So, in absence of disagreements & conflicts (bcs insta ban/defederation), and building your own community, isnāt that a bit like that the lines of Trump (well, generally politicians to various degrees) or CEOs do?
Bcs with that (in those cases being surrounded by āyes-menā) reaching other specific goals is easier/faster.
I think Iām starting to understand where & how you are going with this, but perhaps not why. CEOs donāt have āa nice communityā as a goal, they have their agenda and timelines/mandates. Their ācommunitiesā are purpose-built (āmoderatedā).
What āuseā (~overall benefit?) is a highly selected federated community?
Itās a genuine question about endgame, how it would look like.
Trump runs a Mastodon forkāTruth Socialāthatās cut off from the broader Fediverse. Thatās the textbook example of building a walled garden surrounded by yes-men.
What Iām doing is the opposite. I will be federating. The difference is that Iāll only connect with servers that are well-maintained, responsibly moderated, and respectful in how they interact.
The key is, I donāt control those remote servers. I canāt dictate their policies, their culture, or their moderation. I only control mine. Thatās the entire point of federationāeach admin curates their own space, and people decide which servers they want to call home.
So users already have choice. Anyone who doesnāt like my standards can join another server with open registrations or spin up their own. Thatās not authoritarian. Thatās freedom of association.
A selective federated community matters because it resists the flattening effect of mass culture. Big, open servers always drift into lowest-common-denominator populismāoutrage cycles dominate, noise overwhelms signal, and actual discussion suffocates. Curation is not about surrounding myself with yes-men. Itās about creating an environment where real conversation can thrive without being hijacked by mob dynamics.
The irony is that pretending hierarchical software is flat and universalāthat it magically represents āthe peopleāāis closer to the politician/CEO move. Thatās the populist trick. At least Iām upfront about the structure and honest about what Iām doing with it.
The endgame isnāt control for its own sake. Itās sustainabilityāa space Iām willing to take responsibility for, that wonāt collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.
Itās not software that represents the people, itās the people using the software that represent the people.
If you handpick people vs if you run a defederated instance seems about the same approach, just at a different level.
If the granularity of like-mindedness standard gets too narrow you do just end up an increasingly homogenous group.
Thatās why I mentioned Trump & you provided the Truth Social mention (itās def not a personal level comparison) and how homogeneous it looks to the average outsider. But that does fit the description, only for such a community āone can take responsibilityā, bcs itās āhisā, not just the sever, but in a sense what the community is/the people are & what they do (same with CEOs in a company).
To very much exaggerate: like a cult agreeing on everything except the small things like what to have for dinner.
All the issues you repeated here seem like they are normal for a group of more than one person.
Itās just how humans are built. And how communities naturally evolve, live & change.
You mentioned the āfreedom of associationā - do you kinda equate that (association) with allegiance? Like a selected badge one wears?
The problem with your framing is that it treats software as neutral when it isnāt.
Social media software encodes structure into how communities are organized. If the software is hierarchical, the community will be hierarchical. Thereās no way around that unless everyone literally operates their own nodes.
And thatās where the real vulnerability lies. If you donāt run your own server, youāre not sovereign. Youāre donating your content to someone elseās machine and trusting that their standards, moderation, and moods wonāt turn against you. Ideals wonāt protect you if the design itself makes you dependent.
If you really care about a sense of ownership, then you should be running your own server. Thatās what freedom of association actually means. It isnāt allegiance. Allegiance locks you in. Association multiplies your choicesāpick a server that matches your values, or start your own. Thatās the entire point of federation.
So letās not pretend mass platforms or wide-open instances are some higher form of democracy. They arenāt. Theyāre just populism sitting on top of hierarchy. The lowest common denominator gets to shout āthis is the people,ā while the actual levers of control stay exactly where theyāve always beenāwith whoever holds the keys.
