Notices by mekka okereke :verified: (mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io), page 4

@alexadeswift @mav @alice

Are you really the level of clueless where you're going to whitesplain to a Black person on Hachyderm how bad it is to be a Black person on Hachyderm? Is that where you're trying to take this?

You're all over the map. What does any of this have to do with starter packs?

Or are you just trying to find any way to be unpleasant because you're upset that I said that so many users are preferring BlueSky?

@admin @FediTips

The problem is that if it's not built in, it's a less smooth UX. You know that it's a less smooth UX, and that the UX can be improved without $15M of VC funding. Mastodon isn't getting $15M, but that UX will be fixed within a year. Like I said, Mastodon is changing... Just very slowly.

Black person says "The USA could be improved."
Response: IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT THEN LEAVE!

I get a similar response for suggesting improvements to Mastodon.🤷🏿♂️

@Crow @stooovie @Remittancegirl

You could spend one hour thinking about how you might add trust and safety features to make starter packs harder to abuse. You'd come up with some pretty good ideas, and that's just in 60 minutes! And you're clearly not a trust and safety expert!

In the tech industry, I find people are either amazingly creative, or amazingly unimaginative, depending on if the feature would help Black users or not.

Rockets to Mars? Yes!

Quote Tweets? Starter packs? Impossible!

@Crow @stooovie @Remittancegirl

For years Mastodon users rejected quote tweets, because they said, "Quote tweets might be abused! People might use them to dunk on other people!"

In just a few months, BlueSky implemented quote tweets, and added a feature where users can detach their post from a quote tweet. If you quote dunk on me, and I don't like it, I can just remove my post from your quote tweet.

Mastodon users often use a lack of trust and safety features as justification for poor UX.

@alexadeswift @mav

"The OP shouldn't do [X]! The OP should do [my bad idea] instead!"

I don't take advice from people that have never pioneered and made a space that wasn't welcoming for Black people into one that is.

In conclusion, I'm going to post what I want about the reasons this place is unwelcoming for Black folk. I'm going to keep saying how things could move faster:
* Funding of safety and UX projects
* Prioritization

I'm going to keep ignoring fragile people's demands.

@alexadeswift @mav

I'm not sure who the Black folk are that listen to white people that say, "Don't criticize this space that isn't good for Black people!" but I'm not one of them.

How do you think that would work? You say that, and the Black person just says, "You're right! My bad! I shall cease and desist my criticism!" and then it just... goes quiet again?

Has that ever worked for you? Or is this the first time you're trying it? Am I the first?

@alexadeswift @mav

"because you keep saying how great BS is and bad mouthing one corner of the Fediverse, for seemingly not doing what you want."

You wrote a lot of words, but I knew they wouldn't be useful after this start.🤷🏿♂️

"Why are you criticizing the Dems! Don't criticize Democrats!"🤡

"Why are you criticizing Mastodon? Don't say anything about it can be improved!"🤡

Same energy.

Listen. If me criticizing things gets your fragility feathers all ruffled, go ahead and unfollow now.

@stooovie @Remittancegirl

I also hate the silliness of claiming that providing lifeboats for people that want to leave Twitter is some type of moral failure. The silliest I've heard is "Fast and easy is how you get Trump!"

No.

Stop being silly. Just fix the onboarding. There's nothing noble or pure about having poor UX, and no safety features so Black women can't find their friends and then get yelled at by nazis. It's not pure. It's just a bad product. Fix it.

@stooovie @Remittancegirl

I hate the weak excuse making for bad UX.

"It's VC money!" No it's not. There were proposals for starter packs by Black Mastodon users years ago. Of course they were ignored.

And as I've pointed out, Inkscape is an open source project with good UX. You don't need money. You just need to care.

Dudes who sit around and obsess about writing great code, don't understand that designing great UX is the same thing. It just requires focus and caring.

@Cyclist

Speaking as one of the largest human beings to ever have existed in the history of human kind... Yes! Bigger is better! 🤣

But all jokes aside, yes, if that bigger is because they were able to attract diversity and Mastodon was not. Eg, there are no Black people here. There are Black people there.

@mav

🤔Why would I be somewhere if I didn't like it?

@mcepl @thisismissem @Badgardener

Why am I being tagging me in this nonsense?

Begone!

Over the past 24 hrs while Mastodon was discoursing about whether or not starter packs are OK, and if slow progress is more due to lack of funding or different priorities, and if people that choose other social networks are just evil, lazy, shiftless people who love to lick VCs boots or are people that just want a better UX...

BlueSky added another 1 million users.

@mekkaokereke I think one part of it is that getting something right in a way that lasts does take an incredibly long time. Time which we may legitimately not have. The other part is what you said: getting people out of Twitter is in itself a crucially important goal.

So while BS isn't for me, I'm fine with it. And if Mastodon keeps improving and keeps the embers burning, then it will still be there if BS burns out (which I think BS will based on just the complete lack of a monetization plan).

Without a doubt this is the longest I’ve ever procrastinated finishing a drawing. 😰 Been almost *another year* but I finally finished the keypad on my Big Trak drawing. This was a big psychological hurdle to get over, I was dreading it. Maybe things will go quicker now. Hopefully. 🤞 #LineaSketch

@bgrinter @are0h @blogdiva @danilo

Some key features driving BlueSky's success are:

1) Starter packs
2) Block lists
3) Don't be completely terrible to the Black women early adopters, who have driven adoption of every platform from FaceBook to Instagram to Twitter to Vine.

Notice I didn't even say "Be great to Black women early adopters!" I just said don't be completely terrible.

None of the things above require millions in funding. Funding is not the issue. Ideology and prioritization are.

@serapath @FinalOverdrive

But Nostr is VC funded too. Jack Dorsey was originally involved with both BlueSky and Nostr, and is no longer involved with BlueSky, but is involved with Nostr. So your VC free angle makes no sense.

https://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-fiatjaf-nostr-donation-2024-6

But hey, I said I would disengage, and look at me here, still engaging. I should stop.

@serapath @dveditz @bbmin7b5 @root @james

🤔"many people are ...something naive?broken?privileged?... you name it."

🤔"People who only operate on the level of "fun" will definitely not ever be early adopters - they just dont understand much what things are about in this context"

This is you saying things about people.

In my thread about improving Mastodon and having empathy for why people choose BlueSky.

And yes, I said stuff about you. Specifically, that you without irony, did a Mastodon.

@serapath @dveditz @bbmin7b5 @root @james

"Mastodon is better" Okay, now I know you don't talk to any Black people.

Sorry, but I can't be your first one.

I'm disengaging.

Be well!

@serapath @dveditz @bbmin7b5 @root @james

No, you're not sharing your "observations." Because you haven't even bothered to observe. You're sharing your biases and preconceived notions about people you view as inferior to you.

Take a few moments to read the conversations about the lack of starter packs and shared blocklists on Mastodon, and why those are so important for community. Observe. Empathize.

Then read that the Mastodon team *is* building these features, but going is slow. Funding...