How to Make the Fediverse Your Own: Difference between revisions

'''A purpose.''' What or who is your community for? Does the community exist already, or does it have to be cultivated?<blockquote>What we do: We defined our purpose early on in two ways. First, Social.coop is an experiment in user-governed social media; it arose out of the buytwitter.org campaign, which made a shareholder proposal at the company calling for user ownership and governance. Second, Social.coop is a community hub for people who identify with the cooperative movement—particularly with bringing that movement into tech.</blockquote>'''A legal entity.''' If some big tech company doesn't own your community, something else needs to. Ideally, individual founders should not be personally liable for what happens on it. A great solution is to be fiscally sponsored through an [https://opencollective.com/fiscal-hosting Open Collective fiscal host]. You could also create your own entity—a nonprofit, a co-op, or an LLC—though that is more complex. One way or another, you'll want to have an explicit stewardship design.<blockquote>What we do: Social.coop started out by being fiscally sponsored by the Open Source Collective on Open Collective. In solidarity with the co-op movement, we switched to Platform 6 Co-op, a UK cooperative. though we still use Open Collective's platform to facilitate that. This means that we are officially a cooperative, although we are also a [https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/content/virtual-co-op virtual co-op], in the sense that the members of Social.coop are not actually the legal members of Platform 6. Social.coop members, however, have governance rights in our community, as defined in our bylaws.</blockquote>'''A place to collect and manage funds.''' A shared space requires some shared economy. If one person or a small group runs the space out of their resources, they will be the ones in control, in the end. To prevent that, make sure there is a way for the community to co-fund the space.<blockquote>What we do: We use Open Collective to manage our funds. Members can sign up there to make regular contributions, on a sliding scale based on what they want to pay. We also manage expenses and payments on Open Collective, so all our financial activity is transparent, not only to our members but to the world. Open Collective connects directly with our fiscal host, Platform 6, so it makes hosting us easier for them.</blockquote>'''Bylaws.''' Next, make explicit how power flows in the space. If you don't do this, you will likely wind up with a "[https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm\ tyranny of structurelessness]." Explain here who gets to make decisions, who holds authority, and how the members can keep them in check. This document doesn't have to be very long or legalistic, at least at first, but be sure to start with something that enables you to a) make some basic rules in a clear way and b) change the rules (and bylaws!) as the community develops. If it helps, you can use CommunityRule.info, a simple Web app for making rule-sets in an intuitive way.<blockquote>What we do: We keep our bylaws on our wiki. They are pretty similar to how they started, but we have made some revisions over time, largely to clarify things that were ambiguous.</blockquote>'''A method for deliberation and decision-making.''' You'll need some way to make decisions in digital space. This will work in tandem with your bylaws, which should clarify what needs to happen for a decision to be made. You could use your fediverse instance itself, if that works, or else another space that is comfortable for your community.<blockquote>What we do: We use Loomio, a platform developed by a worker co-op, to discuss and carry out Social.coop governance. Loomio has lots of really helpful tools for polling and decision-making, and it enables more focused conversation than Mastodon does. But the downside is that it requires people to have a separate account, and it can be a bit bewildering to use. Pro tip: Loomio's daily digest feature is a great way to cut down on email notifications while still getting them.</blockquote>'''A code of conduct.''' To set expectations about how people can feel welcome and comfortable in your space, establish an explicit code of conduct. This is super important, as Coraline Ada Ehmke explains. Like your bylaws, your CoC can evolve over time. To start out, just begin by copying an established one out there, like Ehmke's Contributor Covenant.<blockquote>What we do: We keep our code of conduct on our wiki. It is adapted our CoC from the Citizen Code of Conduct according to the specific values of our community and the use-case of social media. We haven't modified it since 2017, but it is probably due for some improvement. When we first started, we actually didn't have a CoC, and that caused some painful early conflicts for us. Don't make that mistake!</blockquote>

To join the fediverse, you'll need some technology. There are a few different approaches to doing this, and all of them still require some degree of familiarity with things like Web servers. Ideally, your community should make a point of ensuring that members with technical skills can share those skills with others who want to learn them. The DiscoTech framework might be useful in guiding that skill-sharing.

