Mastodon, Discord, and IRC face a common challenge: requiring admins to govern. They resemble private clubs rather than open public squares. š£
To solve this problem, we could create a communities section similar to Twitterās called Squares. The Squares are open and leaderless, unlike Twitter communities. Squares would be another part of your profile e.g. [Posts, Replies, Squares, Media].
Squares can be joined by anyone.
For the 1st example letās simulate the Bitcoin Square. š
1. Once you join a square, you can list it and your favorite members from that square on your profile.
2. If you want to join the Bitcoin square for the first time, go to the profiles of people you admire or follow to see if they are part of that square.
3. See which users in the Bitcoin Square they have listed on their profile. Each user will be listed by their public key.
4. Add the public keys of the users you want to see on the Bitcoin Square to a private list on the app.
5. This private list becomes āthe viewing algorithmā for the Bitcoin Square on your local device. Now your device will only display posts in the Bitcoin Square if they are signed by those selected public keys, ignoring all other posts in the Square.
This approach enables client-side filtering without a server admin while still allowing users to maintain a private club environment in a public way. Could work for any type of square, beyond bitcoinā¦ š£
āThe Internet is a firehose and we havenāt learned how to adjust the spigot.ā ~Andrew Ruiz