [rhiaro]
sandro: I didn't intro earlier, I chair the credweb cg and I helped with AP creation
15:26:52 [rhiaro]
... I'm working fulltime on credibility, connected with content moderation
15:27:12 [rhiaro]
... the instance based with small instances is a good approach but I want to go in a slightly different direction which is ignore the instance and instead let everything be relative to each user
15:27:32 [rhiaro]
... we have that with users able to block other users, doesn't scale well, but with additional tools like user controlled algorithmic blocking or up/downvoting of content
15:27:36 [nightpool[m]]
q+ to talk about the benefits of instance-based moderation
15:27:38 [rhiaro]
... I pick the kind of sources i want to determine the kind of stuf fI see
15:27:47 [rhiaro]
... my intuition is that is the most powerful way to solve this problem
15:27:47 [sl007]
q+
15:27:52 [rhiaro]
... maybe small instasnce level is
15:27:54 [rhiaro]
ack sandro_
15:27:56 [rhiaro]
ack nightpool[m]
15:27:56 [Zakim]
nightpool[m], you wanted to talk about the benefits of instance-based moderation
15:28:11 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: one of the reasons why instance based moderation is regarded as powerful on mastodon
15:28:19 [rhiaro]
... is because instances are regarded as self organised communities
15:28:28 [rhiaro]
... when people come to join the mastodon network they com eto join a specific instance
15:28:42 [rhiaro]
sandro: that's one of the reasons its a non starter, I'm not in one community, but in lots of different ones and go in and out
15:28:53 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: but when there's already that self organising principle there that's when it seems very powerful
15:29:01 [rhiaro]
... and shared moderation from the instance, based on the policy of th server itself
15:29:15 [rhiaro]
sandro_: you may need instance moderation for legal reasons, we may never be able to get rid of instance moderation
15:29:20 [rhiaro]
ack sl007
15:29:22 [rhiaro]
ack sl
15:29:40 [rhiaro]
sl007: the reason to limit instance sizes was what nightpool[m] said, users new to the fediverse join based on topics interested in or because of their friends
15:30:01 [rhiaro]
... I want to avoid that an instance like gab becomes as large as it is, but stays at the same level like local instances like for a village or something
15:30:05 [rhiaro]
... I don't think what sandro described is the opposite
15:30:12 [rhiaro]
... I think making everyone relative in terms of governance is one thing
15:30:20 [rhiaro]
... another thing is that you can join based on your topics
15:30:27 [rhiaro]
... that is exactly why things like a decentralised identifier is so important
15:30:42 [rhiaro]
... one time we have just one identity in the internet but we can be part of many instances and many implementations with this identifier
15:30:49 [Cristina]
q+
15:30:51 [bobwyman_]
I suggest that we should distinguish between 1) A user's desire or need to limit exposure to non-credible content and 2) An ability to moderate the content that is seen by one or more users.
15:31:13 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: one important thing is this current situation where the software you use is coupled to the server and the domain name is a little bit, not exactly one the AP spec provides for
15:31:24 [rhiaro]
... AP contemplates an authoritative server, but is agostic to the content
15:31:31 [rhiaro]
... and very opinioned clients, so many clients for the same server
15:31:44 [rhiaro]
... decentralised identifiers have other benefits as well. What happens when the person who runs your server stops paying the bills?
15:31:51 [rhiaro]
... an issue in the days of forums, and an issue now with federated social
15:32:07 [rhiaro]
sl007: we want to have another session about this generic servers and diverse clients
15:32:15 [rhiaro]
... that is important
15:32:21 [rhiaro]
ack Cristina
15:32:55 [rhiaro]
Cristina: thinking that as we see th efediverse as a group of different communities with the core values of diversity, inclusion, feedom of expression
15:33:10 [rhiaro]
... the way that intuitively I see it is that the base of what brings together thse communities is relationships
15:33:30 [rhiaro]
... when you developing some sort of rapport and that should be based on core values that are shared
15:33:38 [rhiaro]
... two communities don't share their values, we have a conflict and that's not okay
15:33:48 [sandro]
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15:33:55 [rhiaro]
... i was wondering if it could be technologically feasible, thinking about also the blockchain idea sebastian mentioned, to define som esort of policy layer
15:34:16 [rhiaro]
... so when you as an admin were peering with another instance you are showing your set of values, and if that other instance believes that they are sharing those values, that instance can peer with you
15:34:24 [rhiaro]
... in this way, when that instance is not following those values you can close the connection
15:34:25 [nightpool[m]]
s/som esort/some sort
15:34:35 [bobwyman_]
q+
15:34:38 [annette_g]
q+
15:34:47 [rhiaro]
... otherwise it's kind of impossible to envision a situation when you have decentralisation and you are also trying ot centralisae an entire way of doing things for all instances
15:34:54 [rhiaro]
... what you can do is not peer with an instance that dosen't share your values
15:34:57 [rhiaro]
... can this be automatic?
