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
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
Maybe you address them in the paper, but it sounds like you might run into issues of action vs inaction and minimal imposition needed to support a government interest.
As I recall a lot of the religious liberty protection comes down to, Does government *really* need to impose ___ to reach its goal, or is there a less intrusive option?
Unfortunately when it comes to abortion, if we accept that restricting it promotes a legit goal (or else this is all moot), then there isn't much room for more or less intrusion.
(I'm not looking to start a debate, but if you feel like a summary response to this, I'd be happy to read it!)
In this case it's not that the dems should have *blocked* reps, but that they shouldn't have actively created this situation and handed it to the GOP.
Democrats chose to pass appropriations bills without funding sources, putting us in this situation. That was their decision, their active effort.
Basically, they created a mess that we're now all dealing with. They shouldn't have created that mess.
George Santos, International man of mystery
"H.Res.114 - In the matter of George Santos."
I suppose people don't tend to receive these historic sounding shout-outs in Congress for *good* reasons :)
So I'd say the signature should be context dependent.
For example, if a reporter is quoting an expert or public figure verbatim, I'd like to see their signature attached to see that they agree that they were properly quoted.
Or if the piece is a technical explainer, the reporter might get a few subject matter experts to attach signatures, publicly attesting that they reviewed the material and it's solid.
Just a run-of-the-mill report or newsbrief though? Sure, the reporter's own signature might be fine; track down others might be overkill. Well, we might want editors' signatures too, just for fun.
But the main thing that comes to my mind with this is the quotation signature. It doesn't happen every day, but far too often over the years I've seen reporters literally leave out a word like "not" and end up reversing the meaning of the quote.
The signing process would have had the speaker catch the misquotation, hopefully.
I'm happy to criticize Trump and, I was certainly opposed to those spending bills. But there's a major difference between then and now:
Funding was provided for those programs. The issue of this moment is that funding for these programs doesn't exist.
I believe the worst thing is Congress having promised to spend money that doesn't exist. That breaks the government all around.
Sort out infrastructure spending however, but do it reasonably, providing a funding source for the programs.
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
volkris's choices:
