Notices by Mark Shane Hayden (msh@coales.co), page 3

@danwentzel In my observation people with fedi accounts on more than one platform almost never cross-post. There really is no point to doing so since some form of the post can reach all fedi platforms. Instead they post content best suited to the platforms like masto for short status, calckey or whatever for long posts, pixelfed for pictures, peertube for video etc.

If you really want a post to be seen you might *sometimes* boost it from the account with most followers but actual regular cross-posting doesn't seem to be a thing when all accounts involved are fedi-aware.

@thomasfuchs and if that isn't your thing then try out Jotto, my new social network where the words must be 5 letters long...no more, no less!

@futurebird the "industry leaders" full (BS) message is this:

We, as the pioneers of AI, are the most aware of the technology's potential dangers. With great power comes great responsibility. Therefore we "humbly" accept the role of regulating/licensing/policing (the future competitors in) our industry.

Of course it is all BS--it isn't about safety of society at all; it is because patents expire and regulatory capture is indefinite.

@atomicpoet jury is still out. Bluesky is not even half baked...it is barely cake batter at this point. It was put into beta without a complete moderation infrastructure, without blocking, without DMs, centrally-issued provisionary DIDs for pseudo-nomadic identities. There isn't even wide federation yet.

If the floodgates opened in its current state it would certainly be same bird poo different pile.

But if they actually delivered on the promises...in a good way? Who knows. My expectations are low but I am not dismissing them by any means. That said, the track record so far gives me the vibe of a soulless platform with a community as vibrant as email or SMS.

@mike @shoq

@chihuamaranian @thomasfuchs I agree for onboarding purposes deciding on what server to join is a serious impediment, but I think defaulting to the oldest, largest one is a terrible approach. The "what if Garg sells out to a Musk-like being" argument is kinda ridiculous but the concern is real if overblown.

A better default would be an "I feel lucky" or "pick a server for me" that randomly picks from a curated list of a hundred or so general-interest instances.

Some counterpoints:

- "people can move" is a user hostile attitude, especially when moving is still an arduous process

- when The Big Server going sideways drives mostly savvy users away it turns The Big Server into a ghetto of sorts...it is already "the AOL of fedi"

- vertical scale is the wrong kind of scale for federated services. We really need horizontal scale with smaller simpler servers that are easier to deploy and manage

- thousands of smaller servers vs one server that dominates makes it less resilient to hostile players, not more.

@thomasfuchs this here is probably why they didn't just hop on the AP protocol bandwagon. It is insufficiently capitalist. They need to put extra effort into making sure currency/commodification is sufficiently weaved into the platform such that it cannot be bypassed by others if creators buy in.

And by currency I don't (just) mean fiat or crypto...I mean things like clout/reputation, social graphs, attention etc.

That actually runs counter to being social but must be considered in order to satiate VCs, thus progress and adoption are slowed considerably relative to a platform that focuses primarily on the needs around social activity.

@cypnk @lawlznet So they took inspiration from Microsoft's original MS Office file formats that's nice

@ariadne Toronto is not even the worst unfortunately. I think the worst display of racism I have seen is going through the Eastern Townships into Quebec City...and I grew up in rural Alberta so...yeah.

Systemic racism is sometimes even more challenging to address when it is covered in a thick coat of Polite Whiteness.

PSA to all admins: I highly recommend a #FediBlock of #mastinator (ie. the entire mastinator.com domain).

Mastinator is a service that allows a person to anonymously follow people on the fediverse. No big deal you think? Your public posts are probably already anonymously viewable from your public profile anyways and all it is doing is aggregating public info? That is what its creator claims---it is just a convenience service!

Well no, it is mode concerning than that. It does this aggregation by following any account a mastinator user types into its service then replicating *all* your non-DM posts into a sort of "proxy inbox" in the mastinator.com domain that is completely out of your control and viewable by everyone!

In other words, if you are followed by mastinator.com it effectively turns your follower-only posts into public posts and lets people you have blocked keep following you by following the mastinator replica of your posts!

Innocent intentions or not this violates user consent.

@twipped the number of instances is in the dozens at this point. I will compile a list when the dust settles. In the meantime my blocklist is already public in the "about" pages of my instance.

I do NOT advocate for admins to blindly implement blocklists passed around the fedi. Every community has differing standards. Admins, please take a little extra time to have a quick look at each to make sure they make sense to block for you.

That said, they are all very outrageous so it should only take a minute to confirm they are toxic for any reasonable person.

So it seems that trolls of the Trumpist frozen peach variety, mostly those who set up their own Pleroma instances when Parler got taken down, are undertaking a semi-coordinated effort to target journalists who sign up on Mastodon for a couple of reasons...

* Trump has taught them that professional journalism and critical thinking are elitist and bad so lets harass them until they go away

* they are trying to prove some sort of point that this place can be just as toxic as their beloved Frozen Peach in Chief's microblogging site

If you are a journo and you get dogpiled by trolls DO NOT ENGAGE with them at all! Immediately:

1. REPORT them to your instance mods, THEN
2. Block them

Step 1 is very important! This isn't twitter or facebook...mods will take swift action, and if they don't you can migrate instances to better moderated ones...