Reading a Fedi thread between someone who immediately discards @alex 's article about how Pleroma is dead and SoupBox in general for being "transphobic", and someone who fails to see anything hateful about his articles.
I actually think that GNU social JP is the more reasonable side of the conversation.
@gnusocialjp That could be the cause. With JavaScript disabled, nothing except "Please enable javascript to use this site." is shown.
> GNU socialはUIが古いという批判への対策として導入しました。 The "old UI" is the reason I like GNU Social. To be precise, being functional without JavaScript, which means I can view or even use it with many browsers, not just the latest version of Chromium or Firefox.
In my opinion if user wants a full-featured webapp with modern UI, Misskey or Pleroma is already there. Being another Misskey or Pleroma kills the purpose.
I learned the hard way that western open source development teams always get caught up in drama sooner or later, it's nothing new. Not like with Japanese development teams where we're mostly on the same grounds or avoid conflict if we have a different opinion, in the west (欧米) it's enough to have a difference in political opinion to cause a loud break up.
> I think alex has no illegal act and criminal act (including hate speech).
Being able to have hate speech is part of having free speech. If you can't say anything bad, speech is limited. However, LGBT people are well known for being particularly soft. Even saying "there are only 2 genders" or "men have a penis" is considered "hate speech" to them.
But from what I understood, Alex wasn't fighting, it was the other side kicking him out. @alex, @xianc78, @PhenomX6, can you maybe give more insight? (If you explain, please use proper English, I don't think GNU social JP's English is at the level to understand slangs or altered terms.)
I like classic UI and I keep using classic UI (registered user can switch UI anytime). And user can use desktop/mobile client application. So I think it is not important for web UI personally.
But many user avoid using GNU social due to old classic UI looks. And after installing Qvitter, my user satisfied this new UI, and registration is increased.
gnusocial.jp is aimed to promote GS. So I selected Qvitter.
And it is not problem because you can receive our posts from your timeline. I think you do not need to directly access our site by web browser.
I think almost people use modern web browser. User for old web browser is a little.
> - in the west (欧米) it's enough to have a difference in political opinion to cause a loud break up.
> - Even saying "there are only 2 genders" or "men have a penis" is considered "hate speech" to them.
I think this is difference of culture from western and Japan. I understood western culture about LGBTQ/Transphobia for your answer.
@gnusocialjp > And user can use desktop/mobile client application. I'm not sure if there's any client for desktop that supports GNUSocial however.
> So I think it is not important for web UI personally. I agree if it is on mobile clients, but for desktop GUI clients there isn't much choice and they aren't that good. For example I use old Tootle (a desktop client) for Mastodon, in new versions the developers added support for Pleroma, but at the same time they decided to switch from GTK3 to GTK4 which I don't like very much. Here the web UI becomes the main factor new users will judge. And also, if you know some decent desktop clients please let me know.
> And it is not problem because you can receive our posts from your timeline. I think you do not need to directly access our site by web browser. This is only because I already have an account in other instances.
I use different browsers and the main one I use to browse the web, which consists of mostly random and untrusted sites, is always JS-off. The original GNUSocial is working perfectly and now this is a heavy downgrade to me. I do not mind if the interactive features like tooting require JS (this is where GNUSocial really shines, it is even usable without JS), but now, I can't even read anything. Mastodon would be a good example on this. I can read things without JavaScript, without login, and they still have a lot of users. Also UI or the appearance is independent from the client-side JavaScript - that is what CSS is used for.
> I think almost people use modern web browser. User for old web browser is a little. Yes, I understand. But modern browsers themselves are not good in terms of spyware - their development is fully driven by companies such as Google (including Mozilla), Microsoft and Apple.
If users try to use other browser, or just the older version with less "feature", the webapp JavaScript may or may not work, depends on how they changed the JavaScript standard and more importantly, how the webapp developers adopted them. This also means I have to worry how long I can still use the webapp without being forced to update or switching my browser. However, I have never seen JavaScript that runs on older browsers but not modern browsers.
Anyway the JavaScript problem is 2 layered: 1. Whether I can browse some page without JS. 2. Whether the JS works on my browser.
