Notices by Thomas Vander Wal (vanderwal@mastodon.social)

@evan You've never asked anybody who has a private or follows only account about this have you? There doesn't need to be a massive data, but takes one response and it becomes really difficult to decide to follow the sloppy pattern and keep pushing it forward.

It is an easy path forward to do the right thing.

I’m here to help you.

@evan Because you haven't seen them doesn't mean they aren't out their in abundance. Doing simple user research you quickly find this model is really problematic for people thinking they were private, it is an amazing tool for stalkers to take advantage of and oh they do. The stories are abundant and can be brutal.

Following bad practices and putting people at risk isn't great. People are looking for a better social platform that has their wishes upheld, not another that breaks them.

@evan Oh, I know. It makes keeping tabs on people wishing to be quiet or unseen more visible. It really breaks the "for followers only" intent a badly broken promise and rather dishonest at the worst and poorly (or not even) thought through at the lightest.

@evan This is a good one and a common mapping exercise. Many services don't think this through and / or opt for an odd and challenging option of Bob's followers getting the visibility to it, which pretty much breaks the “followers only” intent of the original poster.

I’ve walk through this in a couple workshops around researching in social media as following the shadows of social media. You can't see a person, but you can see their shadows and essence of their moves and existence.

@band Is massivewiki still moving forward?

@bruces I'm waiting for general identity confusion and having those in ICE or leading it get accidentally swept up, but there is no getting them out, because they have claimed this is just the way it is.

But, they make money on it through bonuses for head count.

Or, at least a story along these lines.

@evan So this is how I find out?

@dansup Mostly light, with occasional dark (of my choosing of course, not just random switching).

The weekly newsletters the past 5 or 6 weeks from @inevernu have been exceptionally good and deeply appreciated. They become Sunday's and early parts of the week's deep reading. Sometimes they turn into serious deep dives down rabbit holes of learning, discovery, and thinking.

To find it yourself, this week's posting: https://sentiers.media/not-my-problem-the-radical-optimism-of-david-graeber-on-transitioning-to-a-regenerative-mindset-no332/

If you like it subscribe as it will help having informed discussions.

@anildash Are you coming to DC Tuesday? If so, there with you.

I signed-up to attend the Kamala Harris speech and rally on the DC mall on Tuesday to stand with her and all supporting her as I do.

More than 1.5 million people signed up before I did.

@band Thank you!

I haven't been able to get my Threads account to show up here yet, but I am following 2 of my other 4 ActivityPub / Mastodon connected accounts.

@band interesting! I missed this.

This evening I started following myself on other instances in the fediverse. I hope I don't see myself as “creepy”.

I couldn't find one of my instances so I don't know what to think of that discovery. I may have to think about it in the other instances and see if something resonates there.

(I really wanted to follow my Threads instance. Also would be nice to federate with BlueSky, but they only federate with themself).

@evan We both have O’Reilly subscriptions (his is part of tuition), but also pointed him to the virtual launch to take part.

This weekend my son calls and asks if I know about Mastodon as he is leading the tech side of a new product that made its way into the university's venture club (it is a grad school project) and the MBA students behind want to use Mastodon and potentially #activitypub for a small slice of what they are doing.

I said yes, and that parked the conversation for now. I pointed him to @evan's book for the following discussion.

I wasn't expecting that conversation.

@thomasfuchs Eurovision is incredibly political and I'm not sure it hasn't always been. Russia has been banned for the last two years.

The non-European entries are always curious (Australia and Isreal) to me, but I’m an outside looking in.

@thomasfuchs I'm just starting to pay attention to the Eurovision happenings of the week.

I through the event had started, as I hadn't sorted out the time yet, but I know it is normally an 20h British start time and 21h European start. I always things are going to change and I'm going to miss it. I've watched / followed it for about 18 year now (after being in Amsterdam in 2006 and wondered why it was empty after a dinner with friends. I had it explained to me and shown.

@thomasfuchs How are you watching? I'm looking for a non US version.

@evan Not often you see a Christian Brother's habit in a social media feed.

Interesting story. Thanks!