15:35:17 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: thank you! some of what you said with the tech details, the way the fediverse works now is an actor to actor connection
15:35:28 [rhiaro]
... while these can be thought of as peering between instances, they happen naturally as users follow other users
15:35:39 [rhiaro]
... we already have some of that, the rapport, that happens as users follow other people
15:35:42 [bobwyman_]
There is a difference between filtering based on the speaker's identity and filtering based on the content of a specific speech act.
15:35:45 [sl007]
q+
15:35:53 [sandro]
bobwyman_, I'm not quite following your distinctintion. Is it about user-for-themself vs someone-else-protecting-users, or is it about credibility vs other aspects of content quality?
15:36:05 [rhiaro]
... as users follow other pepole, they subscribe to their updates and as those updates come up we can think of those follower connections as being two instances connected by 3 followers
15:36:07 [Cristina]
q+
15:36:30 [rhiaro]
... definitely there are other ways you can learn about a post if someone boosts it or if somebody can send you a piece of content out of nowhere, they can write a reply without your instance every knowing anything about them
15:36:42 [mathew]
q+
15:36:45 [rhiaro]
ack bobwyman_
15:36:55 [rhiaro]
bobwyman_: trying to understand the focus of what you're trying to accomplish
15:37:15 [rhiaro]
... cristina was talking about filtering based on identity or history of individuals? essentially blocklists, arbitrarily interesting technology there
15:37:32 [rhiaro]
... another problem which is not focussed on speakers but on what is said, on measuring the credibility or content of the messages themselves
15:37:47 [rhiaro]
... curious is the focus in this group more on filtering the people or is it on making statements about content, or both?
15:37:56 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: that's a good question, the group probably has varied opinions
15:38:22 [rhiaro]
... the work done currently is more about watching the types of software people implement, the moderation seems to be more based on filtering users because that's the pattern we have looking at the types of moderation examples in the past
15:38:42 [rhiaro]
... we ban people from irc rooms, twitter bans people from tis platform. If i'm on a discord server with people, a person is kicked out, not some of their messages
15:38:53 [rhiaro]
ack annette_g
15:39:26 [nightpool[m]]
Would someone mind linking the email thread in question?
15:39:31 [bobwyman_]
Sandro, one view relies on users making their own choices, the other view delegates decision making to others. I prefer systems that allow users to craft their own "filters" rather than those that facilitate the ability of others (or software) to make decisions about what should be seen.
15:39:42 [rhiaro]
annette_g: I want to start out from circling back to what i was proposing on the email thread which is coming from th epoint of view of seeing what would happen with the US presidential race recently where it took some examples of multiple platforms deciding to block trump before they all did. there was a groundswell of decision before they decided they should do it
15:40:00 [rhiaro]
... the platform mods were probably holding back to see what the others would do. Feeling if they were the first to block they'd take a hit in terms of how attractive their platform is to their users
15:40:07 [rhiaro]
... how true those concerns are and how they should be weighted is a different quesiton
15:40:15 [rhiaro]
... the dynamic i'm seeing is it helps to have some sort of an agreement
15:40:23 [rhiaro]
... it might make sense to develop a standardised approach to these things
15:40:43 [rhiaro]
... to have the right set of people, with expertise in sociology, psychology, politics, all the things that w3c doesn't necessarily have currently
15:40:57 [rhiaro]
... and get some sort of agreement between providers to say this is the minimum criteria that we're going to use to block somebody
15:41:02 [rhiaro]
... or to kick somebody off a platform
15:41:12 [rhiaro]
... aiming more at dealing with th emost extreme behaviour and making it so its an easy decision
15:41:45 [rhiaro]
... but different groups with have different values, so maybe the best approach is to define levels and saying maybe level 1 protection system you will block with this particular stimulus to do so and another level you have a higher bar that someone has to reach before you block them
15:42:04 [rhiaro]
... and it also occurs to me that defining these levels could be akin to waht was suggested earlier of having different instances that have the same level of values
15:42:08 [rhiaro]
... those could speak to each other more readily
15:42:35 [rhiaro]
... it cold be that we would want to define values as these different levels and allow maybe more free or i fpeople from different levels are trying to connect then their posts are marked
15:42:45 [rhiaro]
... so users see something that gives a guarantee of what level of enforcement they're seeing
15:42:51 [FLOX_Advocate]
q+
15:42:56 [rhiaro]
... and those running instances can have assurance that what they're doing is acceptable with the communities they're working with
15:43:25 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: one thing to note is about twitter and facebook both were watching each other act, and facebook took the first move and twitter had to do it
15:43:30 [bobwyman_]
You may detest my political views or "values," but still find listening to me to be useful if we are talking about software design not social issues..
