Kind: Reposts

It occurs to me some of you may have no idea what this is like.

Lemme tell you.

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, they all have beaucoup millions of dollars and can spend that on paying full-time moderation staff.

That’s…not happening here.

On top of that, they can afford to build or deploy Minority Report level systems that can flag and do some natural language processing and identify users who might be saying things that should get them banned.

Some of these things might even ban a user pre-emptively if the filters identify something bad enough, and then flag it for moderator review.

There’s none of that here.

Moderators are not watching every conversation of every user on every server for problems.

They are, largely, either going to stumble across problems like any other user, or they are going to respond to reports.

I’ve heard people in the past scoff at this. “I shouldn’t have to file a report,” they will say, in the exasperated tone of someone who wants to speak to the Manager of the Fediverse.

Well, fine, don’t file a report, but your mod doesn’t even know what happened.

Similarly, the time defederate a server is after a report happens, and you get no response. Or a non-response. Or a shitty, entitled, “up in their feelings” response.

You can certainly distance yourself because everyone from a certain server seems “of a kind”.

But there are big servers out there, and they can’t watch all their users, and it’s possible one of those users is a hateful bigot.

While I’d like to say it should be impossible for anyone to face discrimination or racism, it can still happen on those servers.

Mods run off reports. Reports create a record for a user–whether that user is part of your server or not–and your server’s mods can suspend or limit that user, regardless of their server of origin.

Moreover, mods and admins will often reach out directly to mods and admins of other servers to report an abusive user.

Again, this is all driven by reports.

If it’s just a personal grudge, fine, block or mute. But if someone is being actively harmful, the mods (many of whom literally work for free, after their day job) will benefit from you identifying anything they need to be aware of.

Report early, report often. Mods generally only act based on reports.

—@oliphant

Summer and I are coexisting on the sofa.
We have reached consensus.
She won’t lick my face, and I won’t pester her when she is sleeping.
We are indulging in a much needed lazy afternoon.
#DogsOfMastodon

—@norcalgrandma

Web surfing needs a comeback!

Most of us keep visiting the same old sites, owned by the same old companies.

And our reward? The same old monotony again and again.

Instead, how about rediscovering the wonders of the web, a place for new ideas and self-expression?

—@atomicpoet

Dog whistle to English dictionary:

Soros – Jews
Coastal elites – Jews
New York values – Jews
Hollywood liberals – Jews
Globalists – Jews
International bankers – Jews
American Jews – Jews who dare question Israel’s government

I hope you enjoyed this week’s Jews Clues

—@OhNoSheTwitnt

This is your periodic reminder that GoFundMe has become the de-facto healthcare system of the United States. Nobody is going to save us from the current system.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/americans-gofundme-healthcare-crowdfunding-medical-b2071472.html

—@Aaron

Today I learned about Mozilla’s new AI startup from my gas pump. Stop the future, I want it to be less stupid.

—@Meyerweb

Nothing will make you question your choices like offering some of your meal to a dog and being refused.

—@xinicit

“We just told a bunch of effective altruists in SF that we did the analysis and decided it’s more effective to send mosquito nets to a tropical country than turn their power back on after today’s storm.”

—@emmah

“Mastodon doesn’t have a search tool.”

It has a search tool. ElasticSearch. Lets you search your own posts, any mentions you’ve received, anything you’ve favorited or bookmarked.

“No, I want it to have a more robust search tool.”

Well, we’re adding a search tool to Mastodon that will let you search everything your site is federated with.

“That’s not enough, I want to search everything”

So you want to search every server, even servers which you might not be federated with, you want to do a lookup against all their content and do you have any idea how much data that is?

Like even when we’re all given the magical “everything” search we keep expecting from our days of searching a single database for all the tweets that exist it’s not going to work the way you want because of the tech involved, and because–primarily–NO ONE HAS ALL THE DATA.

—@oliphant

Quick tip to improve your writing: Lose The Very online tool.

https://www.lireo.com/quick-tip-remove-very-in-your-writing/

Hat tip @estherschindler

#writing #LoseTheVery

—@redcrew

Summer has a great start on a banner day.
She chased the doves that encroached on her acre until they decamped for the neighboring property.
She talked my husband into grass fed, organic ground beef mixed in with her kibble.
She got all manner of hugs, scritches, and belly rubs.
Today is the grandson coming over day, too!
Summer says it really, really is a good morning, Mastodon.
#DogsOfMastodon

—@norcalgrandma

#Debirdify has been suspended by Twitter without warning or explanation. Apparently it violated ‘Twitter rules and policies’, but that is all they told us.

We contacted Twitter support about the situation, but we are not particularly optimistic.

We always knew this could happen; it happened to other services in the past, so we are neither particularly surprised nor sad about it.

In the mean time, Fedifinder still works: https://fedifinder.social

Use it while you still can!

—@debirdify

It appears comments aren’t being moderated anymore on CSS-Tricks. If you’re looking to build an accessible calendar, don’t reference the post currently featured on the homepage.

—@eric

What’s classy if you’re rich, but trashy if you’re poor?

Getting money from the government.

—@dgar

The narrative of “kids are depressed because of phones/screentime” is so enticing for adults because it lets us off the hook for our myriad failures: the environment, creating a socual safety net, gun violence, racism, sexism, hate directed at LGBTQIA people, etc, etc.

Youth are rational actors. They see the mess we are creating, and know they have no choice but to live in it.

And: adults have also failed to create a humane and ethical tech industry!

But sure – blame kids for phone use.

—@funnymonkey

Philip Bump at WaPo has an entire article on what the right “means” when they call someone or something “Soros-backed.”

As if it has ever meant anything other than “this is Jews! Jewy Jewy Jews trying to put their Jewy taint on your life! Jeeeeews! Yucky!”

I’m getting tired of deep analysis that tries to give some rational basis to the blatant bigotry of American fascists.

—@amaditalks

Yesterday, the oldest grandson spent a second day helping out. My husband has been keeping Summer in a medium crate next to him on his bed at night. They both want to be close.
It was time for Summer’s upgrade to a giant crate with a fancy mattress. She now sleeps at the end of his bed with her new friend, the bear.
Thank you, grandson, for wrestling and assembly of said crate.
One step closer to ready for tomorrow’s surgery.
Summer loves her new digs.
#DogsOfMastodon

—@norcalgrandma