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.

@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.

@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.

@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!

@chrism

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.

@freemo