15:43:34 [rhiaro]
... those platforms already have very strict guidelines but they are interpreted very subjectively
15:43:44 [rhiaro]
... a struggle is its always going to be up to a person to subjectively implement those levels
15:44:02 [rhiaro]
... it's one of those things that seems like as objective as it can be, always twisted for political or commercial ends
15:44:08 [rhiaro]
ack sl
15:44:25 [rhiaro]
sl007: I would like to give Cristina and Annette full acknowledgement first, I speak for my own activitypub software redaktor
15:44:31 [rhiaro]
... I'd like to translate into the fediverise
15:44:45 [rhiaro]
... imagine we establish a common set of linked data code of conduct princpples or terms of service principles
15:44:52 [rhiaro]
... the minimum set would be the human rights delcarations
15:45:06 [rhiaro]
... the major set might be established values from other orgs, like the associated press or NGOs with codes of conducts
15:45:30 [rhiaro]
... we imagine you come from a country like romania and [??] becomes a dicatator in the country, to join the fediverse to have a voice there he would have to agree to the human rights at least
15:45:42 [rhiaro]
... that would be my solution based on a linked data vocabulary for code of conduct and terms of servce
15:45:51 [rhiaro]
ack Cristina
15:46:18 [rhiaro]
Cristina: from the policy perspective, the way I mentioned it was a policy in terms of moderation
15:46:25 [rhiaro]
... social web incubator can define best practices
15:46:43 [rhiaro]
... if we want to go into human rights, we need to discuss about the topic and define it further, but what we can do I believ eis define a set of best practices of a way of moderating your own instance
15:46:56 [rhiaro]
... I'm sure that small instances might be very interested, maybe they don't know how to do this kind of policy work for their own instance
15:47:07 [rhiaro]
... Regarding the policy aspect more from the point of view of how instances are peering with each other
15:47:15 [rhiaro]
... would be great to make it such that this is automatic
15:47:40 [rhiaro]
... defining a set of values which are agreed on or not agreed on at the higher level in terms of this instance will peer with this instance and if they do not peer in that situation
15:48:04 [rhiaro]
... A small remark about individuals - I would be in gneeral a bit reluctant to promote censorship at their level, and let them free to do whatever they want as long as they agree to a certain set of conduct on the platform
15:48:10 [rhiaro]
ack mathew
15:48:23 [rhiaro]
mathew: coming back to bob about focussing on the person or the content
15:48:29 [rhiaro]
... we have this legacy of focussing on the person or the account
15:48:36 [rhiaro]
... interesting to look at it the other way
15:48:51 [rhiaro]
... defining certain levels, the trouble with levels is with any standard, twitter had standards and ignored them when it came to Trump until they had not chocie
15:49:03 [nightpool[m]]
(That was Annette, I believe, who brought up the subject of levels)
15:49:06 [rhiaro]
... there's an interpretation of the standard, does this content meet our standards or not, two people can have a different answer fo rthe same content
15:49:13 [rhiaro]
... the idea of having servers that set a certain level of tolerance?
