Merge pull request #2 from moshez/governance

Create mastodon-governance.rst

doc/index.rst

@@ -21,3 +21,4 @@ Moshe'z Rants
     fictional-politics
     lindsey-elliot
     ip-law
+    mastodon-governance

doc/mastodon-governance.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,162 @@
+Mastodon Governance
+===================
+
+Tagline:
+Codes of conduct are great,
+being able to change them is even better.
+
+Most reasonable
+Mastodon instances,
+at least those that haven't been
+defederated from basically everyone,
+have
+vaguely-similar
+and
+fairly reasonable codes of conduct.
+Examples include
+`hachyderm.io`_,
+`babka.social`_,
+or
+`tech.lgbt`_.
+
+.. _hachyderm.io: https://hachyderm.io/about
+.. _babka.social: https://babka.social/about
+.. _tech.lgbt: https://tech.lgbt/about
+
+Of course,
+a code of conduct implies moderators
+who exercise reasonable judgement
+to enforce it.
+Once again,
+most of these servers seem to have a reasonable
+moderator team
+and,
+as far as I know,
+a record of reasonable decisions.
+
+Great!
+
+To be clear:
+if you are have an account on one of these systems,
+and you have a disagreement with the moderators,
+my prior assumption is that the moderators are in the right.
+If anyone goes off and annoys the moderator teams of
+any of the servers I mentioned,
+I will be upset.
+
+This is a rant.
+After this positive prelude about
+codes of conducts
+and
+moderation,
+there needs to come the issue.
+
+The issue is
+*governance*.
+Who gets to say
+"the code of conduct on hachyderm.io
+does not protect me?"
+
+In some sense,
+with apologies to the bard,
+you can, or so can anyone.
+But will it change when you say so?
+
+Only if the BDFL agrees.
+
+This is a distinct
+*advantage*
+of hachyderm over the others I mentioned.
+The others don't even tell you who has
+to agree.
+
+Is it a coalition of the moderators?
+Is it the owner?
+
+If the server is owned by a company,
+as,
+for example,
+`mastodon.social`_
+is,
+then the answer is at least somewhat clear.
+Somewhere between the board of directors
+and the
+owners of the company,
+the buck has to stop.
+
+.. _mastodon.social: https://mastodon.social/about
+
+Is the owner allowed to unilaterally change the CoC?
+Sell the server and all of its assets?
+Probably, in most cases.
+
+The only instance I know that has put a decent amount of thought into it is
+`social.coop`_.
+In their
+`wiki`_
+they have
+`bylaws`_
+and stuff.
+This makes the change process
+*legible*.
+
+.. _social.coop: https://social.coop/about
+.. _wiki: https://wiki.social.coop/home.html
+.. _bylaws: https://wiki.social.coop/docs/Bylaws.html
+
+I have some confidence that if I joined as a member,
+and wanted to change the code of conduct,
+I could submit a proposal.
+Even more importantly,
+if someone submitted a bad-faith proposal to,
+say,
+remove
+"racism"
+from the
+Code of conduct,
+I could put in a
+"Block" vote
+to make it almost impossible to pass.
+
+I will note that I think it is not perfect.
+The
+`fiscal partnership`_
+seems a bit more loosy-goosy than I would like.
+I
+*do*
+like that the process of ending the fiscal relationship
+is clearly outlined.
+
+.. _fiscal partnership: https://wiki.social.coop/docs/Partnership-with-Platform-6.html
+
+This makes
+social.coop
+a
+"winner by default"
+rather than an example of best practices.
+A
+"winner by default"
+is still an impressive achievement!
+
+What I
+*want*
+is not to have a
+"winner by default".
+I think the right way to accomplish it is not to add
+*governance*
+to
+*mastodon*,
+but
+*mastodon*
+to
+*governance*.
+
+Serious non-profits should consider setting up an instance
+which allows,
+at least,
+members in good standing to open an account on.
+Ideally,
+the non-profit already has some code of conduct for its
+social spaces
+that it could apply.
+