Notices by Doug Belshaw (dajb@social.coop), page 3

@clacke @neil Yeah, I guess that's why Italy banned ChatGPT

Yesterday, I received a sales call on my personal phone for tickets for Goodwood. I asked how they got my number and, of course, it was through a data broker.

I immediately went onto the data broker's website and asked for my details to be removed, in compliance with the GDPR.

It made me think, though, that LLMs are trained on a corpus of data that may include details such as this. What happens then? How do we get our data removed?

(I'm sure @neil and other large brains have noodles on this)

I know I forget to do it sometimes, but if you're creating a thread, consider making the first post 'Public' and the nth ones 'Unlisted'.

Given how important the Local Timeline is to the experience of Mastodon and the Fediverse in general for me/others, spamming it with lots of messages in a row is kinda sub-optimal.

There's also benefits to *you*! People will discover the first post in your thread, rather than seeing a post in the middle of your stream-of-consciousness!

@smallcircles @adamgreenfield @neil The deep, deep irony of suggesting Matrix for this 😂

I'd imagine something more like @bonfire would be more convivial?

(also this sounds somewhat related to #stacktivism from ~a decade ago? https://stacktivism.com)

@strypey @adamgreenfield @bonfire @neil

I think this thread is showing the unwieldiness of social media threads that @smallcircles pointed out 😅

We need to be able to *visualise* this discussion (a la @Chartodon), grok what's going on, and then chart future directions.

Chats often don't work because they're too synchronous. Forums are better but sometimes don't work because people write diatribes.

Perhaps there's actually a role for machine learning here to summarise, etc. 🤷♂️

@pettter Yeah, see my next post in the thread. I'm not sure what we can do to push against it, as I think we're soon going to be in a world of competing LLMs creating ever more solid 'bubbles' in which people construct their reality.

One of the reasons that a background in the Humanities is so important is that there are far too many uncritical and uninformed takes on tech.

For example, with the latest hype around AI, it's OK to have a position where you neither think it's the best thing in the world, ever, *nor* think that we're all doomed.

TBH my main medium-term concern for all this is that a lack of both technological and historical understanding means that politicians start outsourcing decision-making to algorithms.

Last week I was talking about how awesome it would be if some of the people who have been laid off recently from 'Big Tech' jobs decided to form #coops.

There seemed to be a need for more info around this, so I had a meeting with CoTech colleagues @BillySmith @chrislowis & @Graham_Mitchell to figure out something practical.

Pleased to show MVP site as a result of this at https://start.coops.tech

There are five of us - including @KingMob - volunteering initially. Please share widely!

I'm hoping some of the people fired/made redundant by the ridiculous 'Big Tech' layoffs decide not only to think about unionising for their next gig, but to think about forming tech co-operatives.

The great thing about people debating CW's is that it's a great way of separating the sheep from the goats.

Oh look, people digging their heels in about not wanting to CW their posts, despite explanations? Unfollow/mute/block

People patiently explaining and having nuanced positions? ?

@grudgecat @7 There's a lot of things that are usual on 'anything goes' social networks which devolve into rage machines. The Fediverse, however, was designed and built to a large extent by marginalised people wanting safe spaces for human flourishing.

As a result there are cultural norms you might not see in any instruction book it official guide (because there isn't one!) but which nevertheless make the Fedi what it is ?

@brodriguesco @grudgecat @7 So people don't block you

It's quite jarring not having things like eye contact, food, and politics CW'd by most people not used to the Fediverse. I guess the massive influx in recent times has meant there's been less of a cultural onboarding than in the last few years...

Thinking of creating your own #Fediverse instance?

I've just overhauled the table on this wiki page to show you what your options are for managed hosting.

https://joinfediverse.wiki/How_to_host_your_own_Fediverse_instance%3F

Well, I'd like to think I'm not a stupid person but trying to host a #Fediverse instance the 'easy' way via using Yunohost was beyond me this afternoon.

The steps make it sound easy until the magic DNS diagnostics don't work for your registrar (Njalla), and your VPS company (Hetzner) doesn't open SMTP ports.

Meanwhile, Hostman wasn't accepting new sign-ups, and the only other Pixelfed hosting service I can find doesn't allow configuration of some basic admin settings.

I'm the only one on exercise.cafe until I get the Code of Conduct sorted and some test users invited, but you can follow me here:

@doug

It's my alt account for exercise/fitness relates stuff ?♂️??♂️

If you're not into that kind of thing, then this social.coop account is where I'm currently posting everything else!

?️♂️⛷️?♀️ Update on this, I've registered exercise.cafe and set up a @pixelfed instance using @support

Registrations are currently closed while I do the following:

1. Create v0.1 of a Code of Conduct I'm happy with

2. Experiment with a selection of images that test users can discuss / vote on for the exercise.cafe icon

3. Get used to the Pixelfed admin interface

4. Have a think about useful hashtags for various activities

5. Find people to invite as users

Test posts: https://exercise.cafe/doug

@pixelfed If you'd like to help me test this out, DM me!

I'll need to know:

1. What kind of exercise you usually do (to try and get a range)

2. Whether you have prior experience of Pixelfed (again, to get a spread of experience)

3. Why you'd like an account

???

I've written a post about how to help with v0.1 of a code of conduct for exercise.cafe before I open it up for initial testing

https://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2022/09/07/exercise-cafe-coc/

@dennisguse @humanetech @potato_lisper

Thanks! @epilepticrabbit is interested, so we're going to have a chat this morning (given that all of our co-op are runners and/or cyclists) to get the ball rolling... ?