15:49:29 [rhiaro]
... then people on the server presumably respect that level. If they see content that breaks that level of tolerance they can register a vote on it
15:49:52 [rhiaro]
... and the collective votes of the users on the instance inform the algorithm on the instance towards whether the content does respect the servers stated level, and that affects whether it can travel to other instances
15:50:00 [rhiaro]
... if content comes from an instance that says we are at level 3, but it doesn't, that' sa problem
15:50:09 [sl007]
q+
15:50:17 [rhiaro]
... is anybody talking about using liquid democracy? Most people do not have time to set ifilters and play with settings, but might trust someone else
15:50:33 [rhiaro]
... other people can adopt someone else's model, that's a form of liquid democracy
15:51:16 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: when mastodon first formed there were shared blocklist and chained blocklists, especially with in the aftermath of the blocktogether plugin, the initial queer and lgbtq communities who formed mastodon were on the receiving end of a lot of blocking due to conflicting with bigger social media personalities
15:51:24 [rhiaro]
... there's an article about why Wil Wheaton has me blocked on medium
15:51:40 [rhiaro]
... historically that is why there has been resistance to that liquid democracy subject, when things get out of hand there are a lot of failure modes
15:51:42 [rhiaro]
ack FLOX_Advocate
15:51:53 [rhiaro]
FLOX_Advocate: annette got me thinking about instance filtering as moderatro weighting and keywording
15:52:00 [rhiaro]
... mods could block if something comes in that the instance says we don't like
15:52:10 [rhiaro]
... there's a gardening instances, someone is posing non gardening stuff, the modsof that instance would block it
15:52:20 [rhiaro]
... or they're posting things about growing weeds and they don't like that as a subject
15:52:27 [rhiaro]
... but at the client level, I could choose to apply those filters completely or partially
15:52:37 [rhiaro]
... maybe on weekends I like to read bout weeds so I'd allow those things to come through anyway
15:52:50 [rhiaro]
... for me as a user i'd love a client that supports procmail on the backend so I can do thes ame as I do with my email
15:53:10 [rhiaro]
... On a different topic, applying it, a frien dof mine ahs refused to join the fediverse due to the inability to block all content from a stalker, no matter how that comes in
15:53:23 [rhiaro]
... if its booted by someone you trust and someone is commenting on it that content can still show up, that is a problem
15:53:37 [rhiaro]
... I understand where that person is coming from but I don't know enough, it might be I dont' know enough to explain how the tools work
15:53:56 [sandro]
How can anyone block all content from a stalker on any platform that doesn't have mandated one-identity-per-human?
15:53:59 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: totally, a valuable perspective. For mastodon specifically all of the areas you mentioned we still block the user to prevent the content, but possibly there's a bug, we're a small team
15:54:02 [rhiaro]
ack sl
15:54:15 [rhiaro]
sl007: about what mathew said about liquid democracy, we are investingating liquid feedback and such tools to use
15:54:28 [rhiaro]
... my only other level was that the moderators should be elected
15:54:33 [rhiaro]
... to have a better level of transparency
15:54:48 [rhiaro]
https://liquidfeedback.org
15:54:56 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: there is a spot on our agenda for discussing the next meeting
15:55:15 [sl007]
q+
15:55:27 [rhiaro]
Topic: Next meeting
15:55:34 [nightpool[m]]
ack sl
15:55:58 [rhiaro]
sl007: I would propose we do the session about .. we had a lot of policy meetings, we should do the generic servers and diverse clients problem together with pleroma, mastodon, kaniini who was interested, immer.space
15:56:04 [rhiaro]
... immerspace is an awesome project
15:56:16 [rhiaro]
... that is a technical thing where we can speak technical again
15:56:27 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: that's a great topic, I can't make friday
15:57:26 [rhiaro]
rhiaro: we can get some demos lined up for two weeks today
15:57:33 [rhiaro]
nightpool[m]: any further short statements on the main topic?
15:57:38 [rhiaro]
q?
15:58:10 [jarofgreen]
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks
15:58:12 [nightpool[m]]
https:​//https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/
15:58:16 [bobwyman_]
sandro, would it also be necessary to have one-human-per-identity?
15:58:37 [sl007]
see you here or on https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks
15:58:56 [rhiaro]
present+ FLOX_Advocate
15:59:41 [gekk]
hi all
15:59:55 [gekk]
the meeting's here or in another platform?
16:00:03 [rhiaro]
Zakim, end meeting
16:00:03 [Zakim]
As of this point the attendees have been rhiaro, sl007, bobwyman_, nightpool[m], jarofgreen, Cristina, mathew, paul, erik, sandro, FLOX_Advocate
16:00:05 [Zakim]
RRSAgent, please draft minutes
16:00:05 [RRSAgent]
I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2021/01/23-social-minutes.html Zakim
16:00:08 [rhiaro]
gekk, the meeting just finished I'm afraid
16:00:09 [Zakim]
I am happy to have been of service, rhiaro; please remember to excuse RRSAgent. Goodbye
16:00:13 [Zakim]
Zakim has left #social
16:00:22 [rhiaro]
RRSAgent, make logs public
16:03:44 [gekk]
what would you guys say were the most important topics/conclusions during this meeting?
