I read over the weekend the interview with Eugen Rochko, owner and CEO of #Mastodon (@Gargron), conducted by Nilay Patel (@nilaypatel) for the Verge's Decoder show.
It’s a great, geeky talk going into details of Mastodon’s operation as a service, a large chunk of the #ActivityPub network, and a company.
What I really like is the frugal, sustainable approach to running an organization. It’s so different from the corporate giants, and it’s refreshing to think that you can sustain a relatively large social network not just with small resources, but also without a drive to grow big. With VC capital (which Rochko consistently rejects).
What worries me in turn is Rochko’s take on participatory governance of Mastodon. He does signal interest in tools that provide better feedback than current GitHub issues (which are apparently the sole “participatory” mechanism available right now.
But he also openly declares that “Benevolent Dictator for Life” is his preferred governance model. Which is worrying, because one person should not be making decisions about a network used by millions of people. And participatory governance should be more than collective petitions to a “benevolent dictator”.
I think that the mistake Rochko makes is thinking about Mastodon as just a piece of open source code that needs to be produced. But in fact the code is just a tool for a social network, that is shaped with software tools. Allowing quotes of posts is not a decision about code - it’s a decision about how millions will comunicate.
I wrote last year about the need for stronger participatory governance on the Fediverse. I hope that we will see some explorations that will boldly go beyond tested - but insufficient, or even flawed - approaches from #opensource.
https://www.theverge.com/23658648/mastodon-ceo-twitter-interview-elon-musk-twitter
@tarkowski @Gargron @nilaypatel Not to be too negative, but I don't see what right anyone has to come in and demand power over Mastodon. I don't see why anyone should trust the subset of people who'd be calling the so-called participatory shots any more than the person who made Mastodon into a place worth trying to colonize in the first place... Comes across as worrying to me.
@TEG@mastodon.onlineHi Thomas, I'm not sure why you speak of "so called participatory" governance. the point would be, to ahve real collective participation. Think of Wikipedia. I think it’s good that there’s no single “master editor” who in the end decides how the whole peer production model works. And usually participation is not a form of grabbing power, but rather releasing power.
@tarkowski The "so-called participatory" comes from my expectation that power wouldn't really be collective/shared, fully. Participatory approaches sound good on paper but they can just mean power gets captured by whoever manages to control the "participatory" process best. (I'm looking at it from the POV of participatory research to be open, but I think the same issues hold.)
So it's going to be a shift in power, more than just a release - it gets released *to* some people more than others.
@TEG Yes, that's the risk. But there are governance mechanisms to avoid that. And let’s face it, it’s not like this power is not captured right now - the fact that it’s in the hands of one person makes me feel uneasy.
Also, maybe more importantly, the digital commons (broadly understood) really need powerful stories of good governance. There is so much talk about participation, engagement, but so few examples.
And #Fediverse / #Mastodon is in such a great position to do that.
(I appreciate by the way work done by the cooperative servers like @SocialCoop - but their governance is limited to servers, set up on top of the Mastodon code.
@tarkowski @SocialCoop I do get that. There is the alternative view that it's the open sourceness that matters for the fediverse, as I understand it. Mastodon is the big name but you don't *have* to use that particular software to access the whole same network. I get that people *want* it anyway, but there's not the same kind of risk as with Twitter or Facebook being out of users' control.
To me, that takes away a lot of the problem/justification. (I also perceive some of what I've [...]
@tarkowski @SocialCoop seen directed at Eugen Rochko by activist types as pretty inappropriate, which definitely might colour my reaction. Not that this is what you were doing, bt it was like, oh, we'll "help" you by taking the place you made over for our own particular purposes.)
@aleabdo @yaso thanks for these smart thoughts, and I really like the concept of “territories”. I agree that #ActivityPub should also be a prime target, not just of governance, but of support, maintenance and funding.
I would also argue that the instance-level choice is limited by the space within which it takes place, and that is one of a monopolistic service on the Fediverse. Everyone likes to mention #Misskey and #Pleroma but for now #ActivityPub is dominated by communication dependent on Mastodon code. So maybe that’s another important avenue - ensuring plurality of the Fediverse. Which, I would argue, will not happen organically. In the interview, Rochko signals that he’s expecting further centralisation around mastodon.social - with key design decisions about the shape of a key mechanism - the server selection interface - being decided by him alone.
And on your last point, I agree, but would add that this is not just about using alternative providers, but also services. I should switch to #Misskey. :) (But I don’t know how to do that!)
@aleabdo @yaso @tarkowski In practice ActivityPub is insufficient for defining a social network, in particular implementing ActivityPub is insufficient for being interoperable with Mastodon.
When over 90% of the Fedi population are Mastodon users this makes the Mastodon implementation the specification for the network and that makes Mastodon governance critical for the network.
