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Omg.lol: An Oasis on the Internet

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161–170 of 388 posts

Re: Omg.lol: An Oasis on the Internet

#162

That’s a fun set of features, but I don’t see the connection with the community. You can browse their mastodon feed and it’s just a bunch of vaguely liberal vaguely tech posts? I’d like to see which accounts are using the services for a better community

That's the shortcoming of every alternative protocol and "indie web" community I've come across. They only attract existing techies and have a weird sheen of forced kindness about them. If you're just chatting with other programmers under American HR communication standards, then how is it any different to work? The true magic of the early web was somebody genius but decidedly untechnical like David Bowie shitposting…

> The true magic of the early web was somebody genius but decidedly untechnical like David Bowie shitposting at his own fans.

No, the magic of the early web was that people treated their online identities as a secret alternative life, rather than a resume for recruiters, friends, potential partners, and other real-world acquaintances to look at.

The Internet of today is little more than a (distorted) mirror of people's offline lives. That's why the problems of today's Internet are the same as the problems of the real world. By contrast, the Internet of the 90s was an exciting world of its own, with rules that were dramatically different from those of everyday life.

Re: Omg.lol: An Oasis on the Internet

#163

That’s a fun set of features, but I don’t see the connection with the community. You can browse their mastodon feed and it’s just a bunch of vaguely liberal vaguely tech posts? I’d like to see which accounts are using the services for a better community

That's the shortcoming of every alternative protocol and "indie web" community I've come across. They only attract existing techies and have a weird sheen of forced kindness about them. If you're just chatting with other programmers under American HR communication standards, then how is it any different to work? The true magic of the early web was somebody genius but decidedly untechnical like David Bowie shitposting…

> None of these communities will attract today or tomorrow's David Bowies.

I kind of get what you're saying but I'm tired of people who act like "shitposting skills" are a useful quality trait. Similarly people who just can't not let something be.

I kind of dislike "forced kindness" as a community philosophy (I've met way too many people IRL who have a net persona of "super kind" and turn out to be, glibly, sociopaths), but "please don't be insufferable" is a nice rule of thumb for communities. Plenty of cool stuff made by people who are merely a little annoying. Meanwhile too many places have "those people" who just won't let something go. Let people keep their honor!

Re: Omg.lol: An Oasis on the Internet

#164

I just joined after reading the post. This wasn't the first time I've heard of Omg.lol but I wasn't entirely convinced earlier. For a long while, I've felt kinda lonely online as all of the communities and little corners online I've been part off have slowly died. I guess I've sort of been digitally homeless. I really enjoy the latest trends when it comes to indieweb and digital gardens, people creating their own spa…

> Section 6.3 We may share personal information in connection with a corporate transaction, like a merger or sale of our company, the sale of most of our assets, or a bankruptcy.

>Section 6.5 Except where explicitly stated to the contrary in this Policy, in some cases, particularly given the limited amount and type of information and data collected through omg.lol, we have not restricted contractors’ own use or disclosure of that information or data. We are not responsible for the conduct or policies of Stripe, or other contractors.

INAL but that seems pretty cookie-cutter "Company is not ruling-out selling your data to others".

https://home.omg.lol/info/legal

Re: Omg.lol: An Oasis on the Internet

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That internet is not dead, you know? It’s just the the other part grew so massively. There are still people writing blog posts and websites that don’t require you to dismiss 5 popups before you can interact with it. It can be done.

It’s just hard to find. Google returns trash

It's wild to think about how anybody found info back in the day. Forums were probably the big one I guess? There was always something magical about being linked to forum and finding a wealth of info there, and entire domains of knowledge.

FWIW stuff linked from HN & friends is not always the best, but I am pretty agressive about sticking RSS feeds from blogs that get linked here. That gives an inflow of interesting stuff people find. It's not a thing you can do in one go, but after a while you have a lot of neat stuff from people who cared enough to post it.

Re: Omg.lol: An Oasis on the Internet

#166

“omg.lol is unabashedly built with PHP” PHP is on my mental list of forever-security-challenged tech, but it got on that list a long time ago. It’s 2023, is that still a reasonable concern?

Not related to security, but I was quite surprised to see how far PHP has come since I used it many years ago: [PHP doesn't suck (anymore)](https://youtu.be/ZRV3pBuPxEQ)

Re: Omg.lol: An Oasis on the Internet

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

God. "Freedom of speech" and "free of abuse?" Sounds like a nightmare! Liberals!! Where are the spaces anymore to be outlandishly an asshole and shut other people down?! :-|

The thing is, what counts as "abuse" has considerably changed.

There seems to be a shift towards, how someone perceives something, not how something actually is.

That can mean, that it is no longer possible to speak about something unpleasant, as someone might consider that an insult - and that is then the opposite of freedom of speech.

In other words, I don't enjoy the assholeness of 4chan - but I also do not enjoy overly polite spaces, avoiding all controversy. I am not clear yet, what this Oasis seems to aim for, but it might be the latter.

Re: Omg.lol: An Oasis on the Internet

#168
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the shortcoming of every alternative protocol and "indie web" community I've come across. They only attract existing techies and have a weird sheen of forced kindness about them. If you're just chatting with other programmers under American HR communication standards, then how is it any different to work? The true magic of the early web was somebody genius but decidedly untechnical like David Bowie shitposting…

> None of these communities will attract today or tomorrow's David Bowies. I kind of get what you're saying but I'm tired of people who act like "shitposting skills" are a useful quality trait. Similarly people who just can't not let something be. I kind of dislike "forced kindness" as a community philosophy (I've met way too many people IRL who have a net persona of "super kind" and turn out to be, glibly, sociopath…

Shitposting wasn't the best choice of words, sorry. I think you know what I'm getting at though. There are cheeky artists and those to whom cheekiness is the art. The latter cohort are just annoying trolls, but the former group can animate communities. You just don't tend to find them among the small souled and dogmatic bitdiddlers that haunt every upstart platform.

Re: Omg.lol: An Oasis on the Internet

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It consistently surprises me how much software engineers devalue the effort of software engineering when it comes to their personal lives. If you're a SWE in an English-speaking country, you almost certainly make $20 post-tax for at most one hour of work - 30m at SV salaries, as little as 15m if you're at a FAANG-ish company. Is it conceivable that you would spend less than an hour a year maintaining something like t…

I get where you are coming from, but I think the answer for a lot of us is... for the experience.

That's a perfectly valid motivation, but if it's really what someone is going for, I expect to hear an objection that sounds something like "oh, that's cool! but I'd rather try out doing it myself" rather than the faintly contemptuous "why is this worth $X when I could do it myself".
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