I wrote an open letter to artists and other creatives who are thinking about giving the fediverse a chance:
“There’s a better way!”
https://stefanbohacek.com/blog/a-fediverse-invitation-for-artists/
Feel free to share, and be sure to add your signature!
#fediverse #mastodon #creatives #artists #musicians #twitter #x
Boy this better not break too much 🤞
Thanks, again, everyone!
Huge thanks to everyone who helped me test the signature verification, you’re all awesome!
Please note that this feature is very much work in progress. I might spend a bit more time polishing it and hopefully be able to share it with others to add to their own website or a blog.
The signature verification system is still very much work in progress, but the source code is available at https://github.com/stefanbohacek/fediverse-signatures.
If anyone would be interested in trying this out on their site, feel free to reach out!
#fediverse #mastodon #fedidev #mastodev #opensource
@[email protected] I’m not an artist, so I won’t be signing the letter.
But just to support your point:
In all the years I was on Twitter, I bought things from artists twice.
In the not-quite two years I’ve been on Mastodon, I’ve bought things from eleven different artists (and one musician). .
#FediGiftShop #artists
@[email protected] Wonderful, thank you for supporting the artist community!
Meh.
@[email protected] Fair enough! Any way I can make this better?
Don’t solve a problem you think artists have. Solve one they do. Tell them about discoverability or outreach features, community-building tools, active-contest feeds, etc.
Lots of Fedi projects fail because their number #1 goal is to sell their own ideology, rather than providing a useful tool for a community.
If you want people to value your ideas. You have to give them value, not ideas.
Edit: Just thought of a real life example: My uncle is annolder gentleman tech literate enough to use social networks without much issue. How would the Fediverse be a better choice FOR HIM than an Instagram profile? (Let’s assume he can easily just learn to use any other platform, which isn’t the case for all people)
@[email protected] Very good point. Thank you, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts!
@[email protected] Just saw the updated message. Thank you for sharing that!
There’s a huge popup on this page that says adblock not detected and that I should install one to be safe.
Which is ironic because I’m obviously running Firefox with uBO, and they probably blocked your attempt at detect an adblocker. But if what you want to do is detect that the user is not running an adblocker, you should be testing for the positive, not the negative: your popup should only load if the code was able to do the most obnoxious, advertising-like tasks without obstruction.
@lambalicious Right, yes, that is how, in part, this works. If you look at the source code, the “ad” uses a bunch of classes that a typical ad-blocker would pick up on.
Also, the “popup” shouldn’t take up much of the screen, just a bit of the space at the bottom. I will have to look into all this, thank you for reporting the issues!
I do want to say that I don’t think we necessarily have to make the fediverse “grow bigger”, but I do want to see it become more diverse, and welcoming.
Happy to trade some of the racists and mansplainers for a few folks who are into pottery and knitting and keep the numbers the same for example.
@[email protected] your chances of finding them here is still bigger than on X, Bluesky, Threads, IMHO.
@[email protected] Fair enough!
@[email protected] I see far more diverse art on here compared to any other social network I have ever used (which tend to use the algorithms to pigeonhole you into what they think your tastes are and how they relate to whatever categories advertisers want)
@[email protected] That’s good! And we have to, collectively, put in the effort to keep it that way!
@[email protected] Step 1) nuke the Fediblock lists. Probably the number one barrier to diversity in the Fediverse.
@nick I don’t think I have the authority to speak on that, sorry.
It seems to me that folks who rely on them do so for their safety. I think that’s a great thing about the fediverse, that we can all tailor our experience.
And if some people want to block off portions of the network to feel safe, there’s no real harm, there’s still plenty of people to interact with.
Unless there’s something that that I’m missing?
@[email protected] Unless you’re self-hosting, your admin might end up nuking portions of the network you’re following. Which sucks for you and other users. I honestly don’t see Fediblock as anything other than a detriment to the network, except for cases where entire servers are genuinely malicious, like spambot farms or illegal stuff. Blocking entire instances over mundane differences of opinion between a few users seems counterproductive to me.
@nick Right. But how often does this really happen though? I mean I’ve heard of admins getting into a beef and cutting each other’s server off, but I doubt that this is something most people have to really worry about.
The issue here would be with people being immature, something to talk about your admin with.
Clearly there is a net benefit here.
@[email protected] A net benefit with respect to what goals? Certainly not the goals of Mastodon, and certainly not your goals if you value diversity on the network. Mastodon is a decentralized and distributed network. The FediBlock lists only serve to curtail that network. The network is literally more centralized with the FediBlock lists than without them, and the more these lists are used, the more homogenous values and perspectives become on the network. Which seems antithetical to your stated goals as well.
This is also a pretty big problem, and a primary complaint that I hear from people who decide to leave this platform. Completely normal servers with normal people have blocked each other without any beef, because FediBlock lists are automated, and the curation of those lists are handled by only a small handful of people, sometimes one individual. You can check the lists for yourself. All it takes is one person on one instance to say something that pisses off one of the curators of these lists and then, boom, two normal and otherwise amicable servers are now defederated.
It just seems incredibly immature to me. Admins should just grow up and use the built-in block feature to block individuals they find troubling instead of blocking entire instances over the actions of a few. The end result is often thousands of normal people not being able to follow each other because a couple people had a squabble. That’s incredibly dumb.
Love seeing this page circulating and folks adding their signature, and overall receiving positive feedback!
I hope it helps convince even just one person to give the fediverse a try. (Let me know if someone you know joins after reading this!)
And I encourage others to write about their own experience with the fediverse and share that with others!
#fediverse
@[email protected]
> I encourage others to write about their own experience with the fediverse and share that with others!100%. Maybe post them under #FediverseExperiences. Would be great to have a website with a collection of them. Here’s something I wrote up about inviting communities in, based on my experiences if helping people transition to more ethical digital systems (Free Code OS and apps, decentralised social networks, community-hosting, platform cooperatives etc);
Also, apologies to folks whose fediverse platform is not yet supported! I promise I am looking into this 🙏
