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Johan Bové

Tending Secure Scuttlebutt

Nothing is deleted, forever is for everyone.

2 min read

Joining a decentralized network is not the same as signing up for a silo service... You need to make a bit of an effort at first to slowly grow your network of interesting people to connect to and follow and interact with.

And things normally move a little slower. A post from last week is generally still regarded as fresh, heck even posts from years ago can resurface and get renewed interest on Scuttlebutt.

It is great to see how the community around me is actively tending our network by making sure we keep bad actors out. It does still take time and effort on our own part. There is no central governance to do this for us.

Manyverse users can toggle seeing the follows and blocks posts in their feed, so they can choose to ignore what happens on the network.

However, in recent days, it proves crucial to being able to tend your scuttlebutt connections.

Unlike centralized services, where you don't have much control, a decentralized system like Scuttlebutt, needs active tending of the nodes (users) in the network for it to keep healthy and sane.

So look at what your peers are doing and check why they are blocking pubs and accounts, and if you agree, then repeat what they are doing. Most users will also add a comment as to why they decided to block. The tools for managing your community tree roots will improve over time. And also note that "blocks" are not for eternity. Unblocking is a thing too that happens often.

The choice in the end is still yours who you want to block or not. But be ready to accept the consequences if you didn't look at your peers in the node.

Participation in a decentralized system is highly valued.