sam โ ๐ฌ๐ช
@sam@chven.us
Do product comparison tables on company websites influence your trust or decision to subscribe?
Yes, they help me decide: | 46 |
Somewhat, I check them but verify elsewhere: | 163 |
Not really, I prefer independent comparisons: | 79 |
No, I ignore them entirely: | 30 |
Closes in 4:14:46:31
@kagihq yes they do help my decision: I judge a company's honesty and their level of being transparent by it.
@sushee Thanks so much for the response! Do you have a good example of that which comes to mind?
@kagihq not at the moment but I do read them, always. really good ones tell me also a lot about the product thinking and tech choices/ideas, scale and audience etc.
the optimal outcome is that I say "no" to a product because I'm really just not the audience but quietly think "a shame that it's not for me they really thought about their stuff"
@sushee Super valuable feedback, thank you so much! We'll be taking this into consideration as we expand some of our product landing pages.
@kagihq if they're purely quantitative and I don't know much about it then I'd maybe pay attention.
So if it's comparing quotas, price, atomic functionality, I may pay attention.
The moment it strays into things like UI niceness; Efficiency of workflows; company ethics; I'm scrolling past.
I think, unless it's a comparison of technicalities / spec sheet, like choosing hosting or an api.... it's better to just see a list of what sets it apart from everything else rather than a comparison grid.
@kagihq Nope. Any company can pick and choose the comparison points that make them look good. I always skip the first party product comparisons for that reason.
@kagihq They can be a good starting point for investigation. It depends on how much I trust the intentions behind the comparison, in general. Is it pure marketing or is the company helping me to make my own decision?
It can also backfire in my eyes, if the comparison is misleading, and I find out through my own verification, then my trust in the company will decrease.
If you are going to do it, be honest about the tradeoffs, and as complete as possible when listing possible alternatives
Ya know, right now would be an AMAZING time for Mastodon's leadership to break bread with the Black programmers that really wanted to help make this place less racist.
Bluesky just banned a prominent Black user from basically being seen by anyone. Because Bluesky's CEO is mad about their posts. ATProto is clearly showing serious signs of weakness.
Do the people who love the Fediverse have the guts to admit we have poorly served the Black community and need to apologize? To take radical steps to show this place will be worth investing in for Black users who may want to leave Bluesky?
Now is the time to act and do so. If ever there was a time to put a massive amount of momentum behind the Fediverse, it'd be now. We should do it.
@literalgrill tools for moderation mastodon can be improved to prevent racists to have a voice. I feel like most of the time tools are underutilized though.
That being said, going beyond that and say Mastodon or Fediverse is racist reads like white guilt stuff, which is counterproductive.
@Ciela When I see almost every Black person I follow on the Fediverse discussion how there are severe issues that lead to fellow Black people not wanting to be here? It ain't white guilt.
This place has inherent problems that need to become the primary focus to change and work on to make it better for Black folks so they'll want to be here.
@literalgrill For me, the main issue is tools of moderation. For instance, being able to turn off the posts for the public posts can help people greatly, and I would like to see such implementation.
There are quite a few quite nasty instances, and yes, they ruin the experience, but at the same time, centralization would lead to something shittier.
Social media mirrors the global racism, and more extensive tools at least mitigate it.
@literalgrill Is there somewhere I can learn more about how Mastodon is failing PoC? I haven't heard anything about this so I'm curious to know more.
I'm curious is this is a callout to just the Mastodon developers specifically or to every ActivityPub software developer
The failure is evident in who isnโt here. Itโs just not diverse and there are a lot of reasons for that that go well beyond the concerns of Black usersโ The few black people who are here are all deeply nerdy& aligned with STEM/FOSS/left-tech communities: we make bad ambassadors. But *all* the ambassadors are bad and there is even a deep cultural current of NOT wanting ambassadors since itโs a secret nerd club and some people like that.
I used to try to swim up stream on this issue. I tried doing outreach (going to local non-profits to help them get set up with accounts) but I got only a few kind words and no real help.
Iโm looking at the corporate capture of the concept of the fediverse and Iโm so sad and disgusted. You sign up for bluesky and they pay lip service to โother serversโ no one but the most dialed in nerds can even tell what the difference is.
And most of why this has happened is due to bluesky having more money. I wonder when they will start manipulating users with an algorithm and pushing ads? They have already shown who matters and who doesnโtโ but your average liberal doesnโt see it yet and wonโt see it until the whole place goes the way of twitter.
The power to control social media is important. User โconsumer activismโ will always be weak in the face if this problem.
@futurebird @crocodisle This has already begun happening, just subtly. I know folks who cross post to both here and Bluesky but for some reason, certain posts on Bluesky don't seem to end up in the public feed...
These usually tend to be things discussing mental health and other important issues. I assume maybe they sometimes get labeled as "rude" or are suppressed under some other system I know nothing about.
With Bluesky's promised "zen mode" I'm concerned huge portions of its userbase will suddenly just be blocked out. And I do honestly worry it'll be used as an excuse to block out other ATProto instances.
" Mastodon's leadership "
I hate to break it to you, but the fedi doesn't work like this ...
@essjayjay I mean, the leaders behind Mastodon itself are the people I'm talking to. Who I know historically have chosen to not focus on features the Black community asked for, and even turned down *free* programming work to try and get those features in. Gagron has a name and a Mastodon account.