. @udon
> Here the web UI becomes the main factor new users will judge.
You and I have same opinion. Web UI is for new user. Almost of new user do not care JavaScript off.
GS users/servers are a quite little than Mastodon/Pleroma now. I have to promote GS now. I think your needs (JavaScript off) is rare case. I priority to almost user now.
> This is only because I already have an account in other instances.
JavaScript off is only your request now. If you want to access our site, you can enable JavaScript on that time only.
> And also, if you know some decent desktop clients please let me know.
I know some desktop clients for GNU social. GNU social, Mastodon, Misskey have different API. All support is difficult. And clients depends your OS.
Twitter/GS and Mastodon/Pleroma has compatible API.
I think following 2 desktop clients are good for GS users.
> But modern browsers themselves are not good in terms of spyware - their development is fully driven by companies such as Google (including Mozilla), Microsoft and Apple.
If you are careful these web browser, you should use another open source web browser by finding yourself.
I had schedlue for posting about installation of tsuru client on this weekend originally for GS user. But I spend many time today for English communication.
I am a Japanese. I am not good at English. I carefully read and write English for preventing misunderstanding. So communication with English too spent my time. If you write and read Japanese, I am easy to communicate. But you are not good at Japanese. Either I or you needs spending language costs.
@gnusocialjp > GS users/servers are a quite little than Mastodon/Pleroma now. I have to promote GS now. I think your needs (JavaScript off) is rare case. I priority to almost user now. Yes, I understand. GS instances are rare and yours is the first that allows open registeration in Japan. Maybe when it get more popular people can then focus on polishing the UI (with pure CSS).
> I am a Japanese. I am not good at English. I carefully read and write English for preventing misunderstanding. So communication with English too spent my time. If you write and read Japanese, I am easy to communicate. But you are not good at Japanese. Either I or you needs spending language costs. Pardon me... Because I was originally replying to other user on the Fediverse, and this conversation starts in English. I can read quite some but can only write Japanese poorly, but if you don't mind I can write in Japanese if we are having conversations in the future.
Development is really rapid, so it's becoming stable really quick. But there are quite a few bugs left that should be fixed before I'll use it full time.
@ryo@xianc78@alex@gnusocialjp I can explain why this is such a big deal to some people and why the Western FOSS community is full of drama (within the past few years). It's a long essay, but it takes a lot to understand why it got to this.
Originally the FOSS community (free and open source) wasn't too bad drama wise for multiple reasons. Everyone had a common enemy (Microsoft + proprietary software vendors), and nobody really had conflicting motivations. Everyone also seemed to be on a similar page regarding political views, with everyone seemingly sharing the same mix of left wing politics and libertarianism. Most notably political stuff at most would have been a website message or sending pity sob story emails to anyone doing an xscreensaver port to Windows, only to complain when someone sent him gay porn.
This came to a crashing halt for a few reasons. In the mid-2010s there was "Donglegate", in which some woman cried about a man making a dongle joke at a Python conference and got him fired, which backfired and got her fired too since this was the early 2010s and corporations wouldn't yet shield problem employees who were loyal to the cause. There was also Eich's ouster from Mozilla, and ESR made a famous post alleging that the "women in tech" crowd had come for Linus Torvalds, and said post would gain traction again when Linus made the infamous break post and said that he was using Coraline Ada's code of conduct.
Also in the mid 2010s, three things happened in America. The first is that gay marriage was legalized and the lobby turned towards transgender pet causes (solidified when Bruce Jenner came out as trans and the only mockery allowed was if you were shitting on him for not being left-wing, any "haha this Olympic medalist became a woman" jokes were banned). The second thing that happened is that the social media machine began to lose control of the narrative and topics for the first time, with one event known as "GamerGate" resulting in two divided sides online fighting. GamerGate was an event where some e-celebrity was caught having an affair with game journalists, and the media tried extremely hard to cover it up resulting in pushback. This scared the media and many in the tech industry to the core because everyone was supposed to "listen and believe". Yet had they just let it slide and ignored it, nobody would care about this years later. The actual events of this are nowhere near as important as the end result of this, which is that this entire thing split nerds into two camps: you were either for GamerGate (or right wing politics) and saw it as an attempt to reform a dying industry or you were against it and saw it as an attempt to harass women online.
