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Improving support for adult content on Mastodon

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Re: Improving support for adult content on Mastodon

#51

Post by daveid »

ravenstine wrote: post #35
r00fus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better than cockroachdb but not exactly a noteworthy brand name.

It depends on who's being marketed to. If CockroachDB was being sold to the average person, it'd be an awful name from a branding perspective. In reality, it's being sold to nerds who probably aren't as off-put by the name and are more interested in what it does as a database. To hit the point home, the database is designed with resilience in mind, just like actual cockroaches! For something being marketed to the mas…

> Nobody thinks of Mastodons when thinking of any form of communication, but we all hear birds tweeting every day and have been used in real life to send messages

This seems like backwards reasoning. If you named a new platform after pigeons, which were actually used for transmitting information, you'd get critics saying "It's so archaic, nobody has used pigeons for 80 years!" Birds carrying messages is just as "extinct" of a metaphor as Mastodons are as an animal.

Re: Improving support for adult content on Mastodon

#52

Post by harpiaharpyja »

jamesrcole wrote: post #40
olah_1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the language of "toot" is extremely hokey and will never be taken seriously. It implies farting for most Americans. "Tweet" reminds people of birds. As in "a little bird told me". Which is appropriate for a gossip style network.

[Edit: people downvoting this, care to explain what you disagree with in it?] Breaking news. In a series of explosive toots... The foreign minister was forced to resign after a number of offensive toots... OMG, your toots are so funny!... Everyone's talking about what J K Rowling tooted today... I can't believe you tooted that!... ...and so on If you think I'm joking then that shows how bad a name "toot" is. Because…

I dunno, it's not any more funny than if you substituted tweet in each of those.

Re: Improving support for adult content on Mastodon

#53

Post by WAHa_06x36 »

jim-jim-jim wrote: post #47
WAHa_06x36 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I created the algorithm, and there is a proper release of it with documentation and implementations in a few languages coming... "soon". It's a work project, so trying to find time to work on it is always tricky. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. The main goal of it is to be a placeholder while images load, but it also has a nice secondary use for hiding sensitive images here. Other aims of the algorithm i…

Off topic but I did a double take when I scrolled past your name. Are you the same guy who did some kind of imageboard related stuff years ago? I know that's vague, but my brain is fried and I can't remember why I remember you.

Many, many years ago, yes. Well remembered.

Re: Improving support for adult content on Mastodon

#54

Post by WAHa_06x36 »

mikekchar wrote: post #43
echelon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, it's really gross. This isn't going to catch on in the mainstream. Mastodon seriously needs a rebrand.

Interestingly it is relatively popular in Japan (to the point where someone non-technical asked me if I used it the other day!) It's really only an issue for English speakers (though in the context of HN that seems like the whole world ;-) ). I think it would be pretty darn easy to maintain a rebranded fork, though.

It is also not an issue for "English speakers", just a subset of them.

Re: Improving support for adult content on Mastodon

#56

Post by philwelch »

omegaworks wrote: post #14
barbs wrote: post #12

I feel like "BlurHash" is a misleading name, since it's not a hash of the image data that gets created, it's just highly compressed to just some data about the colours used. Unless I'm misunderstanding something?

Technically speaking, a hash is just a function that maps arbitrary data into a fixed size set of outputs. f(x) = 1 is a hash function. A catastrophically bad one to use for something like a hashmap, but a hash function nonetheless.

Although if you’re implementing a hashmap from scratch, that is a very good hash function to use temporarily while building collision management.

Re: Improving support for adult content on Mastodon

#57

Post by philwelch »

iamnothere wrote: post #16
_4ziu wrote: post #4

I really like the idea of Mastodon, but i can't shake this feeling that their name is kind of awful. I get that they're not trying to be exactly like twitter but by comparison, twitter is a much bubblier and friendlier word.

A few people show up to say this every time Mastodon is mentioned. I disagree, it's memorable and I like it. Obviously the users don't mind either. Twitter sounded like a dumb name too, but they kept it and now nobody thinks twice about it. (Can you imagine: "Twit means idiot, nobody will use this service because of that!") Most creative names sound dumb until they stick around long enough.

A few people also used to show up to say similar things about DuckDuckGo’s vaguely Fisher-Price branding, and now DDG is still a fringe of the market even in our increasingly privacy-conscious, big-tech-company-skeptical times. Sometimes branding matters.

Re: Improving support for adult content on Mastodon

#58

Post by philwelch »

codetrotter wrote: post #48
notatoad wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Extinct" is not really a good idea to associate your brand with.

In the world of outdoor equipment alone, two of the brands I like the most were named after extinct animals; Arc’teryx (referring to the Archaeopteryx) and Mammut (mammoth). Both of whom you will find a lot of products from in any decent sports store. And it’s not just the names — look at their logos. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ARC%27TERYX_logo.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mammut_logo.jpg The first…

Well, isn’t that the point? The intended association is supposed to be with paleontology, a type of outdoors excursion. It’s aspirational marketing—maybe if you wear an Arc’teryx jacket you’ll be equipped to go out in the wilderness and discover ancient fossils or something.

Re: Improving support for adult content on Mastodon

#59

Post by philwelch »

harpiaharpyja wrote: post #52
jamesrcole wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Edit: people downvoting this, care to explain what you disagree with in it?] Breaking news. In a series of explosive toots... The foreign minister was forced to resign after a number of offensive toots... OMG, your toots are so funny!... Everyone's talking about what J K Rowling tooted today... I can't believe you tooted that!... ...and so on If you think I'm joking then that shows how bad a name "toot" is. Because…

I dunno, it's not any more funny than if you substituted tweet in each of those.

It’s less funny because of the implied association with flatulence.

Re: Improving support for adult content on Mastodon

#60

Post by barbecue_sauce »

daveid wrote: post #51
ravenstine wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on who's being marketed to. If CockroachDB was being sold to the average person, it'd be an awful name from a branding perspective. In reality, it's being sold to nerds who probably aren't as off-put by the name and are more interested in what it does as a database. To hit the point home, the database is designed with resilience in mind, just like actual cockroaches! For something being marketed to the mas…

> Nobody thinks of Mastodons when thinking of any form of communication, but we all hear birds tweeting every day and have been used in real life to send messages This seems like backwards reasoning. If you named a new platform after pigeons, which were actually used for transmitting information, you'd get critics saying "It's so archaic, nobody has used pigeons for 80 years!" Birds carrying messages is just as "exti…

Except, with Mastodon, there isn't even a metaphor. At least Spotify (to look at another example), which is a terrible name, is a non-sense word without any baggage.
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