gailbear @gailbear@qoto.org

Guide to Content Warnings

On qoto, the only toots that require a content warning (CW) are:

- Spoilers
- NSFW (Not Safe For Work) – this is up for interpretation, but I assume refers to tits and dicks
- Using a derogatory epithet or racially charged language in a toot that itself is not racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise hateful speech (such as quoting a passage from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for critical purposes)*

Other reasons someone may want to use CW’s here on qoto:

- Strobe effects (to avoid triggering an epileptic seizure in people who are susceptible)
- Violence, accidents, rape, suicide, self-harm, death, etc., including to non-human animals (PTSD, etc.)
- Food (pics of food can prompt people with metabolic syndrome, eating disorders, which are relatively common)
- Pics of drugs (may trigger use by people who are addicted)
- Very long posts (so uninterested readers don’t have to scroll through them)

It’s better if the CW description is more specific (without itself containing CW-eligible content). Instead of just “Spoiler”, say “Spoiler – The Wizard of Oz”. Also, it’s generally a good idea to repeat the CW description within the toot itself at the top of the toot for those who may have the auto-open feature enabled.

What doesn’t need a CW:

- swear words
- content that might hurt someone’s feelings
- unpopular opinions
- political content
- pictures of animals (that are alive and well)
- content from those with autism or who are otherwise neuro-atypical
- using the CW as a title or heading for your toot or trying to place actually content into the CW description is irritating for others

Overuse of the CW feature ultimately undermines it’s usefulness because it forces people to have to click on each toot or just enable the auto-open feature. However, someone with a condition like epilepsy or PTSD, the auto-open feature is not really an option so CW overuse effectively forces people with disabilities to click each toot while everyone else can just enable the auto-open feature, which doesn’t seem fair.

Other Mastodon instances have varying rules and views on CW use.

Note: I’m not an admin or moderator here, this is just my opinion. I don’t always adhere to these guidelines and you can do what you want.

- - - -

* This epithet restriction isn’t listed in the rules, but it was adopted as a compromise in response to some specific events. Of course hate-based speech such as sexist, racist, homophobic or anti-trans speech will not be tolerated. (Note: I personally block anyone who uses epithets in any context because the intent is often ambiguous and you can communicate the same info without explicitly using the epithet.)

@freemo Agree, #programming in #haskell is exhilarating. One of my favourite papers ever on applying #haskell for fun and profit: "Exploiting vector instructions with generalized stream fusion" by Geoffrey Mainland et al. 2013 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2500365.2500601 where the authors "describe a stream representation suited for efficient computation with SSE instructions" which compare favourably to C++ implementations.

*Amazing* sunset tonight… My camera was having trouble with the dynamic range. This picture *almost* does it justice 😊

'Blank profile' is the new 'egg avatar'.

On the one hand: mastodon is so weird and hard to understand!

On the other: literally it's the same as everything else except you pick which door you come in thru

Just to give you an idea of how bad the whole "we block anyone who doesnt block who we block" has gotten, someone sent me this:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/74474015

I would **love** to give M.A a script that goes over all the instances in the fediverse and alerts them of every instance that doesnt follow the exact same block list as them and spit it out. I'm sure they will realize they have to block 99% of the fediverse... its getting laughable at this point.

Initial impression of Mastodon…
(image source thanks to @jsit: https://www.instagram.com/p/CKrqzp-F420/)

I’ve now done two Zoom calls over the last two nights purely on Mastodon.

Lots of learning happening across our community. Lots of people coming in - or trying to come in with various degrees of success! - lots of appetite to understand more about this federated environment and the right etiquette here.

Big thanks to all the admins who’ve been adapting at pace as we have been flooding in and swamping your servers!

One feature that seems obviously missing is the ability to add a CW to a post I choose to boost.

"I hope this email finds you well"

How your email finds me:

Since moving from #MATLAB to #Python all those years ago, I had used `meshgrid()` the "non-ideal" way for so long–it was just habit from many years of using it in MATLAB

But now I know better, and my memory usage will be happy in so many cases!!

https://thepythoncodingbook.com/2022/05/28/numpy-meshgrid/

#programming #coding #NumPy #Matplotlib

DevOps is a culture shift, a thinking and behavior change. It is practices that take a systemic view of software development. Like all nonlinear approaches, the focus is on learning.

We had fun exploring all the great learning resources. (You can subscribe to the weekly newsletter, From Software to Systems, here) https://mentrixgroup.com/newsletter/2022/11/10/devops/

@gailbear I am a big choice of freedom as the priority so long as it doesnt block other peoples freedoms.

Today's the deadline: The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is looking for interns to spend the winter contributing to work in one of three areas: campaigns, licensing, or with our tech team. Read more and apply! https://u.fsf.org/3up

I haven't been on here long, but I love the civil discourse and absence of drama!

@freemo Thanks for thinking it through. I'm regularly gladdened that I stumbled into this server instead of another.

@freemo

Thank you, this is a good example of using reason appropriately to pursue noble goals.

Additionally, you've removed the character limit on your instance, making your users responsible for writing posts of the appropriate length instead of imposing a limitation.

This story teaches us that it is not enough to free oneself from the explicit control of central authorities, it is also necessary for everyone to be a responsible person so that the rights of all are respected.

Ironically, many people who implement these blocks are used to calling others "fascists" as a condemnation of authoritarianism.