The third thing that happened was that Donald Trump won the 2016 election, which wasn't supposed to happen, resulting in a repeat of GamerGate across American politics. If GamerGate was polarizing, Donald Trump winning activated a killswitch across tons and tons of nerds (and also celebrities, failed artists, and news people) at once. Suddenly, Donald Trump was literally Hitler 2 and was going to send all of the LGBT to the camps. Twitter and the media were flooded with nonstop lies and still are to this day about Trump, and they won't be happy until he is assassinated or in prison.
Also coincidentally, this is when the transgender craze began to spread like wildfire online but especially among two groups: easily influenced broken teens and nerds. This was fueled both by media coverage/promotion, offering an identity for those who lacked one, and the fact you can easily obtain HRT illegally without a prescription by ordering it online discreetly. This community became notorious for both telling everyone they meet that they're really a man who wants you to play along with his delusions of being a woman, wanting to be the most oppressed minority, treating the transgender flag as a fashion symbol or streetwear brand, and making sure to derail every conversation to only talk about transgender issues if the topic comes up. It also became a red flag if any user were to have ?️⚧️ in their bio or username as any user with such would be prone to irrational behavior, I mean that community does nickname their drug binges a "second puberty" after all. While many talk about trannies entering the community from outside, in reality many had a big online footprint within the tech community under a male name.
So what does any of this have to do with free and open source software, and the Alex drama? Simple. As a result of Trump and whatever the latest thing the media is talking about (be it the war in Ukraine, trans rights, some terrorist attack/shooting, some illegal protest being framed as a terrorist attack, some high profile fake suicide, and more) anything and everything has to be a political soapbox for left wing politics. In the software community, it has become extremely common to use software as a soapbox for issues as well. Some no-name developers would re-license their software under restrictive licenses that had clauses saying that you couldn't use this if you worked for someone he/she hated. There were a few NPM developers sabotaging their code to protest being broke and whatnot. More developers than I can count also sabotaged products if you had a Russian IP with one trying to nuke hard disks and others just halting updates.
The other thing is that thanks to how political the FOSS community is, you also have to be up to date with whatever the current trends are. Bitcoin was the coolest thing in that community 10 years ago, but because some media website said that it was killing the planet and political dissidents use it, you must not use it. Don't get me started on how every single one of them wants to bury their views on lolicon from 10 years ago, or how free speech was their thing.
Then there's how the LGBT community treats others online. Put it this way: that community doesn't just have thin skin if you accidentally use the wrong pronouns, it is now considered a hate crime in many western countries to do this deliberately. Unfortunately dictating what people can say about you goes against free speech, so their free speech activism had to go too. The thing is, they want free speech for themselves.
Which is what happened to Alex. Alex was allowed to get harassed by the other Pleroma developers, but he was not allowed to call them out for it. Alex was ruining Pleroma for Soapbox-FE according to them, but as he pointed out Pleroma had modifications to interoperate with Misskey, a software with less users than Soapbox. Why did it have those? Because according to Alex, the top instances that run Soapbox and Alex have political views and in many cases aesthetics that aren't trendy with the Pleroma developers, but the instances running Misskey had aesthetics and political views that were. Developers were running smear pieces on Alex on their website, but how dare you call them out for doing the same thing.
All of this was because he was against a pet cause that somehow has become the biggest cultural issue of the last decade over here to the point many people are against it but won't say it in fear of losing their jobs.
. @ryo @xianc78 @alex
Thank @PhenomX6 very very much for explaining very detailed historical background for Alex's article!
I learned western FOSS community political complexity.
I think your post is very important for current western FOSS community and future fediverse trend.
I would summarize your post by Japanese and share with Japanese fediverse users.
