Continuing the discussion from Is the fediverse or the ATmosphere better for musicians, are Review Controls good and when?:
For sure. So here’s a social music topic on them, focused on music reviews.
To make this a bit less pointy-headed, let’s use a set of (hopefully) fun and entirely fictional examples. Say I release an album called Tiger Tales on bandwagon.nz, with songs about my experience of discovering I’m autistic. Then, as a reply to my release post, Alice posts a review from her Ghost account; @alice@musicreviews.nz, which I judge as bigoted against autistics. How we might apply Reply Controls to Alice’s review can be sliced into a number of separate concerns;
- Can I see Alice’s review post in my notifications?
- Can I see Alice’s review on Tiger Tales release post on bandwagon.nz?
- Can other people browsing Tiger Tales on bandwagon.nz see Alice’s review?
- Can Alice see their own review when browsing the Tiger Tales release post on musicreviews.nz, or their own app?
- Can other people see Alice’s review when browsing the Tiger Tales release post on musicreviews.nz?
- Can people using their own fediverse service, on their own app, to follow my bandwagon.nz account or browse bandwagon.nz, see Alice’s review as a reply to the Tiger Tales release post (presuming someone on their service follows Alice’s account)?
I think we both agree that people have a right to control where their own attention is directed, and what’s published on their own platform, whether that’s a blog, a micro-post profile on its home service, or an album on a federated music hosting platform. So Reply Controls on the first 3 cases seem sensible. So far, so good.
By the same token, I think it’s fair for Alice to be able to see that they posted a review when browsing the Tiger Tales release post, even if no one else can. So no Reply Control for 4. I think you’d agree with that?
The 5th one is a bit more complicated. I think it’s fair for Alice to be able to post a review and have it visible on their music blog on musicreviews.nz. But whether clicking on that review post ought to open a thread with my Tiger Tales release post above it is an open question. I think it should.
You may disagree with my takes on 4 and 5, and if so, I’d be very interested in your reasoning.
The 6th one is very complicated. This kind of thing is hard to reason well about, because we’re still figuring out how to model the space created by federating multiple social web services into relatively permissionless networks.
For example, people often think of their @mentions (their notifications feed) as their living room (‘don’t come into my @mentions and …’). But this mental model doesn’t really work, when you consider that a fediverse thread involves 2 or more people, each of whom has notifications of new posts in the thread in their ‘living room’. A thread is really more like a table at the pub, or a watercooler in the office; a shared space, owned by none of the participants.
So how do we model a review on an album release post in this context? Let’s say I wheatpaste posters promoting Tiger Tales all over town, and Alice wheatpastes a poster of their review under each copy. Do I have a right to prevent her from doing that?
I don’t think so. By putting my work in an an unowned public space, I’ve opened myself up to the possibility of negative feedback. If I want to avoid that, I can put Tiger Tales posters only on pinboards in cafes, or other open-invite private spaces. Where I can tell the staff I find Alice’s review bigoted, and ask them to to take down any copies they see on their pinboard. But if I only promote semi-privately, to avoid the risks of promoting publicly, I don’t get the benefits either. I think that’s reasonable.
But the pinboard case points to an option the fediverse affords us that wheatpasting doesn’t (unless maybe my town has a council officer in charge of public postering). I can appeal to the operators of the service hosting musicreviews.nz, and ask them to moderate it. If they agree with me that the review is bigoted, and this goes against their ToS, then they can take it down everywhere, with the click of a button.
What what if I’m wrong? What if Alice is also autistic, which I don’t know, and they don’t know I’m actually autistic, and assume I’m an allistic judging autistics unfairly? If Reply Controls prevent them from posting their review - even in cases 4-6 - then they’re left frustrated and alienated, and I’m oblivious to the fact that my work is being interpreted this way (Alice may not be alone).
In this case, it’s better for me to appeal for moderation, so the mods can check in with Alice and let them know someone has interpreted their review as anti-autistic. Then they have the opportunity to clarify their intentions to their mods, who can pass that on to me. Then I have the opportunity to engage with them directly, and maybe we both make a new autistic friend and ally.
So in summary, I’m OK with Reply Controls in cases 1-3, but I don’t think they’re a good idea in cases 4-6. Very interested in other takes on this, especially any that slice the whole pie up differently.
If this was adequate to our needs, web+RSS is all we’d need and social media and social networks never would have emerged. The genie of replies is the fundamental thing that makes the social web … well … social, and there’s no stuffing them back into the bottle. Sorry 