mcneely @mcneely@librem.one

While many people have commented on how much better it is here on Mastodon than it is on the birdsite, you should be aware that minorities (LGBTQ+, BIPOC, Jews) have been the targets of abuse here.

Also, trolls have started to set up instances to attack scientists, for example: https://fediscience.org/@ct_bergstrom/109371920177171488.

Let's not kid ourselves; we are in a (relative) honeymoon period before the assholes show up. Yes, we have tools to deal with them (muting, blocking, even defederation), but we need to do more.

What's obvious to basically everyone in the industry but is probably surprising to everyone else is that twitter is a harder problem than getting a rocket to the moon. One of these problems only involves physics, the other involves humans.

Many commentators are tweeting & tooting that we need to expand the SCOTUS. That is not the answer to everything. Unless you just want a larger Court, not bound by ethics rules, engaging in the kind of behavior described in the NYT piece. What we need are guardrails - an understanding that the Court sits w/i our democracy. Our job us to strengthen it by creating the processes that promote impartiality & insulation from lobbying, not crossing our fingers & hoping for the best.

A gentle reminder to folks who are new to Mastodon. In solidarity with those in the disabled community who rely on screen readers, we ask that you:

* Add alt text/image descriptions when you post media
* Capitalize the first letter of every word in a hashtag #LikeThis

#StrongerTogether #Accessibility #Disability #Solidarity

Style a parent element based on its number of children using CSS :has() https://www.bram.us/2022/11/17/style-a-parent-element-based-on-its-number-of-children-using-css-has/

Gonna call people defending billionaires serf-pilled.

Twitter – the concept, not the collection of servers and contracts and code – is something so much bigger than a job. It's the most visceral representation of human communication and ideas that we've ever created. And how do you let *that* go? (no seriously, if you've got ideas!)

I’ve noticed increasing developer interest in #ActivityPub and the #fediverse in the post-Musk social media universe, so I wrote it up for The New Stack. https://thenewstack.io/devs-are-excited-by-activitypub-open-protocol-for-mastodon/

Precedents like the German government running a Mastodon server are important beyond the obvious reasons. They reinforce the urgency of serious public funding for open code.

If we treated open code as part of the essential infrastructure of the 21st century and funded it at billions of USD/EUR as opposed to tiny grants here and there, the "fediverse" model of interconnected, self-governing communities would become the norm, not the exception.

See also (but not only): https://publiccode.eu/

One thing that's getting a little lost in this mix, is that some of the people desperately holding on at Twitter are because they are trapped by either healthcare or visas.

That there are systemic traps that trap worker in America so they feel unable to move freely to new employers who want them and would have better pay or conditions is *nuts* and deserves a lot more attention than it gets.

I'm legit thinking of starting a HN/Lobsters/Reddit/etc. type of link-sharing site focused squarely on "vanilla" #webdev topics. It would be very strict, e.g. posts about React would be banned, as would Tailwind "CSS". 😎

IMHO the signal-to-noise ratio on most (all?) of the existing channels is simply painful. As a mostly-vanilla web developer, I have zero interest in yet another "How to Build a Component with React and Tailwind" tutorial. Finding the meaty stuff out there is a real challenge!

https://twittoons.com/47

If some rich dude can buy the public square, then it wasn't the public square.

Good article from the @eff -

"The fediverse is an evolving project, and it won’t solve all of the challenges that we’ve seen with big social media platforms. Like other distributed systems, it does have some drawbacks and complications. But a federated social media ecosystem represents some possible escape hatches from some of the more serious problems we have been experiencing in the centralized, platform social media world."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/11/fediverse-could-be-awesome-if-we-dont-screw-it