I apologize if this has been asked before, but I’m wondering if it would be feasible to implement a new approach to defederation that offers the option of choosing between complete or partial defederation from another instance.

Currently, defederation blocks both the locally made posts on the defederated instance and its entire userbase. This can be excessive, and in many cases it may be better to block only the posts made on the other instance while still allowing its users to interact with the instance that defederated — user behavior may differ between their home instance and other instances. This partial defederation (or limited federation) would facilitate normal interaction without negatively affecting the content of a feed.

Problematic users could be managed on a case-by-case basis using bans, similar to how it is done for federated instances. Automated tools could simplify this process in the future. Complete defederation would still be necessary in extreme cases where no positive user interactions are expected, such as with instances that promote Nazism.

Instances are being forced to choose between a sledgehammer and nothing at all, and I think a compromise is warranted. I’m curious to read others’ thoughts on how to solve this existing challenge.

EDIT: I added a rough sketch that outlines the proposal. On the left side is the system as it works now and on the right side are two possible scenarios for limited federation (1 direction or bidirectional)

    • OrangeSlice@lemmy.mlMEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      I have a feeling that given a couple of years, things will settle out a bit and be more like Mastodon.

      Could you imagine if your ISP/Gmail was so particular about what servers you could send email to?

      There will always be valid reasons to defederate, although I think the bar for that is going to end up pretty high and well-defined in the future, but it’s sort of an organic process to get there.

  • Bizzle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    Beehaw feels like it’s ran by power tripping mods hiding behind toxic positivity and I’m not sad they defederated. I wouldn’t denigrate anybody for preferring it but I personally like a little more freedom.

    • density@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      I am not totally against or in favour of what they are doing and I can’t even say what side I tip to. I feel very 50/50.

      I think it is in a “meta” way useful for the community, especially those of us (like me) new to the fediverse, to see it. However it goes, we can look and see and form opinions and learn. If it is a mistake, it’s a mistake that is inevitable. The capacity is built into the tools and someone was going to use it.

      I only wish I knew how or where some sort of… journalism?.. record? was being kept so that things could be understood later by the people not here to see it. So that the same mistakes don’t have to happen every 6 months.

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      At the very least this move highlighted a big problem with the Fediverse that needs to be ironed out. So I guess that’s good.

  • Quit_this_instance@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I’d suggest that beehaw’s concerns could be met with a tool that lets you disable posting or voting from off-instance users unless they meet threshold criteria, whether it be account age or post history or manual approval. That would allow you to keep your content interaction controlled without the nuclear option of complete removal.

    • SlowNPC@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      The Beehaw mods explicitly said that the defederation was due to lack of good mod tools combined with lack of time to moderate manually, and that they didn’t really want to defederate but didn’t know what else to do.

  • melonplant@latte.isnot.coffeeEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Splitting hairs, but I think rather than implementing a partial defederation, I think it would be better to set user rights for a given federation instance. Some federations you might want to allow view only access, access to a certain “tier” of communities, etc. Make the rights customizable so its as granular as needed by the server.

    • PzkM@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      While I like the idea of granular permissions in principle, I feel like it could cause confusion and frustration for users depending on its implementation. For example, if a user from instance A is unable to reply to a user from instance B, even though both are posting on instance C and are visible to each other. So while granular permissions would be powerful, they could also introduce unwanted scenarios that would be difficult for the average user to understand.

      That’s why I think it would be good to start with a simpler system. Partial defederation (or limited federation) seems like a compromise which could strike a reasonable balance between controlling content on local instances while minimizing the impact on user experience across instances. That said, if permissions/rights were implemented in a limited or user-friendly way, they could also work.

  • this@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I would even say that at least 3 tiers of defederation are nessesary:

    1. Remote instance users can interact with local instance by posting and commenting on local instance, but remote communities are blocked on local instance

    2. Remote users can see posts/comments from local instance, but not the other way around and commenting and posting is disabled both ways

    3. Full defederation as it works right now. Neither instance can see content from the other.

  • piece@feddit.itEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    I’m out of the loop, could someone explain what happened?

    All I know is that Beehaw defederated (or was defederated by) someone because of trolls?

      • UrbenLegend@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, they defederated from lemmy.ml as well

        EDIT: Seems like that’s no longer the case. Before I wasn’t able to comment in beehaw.

        • chaogomu@kbin.social
          0·
          1 year ago

          At this point, they might just be going the way of turning off federation completely, at which point they can have their little curated walled garden where no one can disobey without a full account ban, and then they will slowly cease to exist.

          • CherenkovBlue@iusearchlinux.fyi
            0·
            1 year ago

            The problem with “safe spaces”, as the beehaw defed post indicated that they wanted to be, is that it can rapidly turn into an echo chamber where opposing but legitimate viewpoints are removed. For this reason I like the fediverse, and wish beehaw good luck.

            • density@kbin.social
              1·
              1 year ago

              I think there is a role for “echo chambers”. Sometimes it’s good to have a common baseline of understanding assumed, because you can go into more depth in your perspective without having to rehash the basics.

              Like we are in an echo chamber here in that we are all kind of pro-fediverse. If this thread was full of people being like “well this sucks compared to instagram” etc, it would be less productive.

  • Pili@lemmy.mlEnglish
    05·
    1 year ago

    I like that idea. I had to create an account on 3 different instances to be able to interact with the communities I want because of instance blocks, it would be nice not having to juggle them all the time.

    • 00111010_01000100@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Yeah people are not going to migrate over if they hear they can’t interact with everyone. “Be careful which instance you sign up with because other instances may have blacklisted you, but I can’t tell you which home instance to use because it might get overloaded.”