Notices by Shannon Clark (rycaut@mastodon.social), page 2

Has anyone built the #indieweb version of Meetup? (Opt in to groups that then plan localized events - perhaps inclusive of online ones?) it’s tricky as it takes some good practices to avoid spam, scams and other bad behavior and actors. But reoccurring (as well as one off but low barriers to entry to holding) events is really good for community building (regardless of the topics)

@JaxVent @BeAware brains are weird. It is painful and next to impossible for me to grasp the lyrics of most songs. I can just barely understand and then if I do nothing else but it takes massive effort and I can’t have any distractions or other sounds. Someone singing along makes it all just gibberish for me. Needless to say I don’t do karaoke. There are some genres that are easier for me (show tunes and some folk music) but even pop or rap is hard for me to retain even while listening

@inthehands one option that doesn’t take anything radical like a new state or amendments would be to repeal the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929 which sets the 435 members of the House of Representatives based on the census of 1910. Resulting in each Representative representing wildly different numbers of people. If instead each Representative had closer to 250000 people in their district than over 750000 we would have closer to 1320ish Reps (likely a few more)

Making the electoral college 1400+

@alcinnz also many people have multiple devices (especially if you think family/household units) and increasingly value easy access to the same stuff/content/credentials etc across most of their devices (perhaps shared partially with other members of the family)

So until open source includes good alternatives for phones/tablets/smart watches as well as game consoles/tvs (or boxes connected to them) and laptops/desktops it likely has to coexist with iOS/ipadOS/Appletv or Android and misc TVOSes

@renchap @gruber @Gargron I would guess some may also be people/companies that rolled their own ifttt approach to posting the same content to multiple places though how to differentiate that from bots is likely tricky.

(Does make me wonder how many accounts used multiple tools - ie automation for scheduled posts but a different tool that they use to reply to comments, boost, or read themselves.)

@Gargron I’m curious how this compares to the same numbers for reading?

Ie which tools are mostly used by read-only users and which by users who post?
(And perhaps similarly if boosts is another cohort of users)

My instinct is that the tools used by active posters (whether of original posts or replies) will be somewhat different from the stats of users who primarily read without also posting.

(Such stats might also illuminate which tools are used primarily by bots or software not humans)

@darnell I think there are some countries that ban satellite phones (witb somewhat severe penalties for trying to bring one into the country) and while it is a lot of smaller countries it also includes China, Bangladesh and Pakistan so I would Apple may not want to risk the optics of anyone with a new iPhone being arrested if they attempt to bring it into China. I’d guess they may have had some complex negotiations with China about satellite messaging (haven’t caught up on todays keynote yet)

@WestLawns @BeAware I joined in 2016 but wasn’t particularly active for many many years

I think nearly all search tools (search engines but also search on most sites) would be infinitely improved if allowed to actually return no results or only a few high quality results. Instead of the current trend of returning lots of low quality results.

Sites could then suggest additions or changes to a search that have more results But suggest these vs showing them by default

This would make search much more useful for finding obscure content or for example mispellings (like misspellings)

@BeAware yes I scrolled back just now and see it (using Ivory on iOS but against Mastadon.social)

@BeAware it’s all good. No wrong way to enjoy the hobby - and do remember that most people aren’t professional actors so while I consider myself pretty experienced as a GM I’m not doing different voices for every NPC (or sound effects) like Matt Mercer or other GMs with live streams might be.

@BeAware no problem - one thing I'd suggest - watch some of the various live play streams of ttrpgs if you want to see various styles. When I didn't have a regular group I found (and still do) watching such live plays really fun - and sampling a bunch shows the very wide range of ways people play the same game.

and online - you can play in many groups with camera off, there are even ways to play ttrpgs online that aren't real time - look up "play by post" its very popular

@BeAware and two - it is increasingly easier (though still not simple) to find games especially online. That said if you ever want to try D&D (or Pathfinder 1e) I'm happy to run a game for you - but yes, scheduling ttrpgs is for many the hardest problem (and related finding a group and gm that all want the same type of table experience / game - even old friends sometimes want to play very different styles and tones of games) that's always been my hardest challenge as a gm.

@BeAware well two things - there are some fantastic tools online (actually a bunch of them) for the mechanical bits of most tttrpgs - various Virtual Table Tops offered shortened to VTTs also have digital tools for character sheets many of which handle all the math and rules interactions - they make a HUGE difference even if playing in person. I'm a huge fan of them especially for making it easier for new players (but even for experienced players) DnDBeyond is good but far from the only option

@BeAware as a long time GM (been running ttrpgs of various forms for 40+ years.) I don’t get how or why you think AI as a GM would be fun or a good idea. For me the whole point of rpgs is the storytelling together at the table - the cocreation of a story. Yes some of it involves mechanical bits and a tactical map sometimes but even there for me at least story comes first. But above story is getting every player involved and engaged and having the fun they want at the table on or offline

@BeAware I’m definitely not in the OSR school of tabletop games - I use random tables etc occasionally but mostly I improvise stories at the table mixed with a lot of understanding of the mechanics (mostly Pathfinder 1e or D&D 5e for me these days) I’ve run 100’s of games for 1000’s of people at game stores and conventions as well as home games. I don’t see how or when I would use AI for anything gaming related

@BeAware

School breaks. Not because many Fediverse users are students but because many are parents.

I’m serious - it has been spring break for many schools in recent weeks (the exact dates of spring break vary by school district) and thus parents likely have been less engaged. Similarly with “ski week” in February (for the parts of the country that have that break) and for the typically longer break in Dec/early Jan.

I know my use dips during family vacations

@todb initially one huge advantage Wikipedia has and most other wikis or similar crowd created content models don’t have is a widespread common shared structure for the content - ie “encyclopedia”

(Now decades on Wikipedia has evolved into more nuance and different formats and structures that were never or were less commonly part of encyclopedias - but the structure is a large reason they could get started. It helped everyone answer “does this content look right”)

Also the mess is hidden

@stevenray @anildash @whitehouse @tchambers I haven’t tested it but my understanding is that Threads users see some aggregated stats about Fediverse activity but I don’t think can see specific replies or boosts (they can see how many different servers interacted with a post but I don’t think they can see the replies.

However I hope this changes (and that threads users can follow fediverse accounts etc) but I have no unique knowledge if/when that will happen.

@anildash also the @whitehouse official account.

And I hope this is the start of many more such accounts to come as welll as organizations considering their own official instances not just via Threads (so they can have true two way discourse) and more of a range of accounts - but if just every official federal (and hopefully state and local) government official accounts use threads to join the larger fediverse that’s a win)

Is it perfection no. But it is a win.