On your instance too others are contributing the content, not you as a mod. Humans regardless of hierarchical or anarchical systems are the community. Itās the gathering & exchanging. Itās not the king paying for a feast that makes the guests mingle & communicate with each other. Thatās just infrastructure. If they go away to anther party there is no content there, unless the kind posts for themselves.
But are you saying that owning the server makes you own whoever donates their content in a discussion just bcs they have a systemic power?
I donāt think people are generally confused at all how hierarchical online platforms are. Why would they be?
The feast metaphor doesnāt hold. If I pay for a banquet hall, the guests can mingleābut they donāt control the locks on the doors, the electricity, or whether the venue even stays open tomorrow. If I decide to shut the place down, the party ends whether they like it or not. Thatās not neutral infrastructure. Thatās systemic power.
Iām not saying the admin āownsā peopleās words. Users own what they write. But whether that writing continues to exist, whether it stays visible, whether it can even be reachedāthose are all contingent on the admin. Content lives inside infrastructure, and whoever holds the keys controls the environment where it persists.
And people absolutely are confused about this. Look at lemm.ee: did the community want to vanish overnight? Noābut the admin pulled the plug, and everything disappeared. The same happens on Reddit when admins close subreddits, or on Discord when a server gets nuked. People routinely find themselves blindsided because they mistake participation for ownership.
Thatās the point Iām pressing: software that demands admins and mods creates hierarchy, no matter what ideals we wrap around it. If we want a true commons, the architecture has to changeāthere canāt be āusers,ā only peers, each running their own node. Until then, pretending otherwise is just comforting metaphor.
That is systemic power to end it, not to have content created. For that is just a space.
Iām not sure who was arguing against there being a hierarchy to online or most offline social communities.
You donāt have a town square if nobody builds it, you have the woods.
Also what is the big deal if a community gets obliterated from time to time? Itās not a family.
![[Update] AtomicPoet has deleted the piefed.social communities where he was the sole moderator ([email protected] being the exception). Content is still available, details in the linked post](https://lazysoci.al/pictrs/image/cb7c5a29-e297-41a8-bde5-698ba205c3fd.png){kind=link}
And according to you that disagreement also means we donāt get along. Because otherwise you wouldnāt be banning people for saying bro, bro.
You would be correct.
So, in absence of disagreements & conflicts (bcs insta ban/defederation), and building your own community, isnāt that a bit like that the lines of Trump (well, generally politicians to various degrees) or CEOs do?
Bcs with that (in those cases being surrounded by āyes-menā) reaching other specific goals is easier/faster.
I think Iām starting to understand where & how you are going with this, but perhaps not why. CEOs donāt have āa nice communityā as a goal, they have their agenda and timelines/mandates. Their ācommunitiesā are purpose-built (āmoderatedā).
What āuseā (~overall benefit?) is a highly selected federated community?
Itās a genuine question about endgame, how it would look like.
The Trump comparison actually cuts the other way.
Trump runs a Mastodon forkāTruth Socialāthatās cut off from the broader Fediverse. Thatās the textbook example of building a walled garden surrounded by yes-men.
What Iām doing is the opposite. I will be federating. The difference is that Iāll only connect with servers that are well-maintained, responsibly moderated, and respectful in how they interact.
The key is, I donāt control those remote servers. I canāt dictate their policies, their culture, or their moderation. I only control mine. Thatās the entire point of federationāeach admin curates their own space, and people decide which servers they want to call home.
So users already have choice. Anyone who doesnāt like my standards can join another server with open registrations or spin up their own. Thatās not authoritarian. Thatās freedom of association.
A selective federated community matters because it resists the flattening effect of mass culture. Big, open servers always drift into lowest-common-denominator populismāoutrage cycles dominate, noise overwhelms signal, and actual discussion suffocates. Curation is not about surrounding myself with yes-men. Itās about creating an environment where real conversation can thrive without being hijacked by mob dynamics.
The irony is that pretending hierarchical software is flat and universalāthat it magically represents āthe peopleāāis closer to the politician/CEO move. Thatās the populist trick. At least Iām upfront about the structure and honest about what Iām doing with it.
