Notices by Shantini (shantini@techhub.social), page 2

Nothing makes me feel as unsteady as a slack UI update

@chockenberry so many questions. What do the batteries power, is it the pan? The tablet? The stove? The person???

I love the handful of days a year when people aren't wildly speculating about my workplace 😂

Many people have missed the joke,

The pedantry and didactic "culture" of this place is exhausting. My mastodon feed is saturated with people arguing about instances and servers and federation. On Threads I'm seeing pet pictures. I'm seeing art. I'm learning about world events. People spend so much time arguing about platform philosophy that they forget the whole point of the platform is the users.

Some people feel like they're not smart enough to be software engineers and I'm here to tell you: being smart is not at all a prerequisite!

Be *inspired* by the legions of folks who don't let their lack of critical thinking skills get in the way of having prolific careers in tech 🥰

Mastodon users: everyone is welcome here!

Also Mastodon users: no not you

Mastodon users: everything should be federated!

Also Mastodon users: no not you

Why did it have to get this far for people to realize Elon is a n*zi

The lengths people will go to in order to avoid saying “I don’t know”

A tool that is helpful to me when trying to figure out if someone is telling the truth: look at the power differential. Think about whether people with less power are inclined to fabricate accusations.

The point where you start insinuating that people who are being carpeted with bombs are making up the number of deaths, is the moment you should start questioning when you lost your humanity.

Another tool I have found helpful is to not conflate people (or their religions) with governments.

Just cut my own curtain bangs *well*, 16 year old me would be so proud

Soapbox:

Very few people care about the owner of a social media site when they sign up.

Even fewer people care if it’s open source / democratized.

Nobody gives a shit about the historical conventions of said site.

People just want a good user experience and to do minimal work to use it.

It’s super privileged to tell people to “simply stop using Twitter.” People who rely on mutual aid can’t do that here due to much smaller reach (and sometimes even server rules). People have life-saving community on Twitter that doesn’t exist elsewhere.

Ever try sharing a Mastodon link to someone who isn’t a user? It’s a garbage experience and if you run a business or something Mastodon is not the place.

Stop putting the onus on marginalized people to make your platform succeed, that’s a garbage take!!!!!

This place is never going to be where “everyone” is. I’m sorry. Give up on that. Twitter was easy to sign up for, had search, and you could share public links to Tweets without friction. This place has too much “ideology” and too little functionality.

Additionally, just because a person is on here doesn’t mean they’re a fediverse evangelist or enjoyer. Many of us are just here because other people came here from Twitter. Many of us will also leave once a better alternative becomes available.

@inthehands right but you can’t do that at scale - it’s a culture problem, not an individual one. You can school some percentage of them and still more will appear.

@inthehands it comes and goes in waves, got a wave of it this week