Speaking of things.
Whats with the “Banned for $1” user names going around. Its some meme thing I missed.
@p I don’t even know what that means 
@shebang @p https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TveK9Sfwtvo It's when Gab blocked FSE
Considering I was deeply committed to Gab and they crushed my soul, I spent a lot of time psychoanalyzing them and trying to understand their situation. So here's my theory.
This video here was Rob ripping off the bandaid. The constant looming threat of the "worst case scenario" was causing so much anxiety he decided to make it happen on purpose. This was his way of saying "My reputation? FUCK my reputation! You people can't control me!" Gab is all about freedom, and this video was a way to free himself of people's expectations and demands.
He knew this video was not good. He spent hours editing it. There was plenty of time to think about it and change his mind, but no. He chose to crucify himself instead. I'm very sympathetic to that, and I even defended him when people shared this video. He's right: fuck people's expectations.
From his standpoint, this video was a sacrifice. He sacrificed his reputation for freedom, and it brought him closer to Gab.
So, was it a good choice? No. The whole premise is toxic, because it's predicated on the idea that people hate Gab. I believe the staff at Gab have really internalized this hatred others have of them, and built themselves and their brand around it. They are damaged. They believe outsiders are not worth their time, and this will lead to their downfall. If only they had a little more optimism, a little more hope, they might try to make an offer to the outside world, and maybe we would accept. Instead they assume the worst of us, and I believe that will be the mistake they regret most.
> so mistakes like delete+redraft 5 times don't lead to confusion
Never delete and redraft. This is a mistake 100% of the time.
> (It's also obviously a user privacy concern.)
If there's a real problem, my door's always open, but you can't remotely delete an email. Once you shove something out to the internet, you lose control. It's not any bigger a concern than archive.is, I think. It's always better to behave as if everything you say could end up read aloud by a prosecutor rather than giving anyone the illusion of safety.
Like, I legitimately don't understand the pro-delete concern, I haven't heard a case that made a lot of sense to me. I've seen far more behavior where people use deletes to prop up lies than people that accidentally post their home address and SSN and then want that deleted. Even if they delete, any responsible admin does backups.
@alex @p
I actually personally agree with P's analysis on this. However, as a representative of Spinster, yea, our users hate it. They don't really fully understand decentralization and it freaks them out every time they see a "deleted" post on another sever. No amount of explaining federation, decentralization, etc, seems to make them feel that it is okay.
Some may say, "Well, that's stupid - get over it!" And I'm sympathetic to that. However, I think this mindset makes the fediverse inaccessible to non-technical or low-tech literacy users. It comes across as a betrayal of trust, because the user thinks they are deleting a post only to see of clear as day somewhere else (not archived, not screenshotted, but live). This is inconsistent with their understanding of how social media works.... so they assume the place where the post remains is a Bad Actor.
I've been brainstorming some compromise solutions, such as a warning when a Spinster goes to delete a post that says "This only deletes it from your Spinster timeline, not other instances of this post across the fediverse."
However, I also don't really see a benefit to rejecting deletion reqs. It just seems really harsh. People aren't allowed to correct a mistake or change their mind?