Here is some info about setting up a server from Mastodon HQ. Another approach is to use Cloudron, a platform that manages multi-app clouds with integrated account systems. It automatically manages software updates, which can otherwise be a big headache. And it allows you to pair Mastodon with other services. Either at the beginning or over time, your community might want to use more than just Mastodon, because Mastodon alone doesn't offer a lot of resources for self-governance.<blockquote>What we do: Social.coop's Mastodon server is hosted with Hetzner, a German hosting company that uses renewable energy to power its systems. In addition to Mastodon, we also host a wiki system. Our code is hosted at git.coop, a cooperative GitLab instance. We also discuss technical issues in a Matrix room, which is less noisy than Social.coop itself. Our domain name is managed by the International Co-operative Alliance, like all .coop domains, though we purchase access through Gandi.net, an ethical registrar.

Be intentional about how people join. Is your instance open to anyone? If so, why? If it is more gated, what kinds of friction do you want to introduce to the process? Friction can be your friend! The balance between friction and accessibility will be different from community to community—take the time to consider what balance is right for yours.<blockquote>What we do: Social.coop registration is not automatic, but we are always welcoming new members through an application form. The purpose of this is to ensure that people who join meet two criteria: they must have an account on Open Collective, so they can contribute to Social.Coop, and they must agree to the code of conduct. We also ask them to articulate why they want to join, to avoid registration spam. This isn't foolproof, for sure, but it has generally worked to ensure that our membership has shared values and purpose. We have a team that manually reviews applications and manually on-boards new members. Sometimes applicants have gotten lost in this process because of issues with spam filters, and improving it is something we have talked a lot about. We might have more friction than we need.

 

Now that we have members coming in in large numbers we may want to think about whether we want to limit Social.coop to people who share a few interests (co-ops, floss, social justice...) or keep it open to anyone who agrees with our code of conduct. Another question is whether we are looking for members to be more like members of a worker co-op, where the members should have shared values and vision, and strong trust, or members of a credit union, where it is not essential for them to share values and vision.</blockquote>

Take all this into account. Make sure that people doing moderation work have some training and support. Ensure that the role rotates, so people are less likely to burn out.<blockquote>What we do: Our elected Ops Team handles moderation through a rotating "on call" moderator role, who addresses any issues that arise in one-week shifts. This ensures that moderators are approved by the community and that no one person is moderating more than every few weeks. There is a Reporting Guide on how to report code of conduct violations.</blockquote>

In the fediverse, moderation isn't just about particular users; it also involves moderating entire servers. For instance, if a particular server harbors hate speech and other abusive content, your server might want to restrict the content from it. Other servers might be closely aligned with yours, and you might want to encourage interaction with users there. In this way, your community can collectively determine its relationships with the rest of the fediverse.<blockquote>What we do: Social.coop has a list of servers that we we do not "federate" with. "On call" moderators are responsible for fielding requests to defederate servers that violate our Federation Abuse Policies.</blockquote>

According to an informal Pol.is poll (participate), the items with the most consensus (as of Nov 12, 2022) in response to the prompt "How to tell if a Fediverse instance is run/managed by its users?" were:

* '''Community Working Group'''The CWG is responsible for the well-being of the humans! Its members meet each month and receive a stipend for their work. Read the operational charter here. The committee manages registrations and onboarding, as well as moderation and conflict resolution on Social.coop. It also helps facilitate governance processes on Loomio and coordinates with other working groups. It organizes strategy sessions, encourages reading groups, holds community cafe events, and enables other types of community-building events. Finally, it maintains the code of conduct and other guidelines.

* '''Finance Working Group'''Its members' job is to keep an eye on the money. The FWG has admin access on Open Collective and approves all expenses that are submitted there. They also review the balance sheet regularly to check on how things are going, and report to the larger community. The FWG is currently an all-volunteer position to avoid any conflicts of interest. It uses the Gateway software so that approvals on Loomio automatically release funds on Open Collective.