16:04:30 [rhiaro]
gekk, you can read the notes here https://www.w3.org/2021/01/23-social-minutes.html
16:04:55 [rhiaro]
gekk, we discussed moderation policies, how to automate that, whether to filter people and/or messages, how to personalise moderation vs having a group of moderators, that sort of thing
16:05:10 [gekk]
ok interesting.
16:05:42 [gekk]
decentralised moderation based on social affiliations of sorts instead of algorithms
16:06:04 [gekk]
its a hot topic now I hope we'll find a standard.
16:11:22 [jarofgreen]
nightpool: can I ask a Mastodon question - I’m sending HTTP signed follow requests to Mastodon accounts but getting an HTTP error code back that indicates there was some access or permission problem.
16:11:40 [jarofgreen]
nightpool: Is there some test instance that would give me more logs on the exact problem or guide for people who are trying to get their software to federate?
16:12:32 [nightpool[m]]
jarofgreen: if you're getting an error message, it should be pretty detailed, but I can help you interpret it
16:13:39 [nightpool[m]]
if you're getting to the point where you're not getting an error message but things still aren't showing up, you can ask Claire (@Thibg@sitedethib.com), she's another core developer who's pretty easy to get ahold of and can spend some time debugging things with you
16:14:19 [nightpool[m]]
as far as guides go, I think https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/06/how-to-implement-a-basic-activitypub-server/ is still one of the best, we update it occasionally
16:15:36 [nightpool[m]]
Part 2 (about receiving posts and accepting follow requests), is here: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/07/how-to-make-friends-and-verify-requests/
16:17:44 [nightpool[m]]
(sorry, up to date link is this one: https://social.sitedethib.com/@Claire)
16:26:03 [jarofgreen]
nightpool[m]: ok, got it - I realised I wasn’t checking for error messages properly. now I can see: Mastodon requires the Digest header to be signed when doing a POST reques
16:26:11 [jarofgreen]
nightpool[m]: thanks for prod
16:29:14 [nightpool[m]]
no problem!
16:34:59 [GregoryKlyushnikov]
Just wanted to add that this is a recent change — I didn't send this header and some instances started rejecting my requests even though nothing changed on my side
16:35:34 [jarofgreen]
GregoryKlyushnikov: Ahhhhhhhh. I thought the docs didn’t mention that last time I checked them
16:35:48 [nightpool[m]]
yep, we added it in late 2020 as part of our hardening against insecure requests
16:36:31 [GregoryKlyushnikov]
After I added it on my side everything magically fixed itself
16:39:59 [nightpool[m]]
it's a pretty critical requirement—if you exclude it, anyone you send a payload to can impersonate you to anyone else within the next 5 minutes
16:42:01 [GregoryKlyushnikov]
Can they? The signature already includes the host header, so the receiver could only replay it to itself 🤔
16:52:06 [jarofgreen]
nightpool[m]: Well, I now get a 202 response from Mastodon but if I follow a Mastodon account I don’t appear in “Followers” - if I installed my own Mastodon instance and looked in local logs would I see more?
16:52:54 [jarofgreen]
nightpool[m]: Follows the other way seem to work fine. That might be enought for now - I’ll try sending notes later and seeing what happens
16:54:03 [nightpool[m]]
Sure, let me know. By "the other way", do you mean Mastodon accounts can follow you, but you can't follow mastodon accounts?
16:54:17 [nightpool[m]]
I'll admit I haven't heard of that happening, maybe something about your Follow payload is a little wonky?
16:55:14 [jarofgreen]
nightpool[m]: “Mastodon accounts can follow you” Yes
16:55:28 [jarofgreen]
nightpool[m]: “Follow payload is a little wonky?” very possibly :-)
16:55:58 [jarofgreen]
nightpool[m]: would that be in local logs if I installed my own Mastodon instance?
16:57:24 [nightpool[m]]
almost certainly
16:59:22 [jarofgreen]
nightpool[m]: great, thanks, i’ll try that later
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18:25:03 [Loqi_]
[@bengo] The @bluesky Ecosystem Report feels like 2021 edition of @rhiaro ‘s “Social Web Protocols” note from w3c Social WG.
18:25:03 [Loqi_]
18:25:03 [Loqi_]
2013-2016: https://www.w3.org/TR/social-web-protocols/
18:25:03 [Loqi_]
2021: https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/r0/download/twitter.modular.im/981b258141aa0b197804127cd2f7d298757bad20 (https://twitter.com/_/status/1353045950302810112)
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