Oddbean new post about login | logout @b17a3b4f Your narrative is off. What @78b3e470 is angry about isn't the blocklist of mastodon.social or any other instance of the Mastodon gGmbH but a list made by a single person as far as I know, @0a46dd1a. And yes, I also think a huge amount of the list "Bad Space" is either nonsense or based on information that simply isn't available. tl;dr Your hatred makes you blind. If you want to criticize Mastodon - and there are a fuckton of reasons for it - you got to put due diligence into your arguments.
@5392447a I understand and respect your response, and, generally, I concede that you are correct: much of my rhetoric here connecting Mastodon proper or Mastodon collectively to little Fedi ghouls like @713e6386 and the mastodon.art clique is tangential. I would say, however, that it's not completely separate nor unrelated entirely. While individual prawns like Are0h, and terroristic, bad actor instances like .art, represent the extremes of Mastodon toxicity/hostility, this toxicity and hostility still exists and definitely isn't suppressed by Mastodon proper---be it Gagron with GmbH---or Mastodon as a collective entity. The general attitude maintained by Mastodon-Fedi towards non-Mastodon Fedi is one exuding chauvinism, covetousness, and arrogance. There is definitely a dislike maintained by Mastodon Fedi towards non-Mastodon Fedi. Either happenstance or organized, there has sprung forth multiple and continued attempts by Mastodon Fedi to "otherize", disparage, and subvert the wider network in a sort of collectively conscious agenda to control, dictate, or otherwise silence the greater Fediverse. @78b3e470
@b17a3b4f @78b3e470 @5392447a i am okay with being condescended on by them as they have no moral high ground and them acting like the fun police ensures that everyone worth having stays on the non religious side of the network.
@jaf Eventually, all the cool Fediverse users who stick around and want to have fun and actually contribute to the community and wider shared culture end up escaping across the Mastodon Iron Curtain to the "alt" side. @78b3e470 @5392447a
@b17a3b4f @78b3e470 @5392447a communism kills. this is why it's okay to bully these guys, they're tankies.
@jaf @78b3e470 @b17a3b4f First of, thanks for the respectful answers. I'm curious about who you'd include in the definition of "them". I know about the controversy around .art, also of course around Eugen (I even wrote a massive critic on my blog when he made massoc the default instance in the Mastodon app, lol). Given I often see a lot of embracement for other Fedi software (mostly due to my instance being closely connected to the german CCC) I get the feeling of missing some key arguments right now.
@5392447a @78b3e470 @b17a3b4f the problem i always have is that people shoot first and assume the worst possible case and never ask for clarifications. this breeds a culture of fear and paranoia which has killed all creativity that could have been over there. it's always the same types of people, the micromanagers of the lives of others. the internet's stasi.
@5392447a @b17a3b4f @78b3e470 them = anyone who runs a server with triple digit users and expects shit to work at all.
@jaf @78b3e470 @b17a3b4f I'm on a 4-digits invite-only instance (at least it was when I was invited) and it works kinda nice, honestly. 🤔 The admins are doing quite a good job. You seem to talk about wildly different people. Like, tankies, neolibs, big servers... what is it? 🤨
@5392447a I, personally, am specifically referring to cartels of Mastodon instances which work in coordination to disparage and sabotage other instances and instance softwares via abuse of things like #fediblock. @jaf @78b3e470
@b17a3b4f @78b3e470 @jaf Could you name one of those cartels so I can look more into it? 🤔
@5392447a @b17a3b4f @78b3e470 trawl that hashtag you'll see it
@jaf Yeah, true, you can see active participants in the hashtag. But, to name a few, other than mastodon.art, off the top of my head: cathode.church, union.place, cosmick9.com, eldritch.cafe, artisan.chat, and the parties that comprise the "Oliphant" block-list oligarchy. The laughable part of the Oliphant block-list is how they claim it's "algorithmic" based on "consensus ", when, in practice, as soon as one of the maintainers adds anyone to that block-list, all the others follow suit, therefore immediately creating unanimity. These block-lists are promoted and advertised as being professionally maintained and independently vetted when they're absolutely not, and primarily (either due to market-share or culture) Mastodon instances widely subscribe---blindly---to these giant block-lists put together by other Mastodon instances. When talking about block-lists and #fediblock, this is genuinely a purely Mastodon behavior or phenomenon. They represent easily like 80% or more of the active participants therein. @5392447a @78b3e470
@b17a3b4f @78b3e470 @jaf Mmh... I'm very curious then what will come out of those projects aiming to improve the moderation and block decisions. Apparently some kind of federated system allowing for sharing of reasoning, proofs and all that stuff. Could make it better if done properly, could also make it infinitely worse.
The "problem" with this stuff is it doesn't really work. There will always be an incentive to abuse the list and add people over personal gripes, and everyone else who is party to the list needs to reach absolute consensus in every case. Every construct like this will sooner or later lead to the maintainers exhausting themselves and splitting up in an orgy of drama. The only people who really suffer from this are the ones on these instances with restrictive policies - who don't realize they can just walk away, and of course the ones stuck on central platforms because "omg mastodon is insufferable"...