@tarkowski think for a minute, it's *extremely unlikely* Rochko "is thinking about Mastodon as just a piece of open source code that needs to be produced" not realizing "the code is just a tool for a social network, that is shaped with software tools. Allowing quotes of posts is not a decision about code - it’s a decision about how millions will comunicate."
Please, advocate for and better explore participatory governance, but start from higher and factual ground.
@mlinksva maybe what I wrote was not clear - Yes, it’s clear that Rochko thinks about social consequences of such decisions, I’m not questioning that.
But he ultimately points to traditions in open source development. I feel really uneasy about a governance model that includes the word “dictator”.
If we all agree that decisions like those on Mastodon functionalities are about more than just the shape of code, then it should be obvious that some other type of governance is needed.
@tarkowski I feel really uneasy about analyzing a model based on a label -- unfortunate word choice from when cheeky wording was stupidly deemed internet cool. Replace with "designer" for cooler analysis. Then it should be obvious that "it should be obvious" needs fleshing out!
I idly wonder if Mastodon project (or mastodon.social, I thought interesting what Rochko said about default instance in interview) is most important participatory fediverse governance venue. Open question in my mind.
@tarkowski ps I looked up your piece from last year which does cover various layers https://techpolicy.press/priorities-to-make-the-fediverse-sustainable/ and is worth a re-read.
@tarkowski pps I see you covered similar material in your reply to another subthread https://101010.pl/@tarkowski/110136125167235083
I agree not knowing how to migrate between instances, particularly those running different software, is a big problem. Idle thought/wish, maybe @DTinitiative will intervene; probably few fediverse software designers wish to prevent migration, but making it work great is also work not at top of any of their priorities, probably.
@mlinksva @tarkowski Hey, who leaked you our product strategy... just kidding, but honestly, it's very much on our minds too.
@mlinksva @DTinitiative i would say this is not just about Mastodon instances, but also about other services on top of ActivityPub.
@tarkowski @DTinitiative absolutely, that's what I had in mind with "fediverse software designers" rather than say "maintainers of Mastodon and Mastodon forks", though I understand attraction of focusing on the latter.
@mlinksva i like your question, and it would be great to answer it in a more structured manner, looking also at protocol layer, instances, but also inter-instance governance (which is different from issues related to the code that is running the instances; and also not something that I have seen considered often). And Im open to the idea that we dont wan citizen / user committees popping up everywhere :)
@tarkowski and I'm definitely not against more participatory gov. Closely held decisionmaking (whether by a would-be benevolent designer, foundation, or [too numerous to really even consider] company) often rankles users and arguably results in worse software/community/other result. Quoting and Mastodon may be an example. Lots of arguable issues stemming from this with eg Mozilla, Wikimedia, GNOME. But novel governance also costly (including risky), so I don't advocate simply for more of it.
@tarkowski for the fediverse in particular I'm semi-convinced (semi- because I don't understand well enough & would love to be wrong) that the technical underpinnings are such a limiting factor that governance at whatever level (other than that which results in speeding up technical improvement, so cheering things like @spritelyinst) is not going to make a big difference toward ends such as more autonomy for people and communities globally.
@tarkowski
The question is: do we trust the software developers, as a group, to be equipped to make these decisions about communication networks.
I personally doubt we are.
Obviously, you don't have to use upstream Mastodon, you can have a fork, you can have a Pleroma or Soapbox/Rebased, or Friendica or whatever. But the prevailing culture is still that of — to put it bluntly — the feeling of entitlement of technical people to make decisions for everybody else, fueled by (real and considerable) voluntary work put in by them.
From their POV, when someone complains about the 'dictators' making a bad decision, it looks like (and, to an extent, actually is) sniping from the sidelines at people doing all of the actual work needed.
But it also means that perspectives which are unpopular in the software developer community *will* be ignored, sidelined, rejected, and the ones popular in this community *will* be absolutized.
I'm not sure what to do with, because the solution to that problem probably involves piles of money.
"But he also openly declares that “Benevolent Dictator for Life” is his preferred governance model. Which is worrying, because one person should not be making decisions about a network used by millions of people. And participatory governance should be more than collective petitions to a “benevolent dictator”
Isn't required when open standards exist.
I don't understand the reluctance re implementing the missing #C2S aspect of #ActivityPub.
/cc @Gargron @nilaypatel
Eugen can be the #BDFL of Mastodon if he wants to.
But the article really doesn't explain that the #Fediverse is bigger than Mastodon, that Mastodon is only one client among dozens. If there is to be any BDFL over the #Fediverse it would be @evan and I don't think he wants the job.
The #Fediverse started in 2008 with Evan's Laconi.ca and #OStatus. Mastodon has been around for less than half the lifespan of the #Fediverse.
@bobjonkman@mastodon.sdf.orghi! Thanks for this comment. It seems to me that the „bigger than Mastodon” Fediverse is a very abstrakt idea, far from everyday experience of most users. Are there any practices strategies for those who would like to exit the #Mastodon space to the broader #fediverse? Are there any guides?