Notices by Jürgen Hubert (juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe), page 3

2/ The German power grid (and most other national grids which make stability a priority) must adhere to the so-called "N-1 redundancy". Which is to say that if _any_ single node in your power or utility grid fails, the rest of the nodes must still be able to maintain the grid.

1/ Thanks to @cwebber for helping me understand the differences between the "decentralized" approach of #Bluesky and the "distributed" approach of the #Fediverse .

As it happens, I see some parallels between this and my own field - the German power and utility sector.

https://dustycloud.org/blog/re-re-bluesky-decentralization/

@forteller Jesse Singal is a well-known transphobic journalist who has apparently joined to Bluesky to stir up shit.

If he his banned, he gets to whine "Help, help, I am being suppressed!" which is good for ratings with his transphobic audience.

If he is not banned, more transphobes will be encouraged to go to Bluesky and eventually turn it into a transphobe-fest like X is.

The moderation team of Bluesky decided not to ban Singal, and thus have gone for the second option.

In the wake of the #JesseSingal controversy, the #Bluesky moderation team have clarified their perspective.

It's... not great. And gives me further reason to stick to the #Fediverse .

A question: Can anyone recommend any good, academic works that analyze "moral panics" through the ages?

From the "Witchcraft Panics" of early modern Europe to the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s to the modern anti-trans panic and TERF movement - I could use some good scholarly analysis of their psychology and how they propagate.

I eventually want to write a book about witch tales from German folklore, and it may be useful to compare the witchcraft panics of the past with more modern variants - so that I can show that while the context changes, the basic phenomenon is still with us.

#history #psychology #folklore #witchcraft #SatanicPanic #TERF

I am still looking for a new #Mastodon instance I can migrate to early next year. I am looking for:

- Should make an honest effort to keep up with the latest software updates.
- Be friendly to writers (since my main focus will be on folklore writing)
- No known major problems with the moderation of the admins.
- A character limit of at least 2000.

Can anyone give me any recommendations? #Fedihelp

@benchmark @mekkaokereke Europe has no shortage of its own political shittiness.

It's just that "maintaining white supremacy" was not such a massive policy goal when modern European nations were founded, the way it was in the USA.

I mean, take Germany. Is there lots of racism? Sure. Is there structural racism? Yup (the German school system is my favorite example).

But when the modern German Constitution was written after WWII, the authors did not think about "How can we uphold White Supremacy?", even though many of these people were probably racist. Thus, Germany lacks many of these structural underpinnings of white supremacy which are so common in the USA. Such as the many, many ways the US election system can screw with minority voters.

Beyond imprisoning and/or killing members of external political groups, the Nazis also had a number of internal party purges until everyone left was in line with the Führer.

#USPolitics #Trump #Nazis #Machtergreifung
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/11/trump-election-popular-vote-bannon-war-room-rumble-cabinet.html

@rysiek @mekkaokereke I do know some Tesla owners who are having buyer's remorse. But there are still _lots_ of people out there who think him a genius who will somehow "save the world".

@jupiter_rowland #Friendica _is_ one of the #Fediverse options I am curious about for blogging, but it's hard for me to get a grasp on it. The assorted instances do not seem to have a public feed, so it's not easy for me to see how people use it in practice.

@mekkaokereke @stooovie @Remittancegirl

While #Mastodon is the giant of the #Fediverse , I am curious if any of the other projects have made better strides with onboarding, moderation, UX and so forth.

How is #Friendica on these issues? Or #Misskey ? Ideally we should have a number of _different_ #ActivityPub -based systems which all compete to make their user experiences better. I mean, isn't tying ourselves too closely to any single platform how we got ourselves into this mess in the first place?

@MisuseCase @mekkaokereke @tob @wendinoakland I am agnostic, and my stance is that I don't particularly care _how_ they justify their actions, only what they actually do.

Shitty people will always find a rationalization. But some religious groups - such as White Evangelicism - seem to attract a particularly large number of shitty people, and that's worth looking at. However, that does not mean that _all_ Christian groups are like that.

And the same approach should be taken with all the other major religions of this world. In the end, most of them boil down to advice on how to navigate this confusing world we find yourself in, and much of this advice is centuries out of date. How to adapt this to the modern world is a question for believers, but I only have a problem with that if they use it as an excuse to harass and oppress others.

@blogdiva @ckent @larsivi @mekkaokereke The vast majority of Mastodon instances are run my amateur enthusiasts.

Nothing against amateur enthusiasts - I count myself among them (albeit in a different field) - but ultimately the backbone of any system are the people who display a certain level of professionalism. And with amateur enthusiasts you never know what you are dealing with unless you observe them for some time.

A further problem is that how much time and effort you can commit to such hobby projects is highly dependent on your life circumstances. People in developed countries with stable sources of income - which statistically speaking is likely to mean "white people" - have it easier to to find the time for projects like running a Mastodon instance than people in less stable circumstances, even though the benefits for an independent social media system would be even greater for them (as the owners of commercial social media definitely don't have their best interest in mind).

@mekkaokereke @Badgardener @thisismissem I am a fairly heavy user of Inkscape for my hobby projects (mostly fantasy cartography), and this is a good model to use.

@larsivi @mekkaokereke Those were the days!

And back in 2013 I made a friend there - a black woman from South Africa who emigrated to Germany - who is still one of my best friends today.

Google+ was far more international than Mastodon is.

@ckent @larsivi @mekkaokereke Mastodon in its entirety.

It's heavily populated by Europeans and North Americans, and _white_ Europeans and North Americans at that. It's hard to find a lot of people outside of that bubble.

#WordWeavers #Writing 13 You just got a legit movie offer for your book. What do you do first?

Get myself an agent and/or contract lawyer.(*) I mean, getting some extra money for my work is nice, but I want to be _very_ careful that I am not signing away more rights than I absolutely need. My first priority is that I can continue to release translations under a Creative Commons license.

(*) How _do_ get people an agent and/or contract lawyers for such deals, anyway?

@TarkabarkaHolgy It's always something, isn't it?

One neat feature Google+ had back in the day were user-defined "Circles" - basically lists of people you followed _and could share with others_. So basically people could define lists with "These people talk a lot about science", "these people share amazing photography" and so forth.

And then they could post these Circles to their timeline, and others could follow all these users with a single click.

Is there a downside for implementing this feature for the #Fediverse ?

@mekkaokereke I've had my share of political disagreements with my (German) family, but at least all of them despise Trump, and they are not fans of the German fascist party (the AfD) either. I suppose I am lucky - discussing politics with my aging father is difficult at the best of times, and I don't know what he would do if he had gone off to the deep end

I am very happy that he is not on Facebook.