@PhenomX6@xianc78@alex@gnusocialjp@ryo did you shit out this wall of text just to misrepresent what happened? alex violated the established process of introducing new changes into the codebase, that’s all, he was stripped off maintainer rights because of that and started sperging about trannies and fags
@pomstan@PhenomX6@xianc78@alex@gnusocialjp I'm listening to the interview GNU Social JP linked to in his blog post, the only "violation" I could get out of it is that he doesn't like that the default is that all Fedi instances are widely open to everyone so that the ultra sensitive will use blocklists to cut off entire instances for having opinions they don't like, and instead wants to have a model where you don't federate with anyone by default, and then you whitelist the instances you want to federate with.
In the sense of maintaining healthy communities it makes a lot of sense, but for exposure purposes it means you'll need to actually find these instances first.
@ryo@PhenomX6@xianc78@alex@gnusocialjp i dunno about any interviews, he steamrolled quote posts into the master without discussing it with other maintainers or thinking how they will impact non-supporting instances
instead wants to have a model where you don’t federate with anyone by default, and then you whitelist the instances you want to federate with.
that’s the expected level of retardation and anti-community mindset from a former gab and current poast developer. both don’t need a fediverse but need a second twitter where they are in control
The idea I can agree with is that you can have a community of friendly instances. So the auth-left have their echo chamber, the auth-right have their echo chamber, the libertarians have an own space with without authoritarian lunatics interfering, the centrists can choose whichever side they want to federate with.
This completely eliminates the possibilities of hostile takeovers by wokies which we've all witnessed with big tech, the gaming and comic industries, the loycaloyzers, and so on.
Though I didn't say it should be the only way, which is what I'd disagree with on Alex's take. There are cases where you want to have federation with everyone by default, which is why choice of software you want to use needs to be available. For example, want an open door policy? Install Fedi software X. Want a private and invite-only community? Install Fedi software Y. Want both? Install both on 2 different servers or 1 server under different domain names.
So give the authoritarians the echo chambers they want, so that libertarians can contribute to a freer and more reasonable society without commies/soycialists/fascists (auth-left) and/or neonazi's/religious boomers (auth-right) getting in the way.
@pomstan@PhenomX6@alex@gnusocialjp@xianc78 Actually, we technically already have such containment boards. For example, Mastodong.soycial and Disqordia for the authoritarian left, Gab and Poast for the authoritarian right, 076 SNS, Baraag, Pawoo, and Game Liberty for libertarians. The auth-left ones niggerlists all the instances that don't align with their political believes the auth-right ones either niggerlists all instances that don't align with their political believes or don't federate at all to begin with, and the libertarian ones (I mean the real ones, not those that claim to be such, and then maintain a 900 zillion pixel high niggerlist) don't block anyone (or just a few because of spam or bots), and in many cases have an "each user decides for him or herself individually who they want to follow or not" policy.
@pomstan@PhenomX6@xianc78@alex@gnusocialjp Either they reach out to instances they want to federate with, or other instances reach out to them. This is kind of how Pleroma is already, as the public timeline is empty by default, and fills up as you start following or get followed by users of other instances.
Likewise, PeerTube is another example of that; the admin must follow another instance first in order to retrieve content from other PeerTube instances.
@ryo@PhenomX6@alex@gnusocialjp@pomstan@xianc78 Hmm... I don't think Baraag or Pawoo has ever expressed their stance, they are art-oriented afterall and I will rather hope them not to (not even "libertarian").
no, it isn’t. if i just reply to something, my post will end up on that instance, even if i don’t particularly care about all of its content. some users may like my post, which will force instances of all their followers to fetch my post, which gives better exposure. in your scheme I’m forced to constantly suck janny cocks in order to get seen
@udon@PhenomX6@alex@gnusocialjp@pomstan@xianc78 Art instances are generally libertarian. Doesn't necessarily need to be political. You can be libertarian for allowing people the freedom to post art without much interference.
> in your scheme I’m forced to constantly suck janny cocks in order to get seen
Then it means you don't understand what I'm saying. I already said there should be options between no federation by default and with a whitelist (or without), or full federation by default with a blacklist (or without). There are cases where you want to have a community of like minded people, and there are cases where you want to have an open door policy, depends on which kind of community you want to have.
