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I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

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Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#71

Post by oytis »

themaninthedark wrote: post #66
esperent wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Support the fearful artist, or leave them alone. Speak up against the person who you see as advocating for genocide. I don't think we need to over complicate this. Just do your best, you'll get it wrong sometimes but that's OK. It's a guideline for positive online discourse, not a law.

I think you missed the nuance there. The hypothetical person supporting Israel has family in the country and is fearful of their family's safety. Wouldn't replying to them make you "Reply Guy"? The parent of the conversation did not say that the artist was fearful, they said "enraged" or angry. It was posited in a child comment that the anger was out of a place of fear. Depending on how you read the initial post, moo…

> Wouldn't replying to them make you "Reply Guy"?

Why not? I think discretion is needed in both cases. I, for one, am rather pro-Israel, but I wouldn't necessarily tell that to a Palestinian sharing their anger online.

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#72

Post by vnuge »

lrvick wrote: post #5

Any medium where you invite commentary from strangers on the internet is going to be full of ignorant commentary. If this is something that stresses you out, probably best to disable comments from anyone you do not follow. Simple as that. I do not think this is a problem with the tool. I do think over-exposure to internet commentary is toxic. Like alcohol, it is a poison that is only fun if you are capable of moderat…

This is a huge step I took a few years ago as well. My mobile phone is still a smart phone but It can only do dumb phone things + email which I keep quiet and check on a schedule. No notifications really of any kind. No real social media and I never receive notifications from any of them I have to schedule time to check on them. It has become quite freeing although I definitely miss the "euphoria" of that world if it makes sense, which is a sign of addiction I didn't realize till I opted out.

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#73

Post by themaninthedark »

Retr0id wrote: post #53
themaninthedark wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because someone links to and has the ability to commentate on your work does not mean that you need to read/engage/acknowledge the commentary.

Good point, I'm going to un-read your reply now.

I appreciate the humor :)

In my line of work and my position, everything I do stays in the background out of the public eye. I can appreciate that for some people; researchers, open source programmers that you need to share what you do and your thoughts on how to do it with an audience. And naturally that if there is a discussion on a topic that your work might get brought up and commented on.

Unfortunately, people are jerks, even more so online sometimes and there is no way of stopping it.

The only solution I can see is creating a walled garden that is exclusive in it's membership and had a robust moderation policy. However that creates it's own problems such as echo chambers and allows those with power to control and shape discourse.

In short, it looks like we are trying to find a technical solution to a social problem or perhaps even a human nature problem.

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#74

Post by Kye »

willcipriano wrote: post #40
michaelt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any medium where you invite commentary from strangers on the internet is going to be full of ignorant commentary. [...] I do not think this is a problem with the tool. You think the design of this medium inherently attracts death threats (which the author mentions, and I assume you've generalised into 'ignorant comments') - but it's not a problem with the medium? To me it sounds like a medium that's giving undue we…

"Death threats" are so overplayed I don't take anyone claiming to get them seriously anymore. It's often a lie and when it isn't it's a comment clearly written by a 12 year old with a Rick and Morty avatar.

It's kind of a catch-22, isn't it?

You don't take the threats seriously, nothing happens: no one notices.

You don't take the threats seriously, something happens: "why didn't you take the threats seriously? It's your own fault."

Sometimes the threats are serious and something happens.

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#75

Post by willcipriano »

Kye wrote: post #74
willcipriano wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Death threats" are so overplayed I don't take anyone claiming to get them seriously anymore. It's often a lie and when it isn't it's a comment clearly written by a 12 year old with a Rick and Morty avatar.

It's kind of a catch-22, isn't it? You don't take the threats seriously, nothing happens: no one notices. You don't take the threats seriously, something happens: "why didn't you take the threats seriously? It's your own fault." Sometimes the threats are serious and something happens.

> Sometimes the threats are serious and something happens.

Yeah that's when you hear "we were aware of the shooter" and a dozen police officers stand outside the classroom for an hour while they go hog wild.

Since we are all dead and damned either way, why worry? Giving false threats power in aggregate probably causes more harm than ignoring them, especially since the response when paying attention is so ineffective.

