I think there's a bunch of scope for how to visually display a range of meta-data your friends could attach to one another (including block / fraudulent), let alone how and what this influences the replication protocol.

@mix why not copy what Patchwork Classic did? it seemed to work well in practice, what do you think specifically should be changed?

basically when you blocked someone, it would ask you the reason, and then that reason would be displayed on that person's profile as a warning for everyone in your neighborhood to see.

i did some code archaeology to find exactly how this was done, see a search for "flag" in Patchwork Classic and scuttlebutt.io documentation on vote messages as flags.

basically, a "block" is two messages:

• a contact message with { blocking: true } (which is already handled in replication by scuttlebot)

{
  "type": "contact",
  "contact": "@...",
  "blocking": true
}

and

• a -1 vote message to the user key, with a reason attached

{
  "type": "vote",
  "vote": {
    "link": "@...",
    "value": -1,
    "reason": "abuse"
  }
}

A positive vote on a user signals trust in that user. It's generally used to "confirm" that you think that user publishes good information.

A negative vote on a user is a "flag." You can flag a user for publishing bad information, making false claims, or being abusive. You can also flag a user if the owner lost the keys.

Common values for reason in downvotes on users:

• dead: Dead Account / Lost Keys
• spam: Spammer
• abuse: Abusive behavior

so, what if we implemented this, as it was before Patchwork v3?