@ryo@PhenomX6@xianc78@alex@gnusocialjp pleroma already features whitelist mode iirc, but there’s no point in making it the default if your only goal is to support invite-only communities
@ryo@PhenomX6@alex@gnusocialjp@pomstan@xianc78 There is difference. If they are put on the stage they will have to answer whether they support something or not. Otherwise they don't have to.
he steamrolled quote posts into the master without discussing it with other maintainers or thinking how they will impact non-supporting instances
This is a lie. I merged it into the develop branch of Soapbox BE. And it has a backwards-compatibility feature (that took time to develop!) so you can see a link to the thing being quoted. It’s exactly what Fedibird and Misskey already do.
Please be informed before you spew nonsense, and try to THINK.
after you got shat on after introducing the feature without it. i’m not gonna fish for gitlab links now and i honestly don’t understand why are you lying, what’s the purpose in it
I said before, the only reason I didn't add backwards-compatibility for the replying thing is because I didn't know how. Someone else figured it out, and I quickly adopted it.
I'm a regular person just like you. I write code. Anyone can do it. I don't have to be held responsible for that, unless you want to speak to my manager?
@alex@PhenomX6@xianc78@gnusocialjp@ryo i doubt “some people don’t like” would be a reason gaining enough consensus between maintainers to reject a feature
If there would be any interest in thinking straight, we would have by now, instead of going. Not that we haven’t had the opportunity or anything, but hey. You go fake being sentient then and see where that ends up. ?♂️
Quote posts are in my fork, NOT Pleroma upstream. The reason it has an impact is because my fork (Soapbox BE) is used by some of the biggest servers like Poast and Spinster. If you want to change that, then you can attract a big community to use a different software. That's how the Fediverse (and the world) works.
@alex@PhenomX6@xianc78@gnusocialjp@ryo why did you post this at me? I’m saying that “some people don’t like quote posts” is not the real reason your PR was rejected, tell me the truth please
@alex@PhenomX6@xianc78@gnusocialjp@ryo@pomstan it's common to post changes that require alteration of downstream clients for long enough to allow the maintainers of the downstream clients to alter their software before rolling out a large compatibility-breaking change in your backend. You know this. And you knew what kind of response you were going to get when you made it.
and the condom layers douchery of what they do, simply won't fly. not when the end is not acceptable, like boston going dynamic with huawei, which in turn is a fucking rapist, since, if memory serves right, ripping off your pitch, how is android thinking?
You’re not making sense. My PR was approved (by me) and merged (by me) into my own repository which I control. Admins who wanted the feature then proceeded to operate my software.
Are you asking why a fraction of the community didn’t like the feature? That’s not for me to answer.
@alex@PhenomX6@xianc78@gnusocialjp@ryo so what was your meltdown about? the one where you compared soapboxbe with misskey? if you didn’t send any PRs into pleroma upstream, what’s the problem?
@ryo@gnusocialjp@PhenomX6@alex@xianc78 it's very simple fren, the pleroma tranny dev hated Alex for speaking the truth. In my very honest opinion we should catch them and then skin them alive.
Here's the important thing: everyone is free here.
Some people seem to think I've done something that is "unfair". They think I'm like Microsoft. But the truth is, I'm some guy in an apartment. I'm playing on the exact same playing field as you and everyone else.
Anyone can do things that change the Fediverse, as long as they have the motivation. If you have a problem with that, you might have a problem with the design of the Fediverse itself.
@mkljczk@PhenomX6@xianc78@alex@gnusocialjp@ryo@pomstan you did this? Who are you replying to? I don't fucking know. You know why it's still not fixed? Because that's how badly you fucking retards pissed off nicholasconstant
People will notice that hosting their own instance will make nobody talk to them, so they join a big one instead, and then that makes the problem worse
@s8n@xianc78@alex@gnusocialjp@ryo@pomstan I don't know how many times you've dealt with troons online but once you're on their shitlist, they will hold you to another standard even if you're not pissing them off.