The endgame isnāt control for its own sake. Itās sustainabilityāa space Iām willing to take responsibility for, that wonāt collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.
Itās not software that represents the people, itās the people using the software that represent the people.
If you handpick people vs if you run a defederated instance seems about the same approach, just at a different level.
If the granularity of like-mindedness standard gets too narrow you do just end up an increasingly homogenous group.
Thatās why I mentioned Trump & you provided the Truth Social mention (itās def not a personal level comparison) and how homogeneous it looks to the average outsider. But that does fit the description, only for such a community āone can take responsibilityā, bcs itās āhisā, not just the sever, but in a sense what the community is/the people are & what they do (same with CEOs in a company).
To very much exaggerate: like a cult agreeing on everything except the small things like what to have for dinner.
All the issues you repeated here seem like they are normal for a group of more than one person.
Itās just how humans are built. And how communities naturally evolve, live & change.
You mentioned the āfreedom of associationā - do you kinda equate that (association) with allegiance? Like a selected badge one wears?
The problem with your framing is that it treats software as neutral when it isnāt.
Social media software encodes structure into how communities are organized. If the software is hierarchical, the community will be hierarchical. Thereās no way around that unless everyone literally operates their own nodes.
And thatās where the real vulnerability lies. If you donāt run your own server, youāre not sovereign. Youāre donating your content to someone elseās machine and trusting that their standards, moderation, and moods wonāt turn against you. Ideals wonāt protect you if the design itself makes you dependent.
If you really care about a sense of ownership, then you should be running your own server. Thatās what freedom of association actually means. It isnāt allegiance. Allegiance locks you in. Association multiplies your choicesāpick a server that matches your values, or start your own. Thatās the entire point of federation.
So letās not pretend mass platforms or wide-open instances are some higher form of democracy. They arenāt. Theyāre just populism sitting on top of hierarchy. The lowest common denominator gets to shout āthis is the people,ā while the actual levers of control stay exactly where theyāve always beenāwith whoever holds the keys.
On your instance too others are contributing the content, not you as a mod. Humans regardless of hierarchical or anarchical systems are the community. Itās the gathering & exchanging. Itās not the king paying for a feast that makes the guests mingle & communicate with each other. Thatās just infrastructure. If they go away to anther party there is no content there, unless the kind posts for themselves.
But are you saying that owning the server makes you own whoever donates their content in a discussion just bcs they have a systemic power?
I donāt think people are generally confused at all how hierarchical online platforms are. Why would they be?
The feast metaphor doesnāt hold. If I pay for a banquet hall, the guests can mingleābut they donāt control the locks on the doors, the electricity, or whether the venue even stays open tomorrow. If I decide to shut the place down, the party ends whether they like it or not. Thatās not neutral infrastructure. Thatās systemic power.
Iām not saying the admin āownsā peopleās words. Users own what they write. But whether that writing continues to exist, whether it stays visible, whether it can even be reachedāthose are all contingent on the admin. Content lives inside infrastructure, and whoever holds the keys controls the environment where it persists.
And people absolutely are confused about this. Look at lemm.ee: did the community want to vanish overnight? Noābut the admin pulled the plug, and everything disappeared. The same happens on Reddit when admins close subreddits, or on Discord when a server gets nuked. People routinely find themselves blindsided because they mistake participation for ownership.
Thatās the point Iām pressing: software that demands admins and mods creates hierarchy, no matter what ideals we wrap around it. If we want a true commons, the architecture has to changeāthere canāt be āusers,ā only peers, each running their own node. Until then, pretending otherwise is just comforting metaphor.
That is systemic power to end it, not to have content created. For that is just a space.
Iām not sure who was arguing against there being a hierarchy to online or most offline social communities.
You donāt have a town square if nobody builds it, you have the woods.
Also what is the big deal if a community gets obliterated from time to time? Itās not a family.