Notices by Stefan Bohacek (stefan@stefanbohacek.online), page 9

I mentioned this in one of my comments, but let me also put a link here to a recent report I wrote showing how @phanpy achieves higher rates of image descriptions thanks to a simple design choice.

https://stefanbohacek.com/blog/impact-of-fediverse-clients-on-the-use-of-alt-text/

#accessibility #AltText #ImageDescription #UXUI #design

@BeAware I didn't really time it, but about 30 minutes of total time could be right.

Mind you, you might have to upgrade a few things (for me it was node and Ruby).

After I made sure all the dependencies are at the right version, it was a pretty typical upgrade process.

There are some really nice updates coming in the next version of Mastodon, including grouped notifications and profile hover cards.

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.3.0-beta.1

It's really tempting to try out the beta version, but the upgrade steps do look a bit scary. Really hope updating Mastodon will one day be as easy as updating a WordPress blog.

#mastodon #MastodonBeta

Well, I did it, wasn't so hard after all. #mastodon #MastodonBeta

This won't likely surprise anyone, but "a prompt injection vulnerability in Slack AI makes it possible to fetch data from private Slack channels".

https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/slack_ai_prompt_injection/

#slack #ai #SlackAI #news #TechNews #technology

@BeAware Yeah, I mentioned in another thread this might be affecting things, but I have no idea how much. Hoping to see more replies from folks sharing their own numbers!

I must be doing something wrong.

"Mastodon averages about 1GB of RAM for running processes, suggesting a box with about 1.5GB would be sufficient."

https://sharpletters.net/2023/03/01/mastodon-resource-optimization

Best I can do, for a single-user server, is a bit under 3GB RAM used.

I followed a few other guides, including:

- https://gist.github.com/nolanlawson/fc027de03a7cc0b674dcdc655eb5f2cb
- https://blog.thms.uk/2024/01/pg-repack-mastodon

Would love to hear from other folks running their own single-user Mastodon server about their experience.

#mastodon #mastoadmin #selfhosted

Reminder: 42% of fediverse admins use their own money to run their servers, 14% rely on donations.

https://stefanbohacek.com/blog/the-ways-we-keep-the-fediverse-sustainable/

https://mstdn.social/@stux/112959093261244944

#fediverse #fediadmin #sustainability #FediverseSustainability #SupportYourAdmins #SocialMedia

Thanks @BeAware for tagging me!

@Artanux Have a look at https://jointhefediverse.net, it's also available in French!

You might also find https://fediverseexplorations.org interesting.

And perhaps some of my tools over at https://stefanbohacek.com/tag/fediverse/, such as https://data.stefanbohacek.dev/projects/fediverse

Hope you'll find something useful!

@mastodonmilestoneprogress That's a bit of a bummer.

No more milestones, and https://joinmastodon.org/roadmap is no longer up to date.

Completely understandable, as the team is very small and has a ton of higher priorities to focus on.

At least we have the Trunk and Tidbits series https://blog.joinmastodon.org/categories/trunk-and-tidbits/, but I will miss having a more "real-time" overview of what's coming in the next few releases.

#mastodon #fediverse

Neat!

"[@Flipboard] users will be able to follow accounts from within Flipboard, but the functionality will be closer to following an RSS feed: they will be able to read and share posts, but won’t yet send follow requests or replies."

https://wedistribute.org/2024/08/flipboard-fediverse-following/

via @hello https://social.wedistribute.org/objects/098da748-1f9e-4882-87ad-c6fb09838ce5

#fediverse #flipboard #federation #news #TechNews

Oh wow. ACLU, big defender of free speech of anyone from KKK to anti-LGBT activists, "fired an employee for engaging in the protected activity of criticizing her working conditions", all while trying to smear her as a racist.

https://jacobin.com/2024/08/aclu-fired-worker-speech-nlrb/

#ACLU #WorkersRights #labor #news

To the credit of the Mastodon development team and volunteer contributors, it's great to see the ongoing conversation around the botched notification updates that led to increased harassment, and genuine attempts to fix the situation.

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/29723#issuecomment-2273868014

#mastodon #fediverse #MastoDev #notifications #safety

Others have shared some interesting stuff about Walz already, but this caught my attention.

"Under Walz’s leadership, in May of last year, Minnesota became the first state to dedicate funding to Long Covid and associated conditions [...]"

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/08/tim-walz-minnesota-long-covid-funding-harris-vp/

#UsPol #walz #HarrisWalz #LongCovid #covid #PublicHealth

"On August 6, 1991 [33 years ago], the first website was introduced to the world. [It] contained information about the World Wide Web Project. It launched at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, where it was created by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee."

http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

Happy birthday, web!

Via https://www.npr.org/2021/08/06/1025554426/a-look-back-at-the-very-first-website-ever-launched-30-years-later

#WorldWideWeb #WWW #TheWeb #indieweb #FirstWebsite #internet #history #OTD

More early web history:

https://www.w3.org/History.html

"Berners-Lee submitted a proposal to CERN in May 1989 [...] The technology was released outside CERN to other research institutions starting in January 1991, and then to the whole Internet on 23 August 1991."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web

If you're an American resident, you can now make tax deductible donations to support Mastodon's development and operation.

https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors

#mastodon #fediverse #donations

First and foremost, let's support our mods and admins.

But the Mastodon development team is tiny (2-3 full-time developers) and they have a lot of work ahead of them to make the platform safe for marginalized folks. Hopefully, increased funds, and a shift in priorities will get them back on track.

#mastodon #fediverse #safety

Ah, missed MySpace's 21st birthday the other day!

"Launched on August 1, 2003, it was the first social network to reach a global audience and had a significant influence on technology, pop culture and music."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myspace

#myspace #internet #history #anniversary

I was just saying recently on here how neat it would be if we had a fediverse platform that would let you customize your profile the way MySpace did.