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Tolkeins original first page for the lord of the rings... Look at that hand writing!
@freemo very beautiful.
The page alone has artistic value, and the laborious process of writing it that fancily must slow down thought processes, to calm the spirit.
Thanks for sharing that. I spend hours on creating something, and it is quite pleasurable. Sometimes the author is the one who can see the deepest into it. Like software, where so much brilliant work never gets seen, other than by someone maintaining it.
In a reflective mood this morning. I am deeply affected by getting to know that Leonie is under attack.
@design_RG It is a beautiful piece of casual hand writing. I wish my hand writing came so easily to me.
It is a shame Leonie is under attack. The thing is you don't see it most of the time because I am part of a large network of admins who notify eachother of anyone talking about blocking.
But the thing is literally **every** instance comes under this level of attack no matter what they do. There is no escaping it no matter how much you try to control your own reputation. The only reason your so aware of it on QOTO and it feels like we are more attacked, is because your a moderator.
In fact you never would have known about koyu if I didnt tell you and the truth is I'm not showing you half of the block requests that fly by my feed. There are tons every single day.
Its one reason I'm trying to knock some sense into you about moving content to other instances. You wont be safe there, or anywhere. Only way you will be safe is to stop giving the noise any attention and just, be respectful and post where you enjoy posting.
@design_RG I agree entierly.
Gab is 95%+ disgusting content and have never seen anything of value come from a GAB account yet... but, as you say, they almost never bother us or our users. They just stay in their little racist hole spewing racist crap and I never see or hear from them.
The damage they do is far less, as you say, than most of the fediblock crowd who largely are blocking good non-racist instances and causing fighting and discord between groups that should and would otherwise be allies against the very racism they claim to oppose.
Its sad, and disgusting.
Speak of which. I found on https://fediverse.network/
they even move away this instance (Gab) on the mastodon category.
While we dont block gab if gab "blocked" us through any means directly or indirectly I wont loose any sleep to be honest. I'd be happy about it in some ways as it takes the blame off us anyway.
Before you came we were going to block gab (and others) when we were a new instance but I was convinced to go free speech (not block other instances) by our LGBT community at the time ironically enough.
They wanted a safe space instance where they could see GAb accounts so they could monitor what goes on there and be aware of threats to their community (such as doxxing from milo). It was the point in the debate that ultimately convinced me free speech is an important principle ina social media network and created the policies we have today.
Its also partly what fueled me to add the subscription feature. I figured it would allow those same people to subscribe to GAB accounts without letts the GAB accounts know their being followed. Which would add an additional level of protection and ensure that GAB accounts dont get indirectly promoted by increasing their follower count.
That is more reasonable than an instance block I'd say.. Though unless we are talking about someone who is harassing other users or evading personal blocks I would still rather leave the choice up to our users.
i guess floppy means:
@Floppy
i'm not sure. Does Qoto blocked by this instance?
@design_RG @freemo
> Floppy means floppy.tokyo, this instance no longer exists.
Yep -- CD-ROM clearly outperforms Floppies. LOL.
Thank you for your comments, I agree fully.
I understand the logic, but that same undercover espionage could be done from any number of other places.
And the aggravation and damage to this instance is NOT worth it, from my point of view. I would vote to cut ties if that ever came to the table. That has been my personal account's action, and I would see it as productive to the instance.
Smaller is better it seeems -- less push and pull to consider, and an easier to maneuver ship.
I will have to create some new pages in this subject, sadly. But I should turn to my work and focus on it, something good will come out in a few hours; hopefully it will have value.
I was re-reading my blog page about Instances, and honestly, it's good work -- if people have the stamina to read it, I think they would appreciate it.
A new series is likely, the one yesterday was about GlitchSocial, then I had that conversation with you about my Pleroma instance search and the criteria used; that will fill a good page, plus introduce Pleroma well.
Today's topic (was ready yesterday) --- Crossposting Gone Wild. 😛
At the time we had discussed the fact that they could move to other instances, including GAB to do it.
The counterargument of the group was, however, that they did not feel safe on GAB or most instances that federate with GAB. That QOTOs reputation in the fediverse as a safe place for LGBT and others meant that its one of few places they felt they could safely carry out that intention.
I certainly wont throw our LGBT community under a bus simply to save face with people giving us grief that I dont agree with int he first place.
I'd say doing what is right is absolutely worth it, far more than caving to people for the sake of some reputation that wont really have any positive effect anyway (as you have seen they will attack us regardless) and all the while hurting others.
@freemo @design_RG I agree too. I had the pleasure of blocking gab early on in my fediverse experience. I'm quite capable of removing things I don't like. I don't need an admin/moderator to do this as this is censorship.
I'm all for free speech but with that comes a responsibility to behave, be respectful, and treat people how one would want to be treated.
Unfortunately give some people access to the Internet and they think that hrough their anonymity they can be obnoxious. There is always a minority like this. Unfortunately!
So, thank you for treating us like adults, giving us the freedom to choose. This is just one of many reasons I like qoto.org!
A Sterling endorsement, thank you, Chris.
This place is pretty unique -- I have been in internet communities of different kinds for 30 years now. Fr many years it was Forums, and I was active and became Mod, and sometimes Staff, assistant admin in some of them.
No place in my experience had an upper level Admin class that would take a Mod's suggestions and give it thorough evaluation, then decided by consensus or voted -- with the Mods getting equal voting power.
One person, one vote, this is thanks to our fearless leader's vision, and unique indeed. We disagree sometimes, in fact I do get ticked off and he knows what causes that. But there's mutual respect, and no offense is taken, we are professionals.
Tribute to Jeff's vision and openness. Very, very rare.
I was in different places over time, and of course left; there comes a time when it's the best for all involved, or I wouldn't be here now. Some of the places I worked at are still alive and important in their niches.
I do know I am a sailor, a traveller, and a day will come when I set sail, saddle my bike and take to the road -- just like I love doing in real life.
Until then, it's a pleasure working here; people couldn't pay the cost of the work volunteered by dedicated staff all over the Fediverse. Got to hope the experiment goes well, as the corporate internet is pretty disgusting sometimes.
@design_RG @freemo Absolutely!
Take a bow Dr Freemo! 
thank you, both of you. Very much appreciated.
@freemo You mentioned something yesterday, yes, but it did not make much sense, I didn't have the details.
She was online earlier this morning, and a small group chatted, then I looked back and found her topic about implementing White Listing, 26 h ago or so.
People couldn't pay for the value of the work we all put into the network and our own instances, the content we produce, publish, share.
It's deeply disturbing to me -- that those people are actually WORSE than the gab gang they prat on about. Those, I have blocked and not heard for for six months. We don't bother each other.
The fedi block gang are the undercover Fascists in action at this moment.
Despicable ass holes. pardon my language, unusual. Just too much.