• Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    What if instances could “subscribe” to the list of defederated instances of each other?

    So for example. Let’s say that Alice and Bob have their own instances, alice.ml and bob.ml. Bob trusts Alice, so he sets up the following rule in bob.ml: “if alice.ml defederates an instance, then bob.ml defederates it too.”

    Then Charlie starts charlie.ml. It’s a bad instance. Alice manually defederates alice.ml from charlie.ml. Bob won’t need to do anything - bob.ml would do it automatically.

    I feel like this idea would address the issue of playing whack-a-mole, since admins of multiple servers can split the busywork if they so desire, and only with whomever they desire. And there’s no risk of a central control going rogue, since there’s no central control on first place.

    It could be even further refined with more complex rules on when to automatically defederate other instances. Such as taking into account if the other instance did it manually or automatically, or how many among X instances defederated it.

    • teawrecks
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      1 year ago

      What you eventually get is a single global list that the majority of instances use, at which point every new instance must immediately agree to adopt the list lest they themselves are also immediately defederated.

      From what I understand, there are already instances who operate this way.

      • Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        What you eventually get is a single global list that the majority of instances use

        Not necessarily. Defederating too many instances means that your own instance will get less content; admins know that, so good admins generally avoid doing it unless necessary for the goals of their instances. Couple that with dissenting points (for example: grotesque but morally acceptable content, porn, dumb/low-quality content…), and the odds of said “single global list” popping up becomes fairly small.

        Instead I expect to see a bunch of smaller lists, between instances with similar goals, and plenty unilateral subscribing (e.g. A subscribes to B, but B doesn’t subscribe to A).

        From what I understand, there are already instances who operate this way.

        That’s good to know. If they do it automatically, this system could be already implemented across Lemmy.