You introduced a compatibility-breaking feature that broke threading in ALL FRONTENDS. Not just PleromaFE. I told you the screenshot was from SENGI and you are too fucking retarded to know what that is. I told you SENGI'S maintainer's NAME, nicholasconstant, which you should fucking KNOW because him being pissed off at you retards is a huge part of why Gleason is no longer allowed to directly submit code to the project
you people are absolute RETARDS and you ABSOLUTELY should be prevented from mainlining anything because YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE DOING
If you look into s8n, you'll notice he's borderline suicidal. All of our worst critics hate themselves even more than they hate us. It's our confidence they can't stand.
@gnusocialjp@udon I'm really glad that you still support GNU Social, it is sad seeing that people think of it as dead, it still has some good thing with it.
I've been developing a frontend for Pleroma that resembles the GNU Social feel and no-JS requirement
I introduced a change to Soapbox that made use of API already introduced to Pleroma by lain 3 years ago. Alex did want to accept my changes.
It doesn’t break compatibility. Several fediverse projects like Hubzilla, Friendica or Smithereen behave in a similar way and no one complained about it
@mkljczk@PhenomX6@xianc78@alex@gnusocialjp@ryo@pomstan it breaks compatibility. Previously the mentions list was inlined to the text, and now it is not. This is an API change. You also added a requirement. The downstream client must correctly order the list of user mentions when handling the response. That's not easy. It's nontrivial. One does not just pull ordereddicts out of one's asshole. And as a result the user mentions list in Sengi is unordered, and I cannot tell who you are replying to in that frontend. You did this. It's your fault.
@mkljczk@PhenomX6@alex@gnusocialjp@pomstan@ryo@xianc78 the order of the users mentioned in the post is IMPORTANT INFORMATION and you just fucking discarded it like it was meaningless because YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE DOING
@mkljczk@PhenomX6@xianc78@alex@gnusocialjp@ryo@pomstan I do not care that you send the list in the correct order. You changed the API by requiring the downstream client to maintain that order where previously it did not. You do not understand what a cardinal sin this is or you would not be arguing with me
@gnusocialjp Hey, I'm currently contributing to GNU social v3. Just wanted to say, development isn't dead! Hopefully we'll be able to get v3 out soon™. Only a pure HTML5+CSS3 version is planned. I work mostly with the frontend, but I can answer questions regarding the current status.
@s8n >write frontend with retarded expectations, like duplicating the To: field in the message body >someone out there doesn’t follow this and your poorly designed frontend shits itself
@s8n I'm sorry did you just try to argue that we should keep our mentions list duplicated in the message body even when confronted with a real case where that backfires on both SoapoxBE and MastodonBE?
@pomstan@PhenomX6@xianc78@alex@gnusocialjp@NEETzsche@mkljczk@ryo because they just don't understand what they're doing. They're foss tranny developers who don't know or care about development best practices and throw hissy fits and cry when a real engineer tells them they're doing it wrong
@pomstan@PhenomX6@xianc78@alex@gnusocialjp@NEETzsche@mkljczk@ryo have you not seen his avatar? He's got the soybeard selfie going strong. If his balls haven't yet shriveled up like dried-up old wine corks they've certainly at least regressed to raisin levels
@s8n Then you just effectively admitted it isn't. The backend shouldn't even need to attempt to parse the mentions list from the message body and should probably require the mentions list to be submitted separately, as is proper.
@pomstan Alex is a drama causing idiot, that's a big part of it, in the blog post he made about being banned from the github and following thread, he accused pleroma of being complicit in human trafficking and accepting money from a porn company
(Two things he was okay with for the two years he was part of pleroma)
Just to make himself look better, now tell me, would you trust a man so fickle and that throws accusations like that?
I'm not taking sides here, I didn't like what the dev team said, but the dev team didn't accuse him of heinous crimes nor started the drama, drama that twice on a row was started by none other than Alex himself @PhenomX6@xianc78@alex@gnusocialjp@ryo
I've been in this thread for quite a while reading some long and very explanatory posts, but I simplify it down to that, "From each according to ability and to each according to need," does not work and never will.
You just wanna be one of the workers? Someone else wants to be the big dog.
@PhenomX6 @xianc78
Hi. Sorry for late. I posted about your posts in Japanese. I understood background about this news. Thank you very much for explanation!