masked_nybbles

Wonder how such a vote and bots would mix.

Countries such as the U.S.A., Canada, Mexico, and agreements such as the E.U. among others are federated within themselves; the ones mentioned also possess what are called federal governments.

This may be one of those things people where people may have at least some vague understanding of a concept but not the term for it.

A few definitions:

federation n: an organization formed by merging several groups or parties

federation n: a union of political organizations [syn: confederation, confederacy, federation]

federation n: the act of constituting a political unity out of a number of separate states or colonies or provinces so that each member retains the management of its internal affairs

People, aside from the homeless, generally have an address in one or more countries, and remain under the authority of whichever country they happen to be living or traveling in. Likewise, people have — in this case, need — an address to interact here. Rather than get imprisoned in a country, a person simply gets banned from an instance. Like countries in the E.U., instances choose whether they want to continue to cooperate and stay within some agreement. A large difference between something like applications built on ActivityPub and the federation of countries, states, provinces, or territories mentioned above is the lack of a central federal government.

Rather than use Email as example, why don't we use federation amongst more familiar organizations as example? Why aren't we explaining Email like that?

This is coming from an American, so this explanation is going to be a bit U.S.A.-centric(may also contain inaccuracies or missing details):

The United States of America is federated under a central authority to facilitate cooperation, trade, and freedom of movement; this is why we call the central government the federal government. Canada's provinces are similar in this respect, as are the states that make up Mexico.

federation n: the act of constituting a political unity out of a number of separate states or colonies or provinces so that each member retains the management of its internal affairs

federation n: a union of political organizations [syn: confederation, confederacy, federation]

federation n: an organization formed by merging several groups or parties

Lemmy and the like are federated without a central authority, thus having no higher authority within this framework enforcing rules they must not infringe. Each member makes its own rules in its own territory, choosing whom they wish to federate or cooperate with. When moving to another member, or even non-member, like member states or territories, you need to move to a new address within the member you wish to join. Also like member states or territories, there is generally freedom of movement without having to take up a permanent residence in another. Email behaves similarly.

Perhaps it is best to think of each instance as a country or state. Technically, federation does rely on a set of rules to communicate — the protocol in this case — but it still remains true that each member is not beholden to a central authority and may choose to or not to cooperate or communicate with whomever they wish.