@snarfed.org posted a great overview of thoughtful (and sometimes heated) discussions across blogs and the #fediverse about how freely should “public” posts & comments on the web flow across sites:
“Moderate people, not code” (https://snarfed.org/2024-01-21_moderate-people-not-code)
If you are designing or creating any kind of publishing or social features on the web, this post is for you.
It touches on topics ranging from #contextCollapse to #federation to #moderation and everything in between.
Does your choice of publishing tool set expectations about where your content might propagate, or whether it will be indexed by search engines? Should it?
Do the limitations of your server (e.g. js;dr) imply limitations of where your posts go, or whether they can be searched or archived? Should they?
When you post something publicly, are you truly posting it for a global audience for all time, or only for one or a few more limited #publics for an ephemerality?
When you reply to a post, do you expect your reply to only be visible in the context you posted it, or do you expect it to travel alongside that post to anywhere it might propagate to?
On the #IndieWeb, especially for public posts, some of these questions have easier and more obvious answers, because the intent of nearly all public IndieWeb posts is to interact across the web with other posts and sites, typically via the #Webmention protocol. However there are still questions.
Are the expectations for a blog and blogging different from a social media site, whether a silo or an instance on a network?
Is a personal website with posts still just a blog, or does it become something new when you start posting responses from your site, or receiving (e.g. via Webmention) and displaying responses from across the web to your posts on your site? Or is it now a “social website”?
If you have a social website, what is your responsibility for keeping it, well, social? Do you moderate Webmentions by default? Do you use the Vouch extension for some automatic moderation?
Are #POSSE & #backfeed different from federation or are they the same thing from a user-perspective, with merely different names hinting at different implementations?
Do you allow anyone from any site to respond or react to your posts? Or do you treat your social website like your home, and follow what I like to call a “house party protocol”, only letting in those you know, and perhaps allowing them to bring a +1 or 2?
I have many more questions. Each of these deserves thoughtful discussions, documentation of what different tools & services do today that we can try out, learn from, and use to make considered decisions when creating new things to post on and across websites.
This is post 4 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts
← https://tantek.com/2024/022/t1/indiewebcamp-brighton-planned
→ https://tantek.com/2024/026/t3/indieweb-for-everyone-internet-of-people
Post glossary:
backfeed
https://indieweb.org/backfeed
blog
https://indieweb.org/blog
blogging
https://indieweb.org/blogging
comments
https://indieweb.org/comments
context collapse
https://indieweb.org/context_collapse
ephemerality
https://indieweb.org/ephemerality
js;dr
https://indieweb.org/js;dr
moderation
https://indieweb.org/moderation
POSSE
https://indieweb.org/POSSE
posts
https://indieweb.org/posts
publics
https://indieweb.org/publics
reply
https://indieweb.org/reply
Vouch
https://indieweb.org/Vouch
Webmention
https://indieweb.org/Webmention