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#76

Post by HuwFulcher »

krapp wrote: post #59
HuwFulcher wrote: post #46

I find that Mastodon has become the mirror-verse version of Twitter/X. I've tried spending time on there but unless if you subscribe to certain political/ideological values then you wont find much to hang around for. On the flip side I find the discourse on X a lot more varied. There are definitely big problems with the types of conversations that happen on X but I have to go out of my way to find them. On Mastodon i…

I don't know... I have game developers, authors, scientists, musicians and all sorts of interesting people on my feed, and I see a wide variance in discussion, despite the likely political commonalities. I suppose if you can only find value in online community through political debate and heterodoxy, most well-curated communities will seem hostile to you, since most people aren't looking for shock and chaos.

I'm not looking for value through political debate and heterodoxy. In fact I'm trying to look for the opposite, I'm glad you seem to have found it! Algorithmic content is a double edged sword. I've found it much easier to find people on X to discuss the non-political content I want. On the other hand it's much harder on Mastodon.

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#77

Post by pixxel »

HuwFulcher wrote: post #46

I find that Mastodon has become the mirror-verse version of Twitter/X. I've tried spending time on there but unless if you subscribe to certain political/ideological values then you wont find much to hang around for. On the flip side I find the discourse on X a lot more varied. There are definitely big problems with the types of conversations that happen on X but I have to go out of my way to find them. On Mastodon i…

> unless if you subscribe to certain political/ideological values then you wont find much to hang around for

I’ve had success with following people with pre 2015 bio’s. No flags, no politics, no pronouns. Just tell me what hobbies etc. you’re into.

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#78

Post by krapp »

HuwFulcher wrote: post #76
krapp wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know... I have game developers, authors, scientists, musicians and all sorts of interesting people on my feed, and I see a wide variance in discussion, despite the likely political commonalities. I suppose if you can only find value in online community through political debate and heterodoxy, most well-curated communities will seem hostile to you, since most people aren't looking for shock and chaos.

I'm not looking for value through political debate and heterodoxy. In fact I'm trying to look for the opposite, I'm glad you seem to have found it! Algorithmic content is a double edged sword. I've found it much easier to find people on X to discuss the non-political content I want. On the other hand it's much harder on Mastodon.

I assumed you were talking about political content because you cited subscription to certain political ideologies as a reason you didn't find the platform useful, and the likelihood of being banned due to "political zeitgeist" as a flaw in the system.

I am curious what high quality non-political content you're finding on X and not Mastodon. I'm only still on X because of a few accounts that haven't jumped ship yet, but in my experience, the flood of bots and troll accounts makes it nigh unusable.

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#79

Post by pasttense01 »

Yotsugi wrote: post #19
michaelt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any medium where you invite commentary from strangers on the internet is going to be full of ignorant commentary. [...] I do not think this is a problem with the tool. You think the design of this medium inherently attracts death threats (which the author mentions, and I assume you've generalised into 'ignorant comments') - but it's not a problem with the medium? To me it sounds like a medium that's giving undue we…

Let's say I create another website that allows people to share things and other people to comment on those things, pray do tell how do I prevent ignorant comments? Should only people who have Mensa certification be allowed to comment? Does Mensa alone rule out all cases of error possible in human brain? Does any metric in fact? How about the other way, how does having 87IQ prove that this person cannot say something…

Virtually everyone makes ignorant comments from time to time--even the most brilliant people. The issue is vicious comments--and the solution is to terminate their ability to post after the first vicious comment.

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#80

Post by BadBadJellyBean »

Ciantic wrote: post #41

The only solution I can think of is smarter algorithms that hide negativity and other unwanted comments. Yes you could limit replies, but that doesn't solve the problem for big accounts, their followers have all kinds of unhinged people who like to ask trivial questions and waste your time. Some think that by changing a service they can get better replies, but there will be no single service that has "sane commenters…

Filtering is always a two edged sword. On the one hand it might keep bad actors at bay on the other it can keep innocent people away. It is putting power in the hands of a machine.

Another thing is that bad actors are usually more determined to subvert blocking than good actors are to correct false negatives.

It might help some people to have some automatic filtering in place but it also might not.

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