Notices by Sean Tilley (deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org), page 2

Sort of a weird question: is anybody trying to make #Friendica look pretty? A recurring conversation that @damon and I have is that the platform is pretty solid, and the project is healthy, but the UI is generally just not great.

I think it would be fun to do some mockups and try to ship a better, more user-friendly theme. I think people look at it sometimes and get turned off, which is a bummer. Friendica is super underrated.

A non-zero part of Mastodon’s user community has effectively modeled itself on a kind of social Puritanism that is super unfun to be around. It’s gotten so bad that it’s a meme at this point. Just imagine a stereotype of a stodgy librarian who tells you to CW your own lived experiences because they don’t want to see it, and you’re already halfway there.

There’s this wild idea that any kind of commerce or barter, any kind of exhange between hands that isn’t the most threadbare mutual aid, is forbidden and bad and going to make this place worse somehow. We’re a network predicated on GoFundMe’s and vast amounts of unpaid labor for hosting and moderation.

@webbj possibly, but I think some people also get their rocks off from aggressively telling other people what to do, and how to do it.

@eshep I’ve been here for like 15 years. It ebbs and flows.

I think I might also be a bit of an edge-case. I report on the same spaces I participate in, all day, every day. It’s been really amazing, and there are still plenty of good days. But, reporting on developments sometimes involves sticking my head into dumpster fires and writing about it.

“Growth” as a concept does not have to be viewed solely through the lens of Silicon Valley, venture capital firms, or capitalism in general. In the context of the network: some people here, myself included, want to see the network develop along enough to sufficiently challenge the status quo, and dethrone mainstream social networks.

For the #Fediverse to thrive, we inevitably have to bring in more people, new communities, and new ways of doing things. We need to build towards better concepts for user agency, privacy, and control. We need to also embrace the fun stuff that brought us here in the first place.

It’s kind of a weird write-up, but an interesting question came up in chat today: “Hey, Fediverse guys, what are some of your hobbies that don’t involve the Fediverse?”

I thought it might be nice to share a bunch of other things I’m passionate about, featuring a bunch of unfinished creative projects, from art to music to games.

Anyway, if anyone ever wants to collab on something, that would kind of be a really big deal to me? 🥺 👉 👈

https://deadsuperhero.com/2024/03/other-sides/