ansuz @ansuz@social.cryptography.dog

The idea of "protestware" or that "software isn't supposed to have an opinion" or that open source is supposed to be somehow neutral, merely "getting the job done".

This was never true, even in the olden days. Even back then, there were protest aspects to software and things were written with an agenda. PGP had an agenda. p2p software in the 2000s had an agenda which even turned into a political party. Creative Commons had an agenda. Cryptocurrency definitely came with an agenda explicitly embedded in the code.

"i miss BBS"
you can log on to a BBS right now
"i miss IRC"
you can log on to an IRC server right now
"i miss self hosted this or that"
you can self host your own thing right now
"i miss online communities"
join one, start one
"i miss online friends"
we're waiting for u!

the only obstacle to all this and more is yourself.

Oh wow, the European Union 🇪🇺 now has its own official Mastodon instance!

https://social.network.europa.eu/explore

You can follow lots of important EU officials on here including the @EU_Commission

#EU #EuropeanUnion

Dear new users:

It's alright to take your time and get up to speed on here. You don't have to hit the ground running. You might have picked up the habit of interacting with social media as it it were naturally a competitive performance--we all did--but the best thing about Mastodon and the fediverse beyond it is that it's not like that. Take some time to decompress.

It took me about six months to fully drop the armor that I'd been wearing from being on other sites. That was three years ago. This place changes lives.

Also, it's okay to be picky. Sign up at a new instance, if the first one you pick isn't the best fit possible. You'll find your home, and folks here understand it takes trial and error.

Above all, take a deep breath. What feels weird now will make sense pretty quickly.

Glad to have you.

Fedi: opportunity to be influencer? No
Fedi: opportunity to think critically about tools I use to share knowledge and experiences, the people who develop them, and my impacts on my community? Yes

As one of the main Mastodon developers, I can't promise you that Mastodon will be a complete and exact Twitter replacement for you, but it may fit your use-cases, at least it does for me.

Just keep in mind that it is not exactly the same thing, some core design decisions are different (there isn't an unique centrally-governed website, but many interconnected servers operated by different individuals and organizations) and thus the tradeoffs can be different as well.

While I personally don't think Mastodon should aim at being an exact replacement to Twitter, I do hope Mastodon can be useful to more people wanting an alternative to Twitter! And I know there are lots of room for improvement, on things we do know, and on things we don't.

Also keep in mind that Mastodon is developed by only two core developers payed through a non-profit funded through sponsorship, grants and donations, so please be patient!

About the only tip I have for people landing here post-birdsite is the habit of defensively misspelling/obfuscating terms is not just unnecessary here but harmful.

Search is harder to do due to the federated nature, being a search-botting reply-guy is harder to do. However a lot of people can and do mute hot-button words for their own health.

If you think you need to obfuscate to prevent discovery there's probably a better privacy tool to deploy.

listen, i'm glad everyone is here/back but platform metacommentary alone won't be enough to make this stick. you need to start posting inane nonsense

what did you eat today. did you see any cool bugs

Library frenz with the current birbsite drama there's a need for a list of library-related #fediverse instances.

So digipres.club, code4lib.social, ausglam.space, social.coop, scholar.social - what else comes to mind?

Lastly, a small warning. There is always inter-instance drama. It's natural, it's how the "network" corrects itself by banning the bad actors and such. I mean, not federating with trolls and nazis is great, right? But it can get nasty and personal.

You may safely ignore the drama (and I strongly recommend so) unless you are an instance admin or mod (or a bad actor, I guess).

5/5

a thing white ppl seem to, if i'm being generous, forget in their Learn2Mastodon threads:

white supremacy is alive and well in the fediverse! it's cultivated even. some instance are more obviously worse than others, but that insidous sort is everywhere. if you are BIPOC, it's extra ok and good to change instances. But also, like many things, these are primarily white run spaces and our safety tends towards being conditional, especialy for Black folks here

#feditips

say goodbye to celebrity, except for @TommyWiseau . no one here is famous enough that you have heard of them unless you are a nerd. you cannot bully the government on fedi, unless it is @Nicolas_Maduro . those cringe takes you want so bad to dunk on? forget them. they are meaningless. mute, block, report, move on. use #fediblock to report bad behavior widely

posting "punch nazis" on twitter: banned for inciting violence

posting "punch nazis" on mastodon: gaining the respect of the admin

#urbangarden #gardensofpixelfed #gardening #garden #flowers #pineapple #limetree

Day trip

“Comic Helvetic” is an experimental project inspired by “Comic Sans” and “Helvetica”.
Typeface has Extended Latin and Cyrillic characters (check your language on DaFont).
Fonts are free for commercial use https://www.behance.net/gallery/86895479/Comic-Helvetic-%28Lat-Cyr%29