Qoto drama
Some thoughts on the qoto.org situation:
1. Many of the attacks on qoto are deliberately or accidentally misinformed. A look at the public timeline (https://qoto.org/public) shows that we are not the cesspool of Nazism that some would portray us as. @freemo is bringing screenshot receipts in his defense; I haven't seen them from attackers.
2. I have no idea how to deescalate this.
3. No matter how noble our intentions, their may come a point where we simply lose. It sounds like we've lost @Gargron and @FediThing@tech.lbt. Does anyone know @stux's opinion?
4. If the people I want to interact with are all on servers that have defederated with qoto, I will migrate.
5. I appreciate the value of hearing different points of view and the danger of being too quick to cancel someone based on a rumor. At the same time, there are toxic people and certain servers are full of them. Saying it's up to individual users to block things they don't want to see feels a bit privileged. Marginalized people may very reasonably just not want to run into constant microaggressions and expect their moderator to keep it out of their feeds. Trolls are *very* good at getting right up to the ban line and insisting, "I'm not touching you!"
Qoto drama
There is a lot of support there, but also plenty of hostile responses, sampled below. (I'm not fact-checking or taking a stance on these claims here, just noting that they are hostile.)
"Yeah I have screens of the admin interacting with and boosting posts from people on the alt-right fash shithole servers the rest of us block hard."
"Other than the admin, the other users seem mostly fine from a quick public timeline scroll, but that instance’s federated timeline is gonna be a mess of alt-right trash. Anyone on legit fascist instances are also gonna be able to harass you as well."
"ngl I'm totally ok with not seeing posts from people who literally want me and my friends dead
I'm not sure why you're ok with seeing them and it makes me feel unsafe around you
there are so many other places on the internet to see that - I don't need it here because I want my friends to feel safe around me"
""(people) aren't going to read some random thing on the internet and turn bad. It just doesn't happen."
.... have they been like lost at sea on a wooden raft in the past 6-7 years??"
🇳🇱
Qoto drama
Those are new from when I first looked... I would have to see the handles of the people who said it to know if its worth caring about.. if its all just garbage from the few toxic instances with a handful of users, especially considering they block so much of the fediverse it isnt a fair cross section... well then i wouldnt care much.
Context, and in this case the handles, make a big impact on if those toxic people int he feed matter at all.
Qoto drama
@freemo @peterdrake @QOTO @trinsec Most of those responses I saw there looked like they were from smaller instances, but admittedly I didn't go through and manually check everything I saw.
Qoto drama
@peterdrake
I have seen all those messages as well. Like a half hour ago. I was tempted to respond to them, but it'd be not really an useful endeavour. The way we discuss right now wouldn't be possible there as they'd do the equivalent of putting fingers in the ear and go 'nanana'.
For starters, they won't be able to see messages or boosts from the bad actor instances. They blocked them already, remember? We wouldn't be able to change that. Whatever we'd boost, they'd not see it if it came from those blocked instances.
And just because Qoto doesn't block the bad instances itself, Qoto users are suddenly 'people who literally want them and their friends dead'? That's quite a hyperbole.
And if I recall correctly, all new users got the recommendation to use a Fediblock to import if they don't want to see the bad actors. The federated timeline looks fine to me, I use blocks liberally myself.
Everyone you happened to quote there, those are likely people I wouldn't think worth my time to interact with as it'd be complaints most of the way anyway. I'd rather have a more positive outlook on life. And I'm sure so do you as your posts have proven. :)
Qoto drama
You also have to keep in mind tech.lgbt has a lot of hate for us because their admin, david is claiming I harassed him, yet I provide ample evidence that not only didnt I harass him, but I was extremely over the top nice and considerate to him.
See this post if you want to see the accusation from tech.lgbtq's admin and the photo evidence I provided and links that were contrary to it:
Qoto drama
@peterdrake
I suspect that the larger servers are not going to actually block Qoto, as this seems to be mostly an issue with smaller more cliquish instances. Gargron himself is (misguidedly) trying not to rock the boat by upsetting these smaller instances' owners, much like a narcissist's family misguidedly tries not to upset the narcissist among them.
If push comes to shove, there's also always the alternative of creating an account at another instance but using your original handle as your main. I've been doing this for years, with my QOTO handle being my main account and there also being 3 less used accounts that I keep around for various purposes.
Qoto drama
@peterdrake
I agree in general with your sentiment.
Except for one thing:
> 'Saying it's up to individual users to block things they don't want to see feels a bit privileged.'
We don't mind other instances blocking other instances. The problem is that the toxic ones do so for the wrong reasons. Like blocking others because they don't block the same instances as they do, and then trying to convince other instances to block the same.
If one instance wants to block half the Fediverse, that's up to them. Totally. They can be a walled garden for all I care. But then to spread their blocklist and say 'this is the one true safe blocklist' seems ... well, they basically become the very people they hate.
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@demitasse
Alt-left hates us, now we got alt-right berating us too.
Damn, we must be doin' something right! 😋
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I haven't seen him raving about that and I can hardly believe a random internet stranger now, can I? First time I see your name around, so if you'll pardon me... I'll give Freemo the benefit of the doubt as I can not judge him from a random comment of a random passersby.
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I think he was trying to be funny? I really cant tell anymore.
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@freemo
If you can't really tell anymore, it wasn't really funny. ;)
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I am not sure there is a level of absurdity that exists anymore that would not be indistinguishable from the present nonsense.
Qoto drama
@peterdrake
stux is a friend of mine, weve had beers, i help him with his servers when i can... He has not made a comment on this either way. I have no intention to push him to make a comment either. If he feels so compelled.. if he wants to save his ass I understand that too.
has #4 come to pass, is it approaching? I knopw of very fewe servers of any size that has defederated from us.. popular opinon as can be seen from the recent thread on fedithings is overwhelmingly in our favor.. every response on fedithings post last i checked without no exception was in our favor. or at least no expections i noticed.
@Gargron @stux @QOTO @trinsec