MRF Simple alternative: Federation queue
Recently some admins have expressed a distaste for "forced federation".
Pleroma already has MRF Simple's "accept" for more limited federation, but this has some downsides:
- It requires interested admins to do research into existing servers and regular re-review to add anything new that is wanted.
- It requires filling out a form or writing an email if you want to federate with a server that uses it.
- It is heavy — it does not allow "default federated timeline removal", or even "default block", just "always reject".
A "federation approval queue" would have these features:
- Expose discovered servers and servers that wish to exchange activities, via an admin API.
- Allow reviewing queued activities.
- Allow setting default behavior - federated timeline removal, default block, reject, etc.
- Allow admins several options to deal with unapproved servers: approve, approve with federated timeline removal / media NSFW, reject, default block, and possibly more.
- Remove the server from the queue (and possibly allow through activities) once an admin has selected an option.
and provide these advantages:
- Allow more options than just reject-by-default.
- Not require filling out forms to get approved.
- Allow admins to focus on reviewing content that their server actually consumes rather than bothering with shared blocklists to deal with theoretical problems.
- Reduced workload for admins interested in limited federation.
- Reduced workload for admins interested in federating with servers that use limited federation.
Regardless of your opinions of admins that use limited federation or shared blocklists, they are using them, and I think this would provide an option that is better for the fediverse as a whole than the available solutions.