This is an important point. Important enough for me to put DIP-02 way up high on the list of principles for dcosl. Basically, DIP-02 says that stuff like mute lists should be calculated using explicit attestations (“I select Bob as someone to help manage my mute list) rather than inferences, often incorrect ones, from scraped data. (e.g. scrape Alice’s follows list and infer, often incorrectly, that if she follows Bob then she wants Bob to curate her mute list.)
Discussion
The way Pretty Good Apps functions right now:
You make a list called “mute list” (or “bot list” or “troll list” or “real people but I want to ignore them anyway” or heck, make ‘em all). She can now add profiles by hand to the list. And she can manage the list herself.
But the app also maintains a list of users that is managed by her WoT. The app automatically creates an attestation that translates: Alice endorses Bob as a curator of that list. So if Bob adds Zed to his list, then Zed will pop up on Alice’s list. And endorsements are transitive: if Bob endorses Charlie to curate the list, then Charlie will also influence Alice’s list.