Something about starter packs that I think gets lost when they're discussed on Mastodon:
The power of starter packs is not in some centralised mega list of say "Black people in tech," curated by some central authority. The power is in a million tiny "Black techies I follow" lists curated by everyday users.
Check it out. I'm on some lists.
https://clearsky.app/mekka.mekka-tech.com/lists
And yes, I'm on some lists I don't want to be on, that people use to block. And I mostly don't care. 🤷🏿♂️
1/N
The losers that think being trans means being white and trans, hopped over from Mastodon to BlueSky, and put me on their "transmisogyny list."🤷🏿♂️
But Black trans people, and white trans people that aren't racist and can see Black people, put me in their starter packs.♥
️
I don't want to be in community with the fashy white trans people that don't like Black trans people. I prefer the white trans people that like the Black and brown trans people.
I don't like everybody. It's OK if they block me.
Something else interesting:
ClearSky, the tool for inspecting blocks, list membership, etc, is built by a Black developer. 👍🏿
BlackSky, the tool and moderation community for Black ATProto users and apps, is built by a Black developer. 👍🏿
Black developers are building on Blue Sky.
Shout out to everyone who will read this, and instead of saying "How do we get them to build for Mastodon/Activity Pub?" Will froth at the mouth about fake federation and the inevitable corpo takeover.🤡
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io
"Shout out to everyone who will read this, and instead of saying "How do we get them to build for Mastodon/Activity Pub?" Will froth at the mouth about fake federation..."
Forgive me but, wouldn't anyone aware of the history be entitled AF if they asked, "Hey, I wonder if we can get them to build these tools for us?"
I don't feel entitled to ask anything of people who walked out of my life when I chased them away. I own my mistake and live with the consequences. It sucks, but...
@kims@mas.to @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io I don't at all want to speak for Mekka, but since I just wrote about this too, it's worth taking a moment to consider the mindset on Fedi that believes Bluesky is bad, but refuses to acknowledge any of Fedi's flaws. The idea that anyone who leaves is flawed and we're better off without them.
That's a fatal mistake, and it's being made constantly.
@mttaggart@infosec.exchange @kims@mas.to @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io @ecosdelfuturo@mstdn.social It’s pretty obvious to me that the Fediverse needs a more welcoming alternative. Maybe a Mastodon fork with a different set of developers that are more open to contributions (OpenOffice vs LibreOffice comes to my mind). But, of course, who has the time and resources to do that is the major issue.
@vrruiz@mastodon.social @kims@mas.to @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io @ecosdelfuturo@mstdn.social Perhaps a fork run by an organization that has a paid Trust and Safety team for moderation, with clear terms and conditions. Maybe even a legal entity that can be sued for breach of contract to address harms.
I'm being cheeky, but if you want to fix Fedi, professionalize it.
@mttaggart@infosec.exchange @vrruiz@mastodon.social @kims@mas.to @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io @ecosdelfuturo@mstdn.social
It doesn't have to be a Mastodon fork either, right?
Pleroma
Misskey
Friendica
pixelfed
loops
PeerTube
hell, even nextcloud
There's a ton of ways to implement ActivityPub, trying to reinvent Twitter is kinda tunnel vision, no?
Consider, instances themselves are less important than being able to connect with people. Everyone doesn't need to be on the same instance. Too much emphasis on One True Platform™
is how we got in this mess.
@mousey@mastodon.seattlematrix.org @vrruiz@mastodon.social @kims@mas.to @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io @ecosdelfuturo@mstdn.social I personally could not care less about the frontend app. I don't really care about the underlying protocol either, except insofar as it is accessible to developers, which uhhhh ActivityPub needs some work.
In this particular case, the point I was making, albeit cheekily, was about how no matter how beautiful and polychromous your rainbow of apps, if they are all moderated by volunteers, you're not escaping a core problem of the ecosystem. Yes there are some non-profit initiatives to try to address this, but so far very little progress has been made.
@mttaggart@infosec.exchange @mousey@mastodon.seattlematrix.org @vrruiz@mastodon.social @kims@mas.to @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io @ecosdelfuturo@mstdn.social
Moderation is work. Skilled, paid, compassionate work that you need to pay lots of money for it to be good.
It's not a mistake that most of the money for social media startups went into paid moderators and lawyers and the first thing that happened in enshittification is replacing moderation with crappy automated systems tuned to 'What's least likely to piss off the status quo or get us sued."
mekka okereke :verified:
