Notices by wizzwizz4 (wizzwizz4@fosstodon.org)

@Gina It'd be a huge amount of work. I've been investigating this for a few years, but I don't think the Mastodon software (as currently implemented) is particularly compatible with keeping moderators healthy and safe.

@Gina I'd actually be blaming them for taking on more than they could handle, except that this was their first time doing something like this, and there aren't really resources from which they could've learned that they were setting themselves up for failure.

Meanwhile, I saw the signs, thought "wow, they must be really hyper-competent to be able to deal with this!", and said nothing. I doubt I'm the only one who stood by while everything fell apart.

@Gina … As much as I like this place, I actually hope they're serious about leaving. Moderation is a huge burden, especially if there's nobody to kick the hard cases up to; and they've been shouldering far too much for far long. (At the very least, they should both take a break.)

@Gina Mastodon moderation isn't set up so you can just delegate it.

The default moderator role: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/roles/#default-moderator-role has the permission "Manage Users", which “Allows users to view other users’ details and perform moderation actions against them.”. Afaict, that access to sensitive data isn't audit-logged.

That kind of access is not something you can easily delegate, but it's a package deal with stuff moderators need.

etc etc. Mastodon is not designed properly, and makes this much harder.

@h3artbl33d @Gina Right, that's exactly my point. The Mastodon software conflates access to previous reports etc (mods need this nearly always) with access to IP and email address (only needed in rare edge-cases), and doesn't even log access to the user details page, so we have to Just Trust moderators with it all.

That's also bad for moderators. If someone exfiltrates user data, and the detective comes 'round and says "who had access to this data?", I (as a mod) do not want to be on that list.

@clarity If there is a way for me to help this happen, I will dedicate my life to it. (Technically, I have already dedicated my life to it – I made that decision aged approximately six – but I haven't seen a way forward.)

@lizzy What does the c stand for?

@lucy @chjara @lizzy Point is, I doubt many people who describe their political philosophy as "I want to be left alone" actually want the absence of any system of government. They want [that which I cannot name], which does actually require some kind of social infrastructure / community support.

@lucy @chjara @lizzy I don't want people to "let me the fuck be". I would die if that happened.

I want people to provide what support I appreciate, and not hold that support hostage in order to dictate my personal life. (I would also like to help others, but this should not be a compulsory requirement, because then you need someone deciding what "help others" means, wasting effort keeping the gate, and that doesn't help anyone, least of all people who can't actually help others.)

@kimapr @lucy @lizzy Oh yeah, @jonny fixed that (for Mastodon): https://github.com/sneakers-the-rat/mastodon/tree/fetch-all-replies-service

@lucy @lizzy @kimapr You can simply look at what the patch does, and port it to your software of choice.

@BeAware @miturian @db0 That could so easily have been constructive criticism…

I don't think the problem. I think it's scared people lashing out at anything they perceive as a threat.

In this case, I agree the feature /would/ be dangerous, but that's because it presents the information as an authoritative list: viewing it as "these people say this person is bad", akin to the Web of Trust, would work better. (cc: @Fedicate, because no way am I joining that thread)

@alcinnz 3/3 surely?

@alcinnz @alilly I'd be interested to see your take on Prolog. There have been several hardware implementations of it, over the years, but I suspect you'll come up with something new.

I'd also appreciate your take on miniKanren, the other language family in https://aphyr.com/posts/354-unifying-the-technical-interview.

@alilly @alcinnz That said, if you're willing to go really eccentric, the minimum you need is a LISP model of the CPU (including the instructions you want to support), a proof system, and a basic constructive compiler. Then, if you want more optimised machine code for something high-level, you can prove the equivalence of the two algorithms (up to the extent your LISP is supposed to preserve lower-level semantics).

@alilly @alcinnz I don't think it's possible to start with a small language, not unless you're willing to drop down to "and my high-level language spits out machine code". That's cheating, to me: it significantly reduces the approachability.

A big selling point of C is that it's "portable assembly" – except it doesn't achieve that. I'd like to have something that's as powerful as assembly, without all the footguns. Where you can have sum types, and define how those map to machine semantics…

@alilly @alcinnz Personally, I'm interested in a programming language that lets me experiment with various operating system designs in an "every prototype is usable" way.

Where lvalues are first-class objects, so e.g. I can say:

rax = Rax(7);
if f() then *rax = 14;
syscall(rax, &something);

and rax remains unclobbered while the lvalue is in scope.

I would usually use this language to bootstrap up to something higher-level, although it'd be nice to be able to write applications in it, too.

@alilly Existing languages aren't suitable. You know it, I know it. If we want to do OS dev (which I do), we need something better.

(Happy to collaborate if you don't want to make a new language on your own.)

@alilly To my knowledge, FreePascal has all the same footguns as GCC C, except viral Undefined Behaviour. (The optimisation philosophy is quite different: it doesn't seem to transform code into "equivalent code" in the same way, but often produces smaller binaries despite that.)

You could write your own language, and use that to write your operating system.

@alilly If you have the money to spend, I'd recommend it. Who's going to pay those starving artists, if not less-starving artists?