volkris @volkris@qoto.org
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
Just keep in mind that other people have different ways of communicating, ways that are better for them, and #QT is a tool for communication that doesn't really have a functional equal through other features of #Mastodon even after jumping through hoops.
It's fine that you don't personally like QT, and thanks to the federated system we can talk about filters to ignore QTs, to give you the experience you want while still empowering others to publish their content more effectively.
There are criminals on TV. Just because you're on TV doesn't mean you're not one of them.
Heck, it might even be that people on TV are more likely than the average person to be criminals.
In any case, I'd say the big outcome from the appearance was the guy specifically showing, once again, that he's pathologically incapable of being normal.
re: venra.social and fediverse groups
I bet such an extension could be added pretty trivially. It would just take a note of metadata tagging it as a group. And then, of course, UI would need to do something with it.
As I recall, ActivityPub is explicit about entities on the system not necessarily representing individuals, so it seems to be actively intended to be used for stuff like group accounts.
We just need to make sure we implement that functionality well.
Too rarely mentioned is that the #Title42 immigration statute, that's big in the news this week, is a law with certain guidelines, not just something one president made up that another can end.
One reason to emphasize this is, of course, so we can call for revamping of the law if need be.
And to hold presidents accountable for actually following these laws.
The BLS stats call that claim to question. See the link below.
But YES, I want to look at the overall participation rate since otherwise you're just saying, "there's very low unemployment! ... except for those unemployed people, but nevermind them."
If you happen to believe there's good reason to ignore unemployed people in the picture of unemployment that you're selling, great, but just be honest and clear about it.
venra.social and fediverse groups
Last time I looked into it the group features had one downside that a user might respond to a group thinking they are responding to an individual, which caused some amount of drama.
Is that still the case? Or has there been a way to mitigate that issue?
They may be implemented that way, but they don't have to be, especially here on instance to instance basis.
So here's another way of thinking about it: I might choose between #QT and linking based on whether I want to bring that content into my expression or keep it at arms length, depending on what it is and my intention in sharing it farther.
Specifically, I might bring the content into my feed with a notification to the originator that the content is being built upon, similar to a boost notification, or I might not care for them to know, so I would use a link that would not trigger the notification.
You could say, Oh well mention the person, but again that sort of unnecessary kludge skips the chance to have semantic information attached, letting the person know exactly why they are being notified.
QTs convey meaning that requires hoops to sort of make up for throwing the meaning away
The use case I'm describing is sharing content, not sharing previews. It's here is some content that you can follow back to its origin, not here is a link that leads to some content elsewhere.
To me these are strikingly different concepts, both in terms of meaning and in terms of implementation.
You can get into all sorts of things ranging from screen reader adaptiveness through organization of feed display with the semantic clarity, but only if you allow it to exist.
"Just throw in a link!" Is not the same, losing author intent, and making it harder for readers to engage with the content on the platform.
Another thing to keep in mind is that your personal preferences for what counts as quality are themselves not shared by all.
An awful lot of us might find the quality of discourse much better even as you say, "See! Worse!" just because you personally don't like it.
But hey, that's the great part of this federated system. We have more ability to make things work the way we each prefer.
We're not so bound to the one size fits all experience, whether that's fitting you or fitting me.
No problem: A simple use case is resharing another toot with a note of explanation without having to have the link or preview there in the body, instead having it integrated into the feed as first class content.
This is preferable both semantically and practically, especially because it is proving to be quite an annoyance to click on that link and be brought out of the interface instead of seamlessly moving to the content.
So that solution strikes me as having most of the downsides you fear but with extra annoyance for users.
I would go the opposite way with that: more flexibility for people to tailor their experiences in ways that bring them value also suggests that like-minded people would form increasingly distributed communities.
Want to have an experience that involves no QTs? But major instances don't support you in that preference? Great, set up on another instance, exactly in the process of getting away from centralization.
I wouldn't even say it's center chase since it's not like people are required to adopt any particular experience, given the distribution of instances.
So I really think you have this one backwards.
I think people complaining today about #CNN giving #Trump airtime should consider that it seems his performance served to show the country that he hasn't changed, and he's not being misreported on, we see directly from him that he really is just as awful and not worthy of election as he was last time he lost.
Had the event not been broadcast there would have remained a more doubt among people on the fence, that maybe his handlers finally got through to him that he has to act different if he wants to be president.
So it's a case of, Don't deplatform, instead let people show you for themselves how awful they are, so they can be judged with even more finality.
Also, I suspect it was a no win situation for Trump. Had he pretended to be moderate then his supporters would have gotten upset.
Well I can let you know that for me personally, QT functionality really did entice me as I was looking around at different Fediverse options.
So yes, we exist!
I really find the QT option to just be natural and fill a semantic gap that isn't really filled well by other options you mention, especially considering how kludgy they feel.
QT is great for building on content to expanding audiences, and they're just really isn't a better natural way to do that, to really enhance the value of the content on the platform.
Sure, it's also going to be abused, but I'm more interested in building up than keeping down.
For me at least, it's not that I'm surprised people might not want to have #QT People have all sorts of different opinions with regard to both cosmetic and operational sides of UI.
The part that's a bit surprising to me is that Mastodon would be so solidly choosing that side that would intentionally disempower its own users, keeping the feature away from users who feel it improves their experiences here.
The flight from Twitter represented a chance to do better, to find a new path on a new platform, so it's especially surprising to see so many complain about top down issues at Twitter while also insisting on the top down choice not to provide QT functionality to users who want it.
Better would have been to implement the feature along with functionality letting people filter out QTs if for whatever reason they don't want to have anything to do with them.
volkris
boosted
Neato!: https://subtls.pages.dev/
This page produces an annotated transcript of fetching itself via HTTPS over TLS.
One thing to keep in mind is that the technology behind #Fediverse , #ActivityPub , scales in resource use with primarily by number of instances, not so much number of users.
To put it a different way, it's a much larger load on the system to add 50 instances, two users each, than to add one instance with those same hundred users.
Be careful pushing for far expanded numbers of instances, as the resource use to do that might not be sustainable.
I think the article is misleading.
Thomas's own writings describe how the situation changed over time, how appeals to deference have grown bolder than expected, so given that new evidence, he's been clear that he thinks the new environment is off-course.
In a way it's not that he changed his mind on an issue, but that the legal system changed, leaving him feeling the need to address the new ways that the federal government is functioning.
There's nothing scandalous about that.
If the funding sources were agreed upon in 2022 then we wouldn't be at this place, as the spending would be covered.
But sure, show me where in the budget bill it lists the source of funding to cover the deficit spending.
No, you're incorrect.
The debt ceiling is just the term for the constitutional assignment of borrowing authority to Congress. The name might be recent, but the idea goes back to the very beginning.
"The Congress shall have Power [..] To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;" <--- there's your debt ceiling right there
So Congress authorized deficit spending, but failed to authorize the borrowing needed to actually make it possible.
Since Congress failed to provide a funding source to cover that gap, they left us in this mess, having authorized something impossible.
Again, authorize infrastructure or don't, but if they do, then they need to provide funding for their program.
They didn't, and they need to be called out for that.
Yeah, there are some sadly intolerant corners of this place, that folks want to describe as so friendly and happy.
@voxel@ohai.social
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
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