The Hubzilla Association documents are written for a member association, but Hubzilla’s public value proposition is closer to infrastructure. If the Association intends to steward infrastructure, the bylaws need utility-grade hard stops: viewpoint neutrality, conduct-only enforcement, operational necessity, due process, appeal rights, and a strict prohibition against using Association authority for activist, ideological, religious, partisan, or moral campaigns unrelated to Hubzilla’s technical mission.
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Hubzilla’s strongest claim is not that it is another online community. Its strongest claim is that it can function as infrastructure: identity, permissions, federation, self-hosting, communications, and durable public software. That matters because infrastructure should not be governed like a club, a movement, a church, a political group, or a culture-war project.
A club may define values, a movement may define doctrine, and a community may define culture. Infrastructure needs something different: hard operational rules. A one-way street is not activism, a drought sprinkler restriction is not moral education, and a ban on tapping gas or power is not ideology. These are utility rules, and Hubzilla needs that same distinction if it is serious about being infrastructure.
The Association documents define members, fees, officers, assemblies, board powers, rules, suspensions, and exclusions. That is normal for a member association, but it is not enough for an infrastructure steward. The central question should not be, “What kind of community do we want?” The better question is, “What minimum rules are necessary to keep Hubzilla usable, secure, interoperable, lawful, durable, and available?”
That means rules should target conduct, not belief. Valid hard stops include spam, fraud, malware, doxxing, threats, impersonation, sabotage, infrastructure abuse, misuse of funds, and disruption of technical work. Invalid hard stops should include political affiliation, religious belief, environmental position, moral philosophy, cultural viewpoint, refusal to endorse a cause, or lack of “values alignment.”
Hubzilla can host activists without the Hubzilla Association becoming activist. It can host religious users without the Association becoming religious. It can host political users without the Association becoming political. It can host many communities without becoming the property of one tribe.
The Association should have no worldview except the technical mission: keep Hubzilla working, available, interoperable, secure, documented, and independent of factional capture. That does not mean “no rules.” It means rules must be operational, bounded, testable, and tied directly to the Hubzilla mission.
My constructive recommendation is simple: add a mission-scope firewall, viewpoint neutrality, conduct-only enforcement, operational-necessity limits, due process, appeal rights, and a prohibition against using Association authority for unrelated activist, ideological, religious, partisan, or moral campaigns.
If Hubzilla is infrastructure, its bylaws need infrastructure-grade limits.
