If, theoretically, some historian say, were to create another academically-oriented Mastodon instance, one thing I would like to see is a transparent and some kind of at least semi-democratic kind of leadership group (does social.coop have something like this?) as well as the usual care in its rules to ensure a safe and welcoming space, but beyond that what priorities (and in what order) do people have? 1/ #histodons
@konrad this isn't exactly what you're asking, but it is important to consider: one big structural priority to think about from the outset with ANY instance is “how quickly can we respond in times of crisis”
a common failing of democratically-oriented instances is that when something controversial happens (e.g. a user says something which is patently bad but not an obvious violation of the code of conduct) the amount of Process required for action leads to an external appearance of inaction to the rest of the fediverse. this is a problem because even if appropriate steps are eventually made, by that time other instance admins may have gotten tired of waiting and permanently severed federation. it's very important to be able to respond to issues in a timely manner, and that means having a person (who could be elected!) with the authority to make immediate judgment calls on difficult cases.
you absolutely do not want to be caught in this situation without having established a plan for dealing with it. the reason why most fedi instances are not democratically-structured is because being both democratic AND responsive is a really tough nut to crack.
@Lady thanks. This is a great point and one of the main challenges. “Being both democratic AND responsive is a really tough nut to crack” is also a strong candidate for one of the top ten dilemmas in political theory! 😊