@literalgrill would you please give me his username? I'd like to diversify my timeline and read his position.
@literalgrill honest question: have other groups had problems with racism on mastodon or in the fediverse in general? iโm talking about asians and indigenous peoples and others (iโm asking as a canadian metis woman)
Seated statue of Kujaku Myoฬoฬ at Shoryaku-ji, #Japan, #Kamakura period. Peacocks have a handsome appearance, but it is said that they like to eat poisonous insects and poisonous snakes. However, peacocks are not affected by the poison. From this, Kujaku Myoฬoฬ is said to have the merit of removing suffering, misfortune, and worldly desires that are poisonous to humans.
#BuddhistArt #Buddhism
Hi, my name is Alesja Zoรซ Victoria. I'm 49 and I'm trans. I know a lot of you wonder whether you are too old to transition. I've started mine 4 years ago, and I've never lived a happier life. Have faith ๐ #trans #transgender #transjoy
@intershura I'm happy to hear someone being happy. I'll try to find a job and get money and transition when I move out, I'm scared. But have like anxiety what if I look ugly and old, like not to insult anyone just anxiety speaking but then like I am 20 so like idk I'm scared thinking about telling anyone
@introvertcatto it is completely normal to be anxious about transitioning, no matter whar age. You've probably grown up in a society ignorant or even hostile to trans people and transitioning takes a lot of courage for a rather vage hope of what one's life will be afterwards
I had the very same fears, like what if I will look old and ugly. And for a time transitioning felt that way. I was looking weird because I was early in transition and didn't know how to present myself. I had no clue about style or fashion or makeup. I needed time to get a hold of my feminine self. During that time I often felt hopeless and anxious, but I always knew I would never go back. The good thing is: it got better. Fast. I got in touch with my femininity bit by bit and with every step the image in the mirror became more the woman I am
Coming out was hard. I was scared I would lose people dear to me. I had to accept that in case someone would react hostile I'd have to cut them oit of my life. It has happened. Not a lot, but it has.on the flip side I met so many new people who accept and love me the way I am, more people than I'd lost. It was hard to accept that loss, but I did and good riddance
And now? People I knew for a long time keep telling me how happy and open I've become. They actually look forward to meeting me. Now that hadn't happened before. And I'm far, very far away from that ugly old woman I feared to become. You, too, will find your way eventually
@intershura I'm lucky enough to start as a young adult!
Faster than light travel is possibleโฆ kinda. Distant galaxies are receding from us at superluminal speeds. How can that be, and how can we see them if they're flying away faster than the light they emit?
Even weirder: to them, *you*re* moving FTL!
@badastro It's actually pretty simple. The laws of physics, as we understand them, state that nothing can travel through space faster than the speed of light.
However, it does not say that spacetime itself can move faster than the speed of light, which is also how black holes work. ๐ค
It's very funny to see the exact same idea and principle that was used to explain to me that lightspeed was an absolute constant, to be used to explain that it's more of a "relative absolute, actually".
Anyway, we'll see what happens. Or not. Because light. hue hue hue.
@badastro Even weirder, an object falling through the event horizon of a black hole is moving away from us at the speed of light in the exact same way.
And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying โJewish swine,โ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live inโyour nation, your peopleโis not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays.
But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.โ
โ Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45
If you're helping people sign up on here, that's great! ๐
However, I'd strongly suggest not signing up on the mastodon.social server. It's way way too large and that's dangerous (here's why https://fedi.tips/its-a-really-bad-idea-to-join-a-big-server).
I know some find choice overwhelming, so if you just want one general long-established very busy server https://mas.to is a better option for example.
There are also lots of other good servers listed at https://fedi.garden and https://joinmastodon.org/servers
@FediTips is it possible to migrate my account and keep my followers now that I'm starting to figure out how this app works?
Yes, it is! I was just about to post a follow-on to the post telling people how to move an account while keeping their followers ๐
There's a non-technical step-by-step guide to transferring your account at https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server
I know it seems scarily long but each step is very simple. I've written it that long to make each step as easy as possible. Also following this guide moves lots of other stuff too including bookmarks, account blocks etc.
@FediTips the only reason use the official instance is because I didn't understand how the platform worked and I was worried that it wouldn't be active on other instances but now seeing how many other instances and even personal instances show up on my feed i might do that I just don't feel like dealing with moderating myself is there a easy way to defederate with the not good instances automatically
Totally get that, and the official Mastodon app implies this by pushing mastodon.social on its front page too (which they shouldn't do).
You don't need to moderate if you're on another server. Other servers work exactly like mastodon.social, they have their own moderators. There's nothing special about mastodon.social except that it's way too overcrowded.
Admins on servers can easily defederate bad instances by using ready-made blocklists: https://fedi.tips/importing-ready-made-server-blocklists-on-mastodon/
@FediTips also any tips on making your website more user friendly? When I was switching to fedi stuff I used it but it's kind of hard to navigate
There are alternative web front ends people can use such as https://phanpy.social and https://elk.zone
These work with any server that runs on Mastodon or supports the Mastodon API.
@wintervoid01@mastodon.social @FediTips@social.growyourown.services if you migrate to a good instance they should already have defederated all of the bad instances, so you don't need to worry
If you're running a personal server and you keep sign-ups closed, then there wouldn't be much moderation as you would be the only person on the server.
The only stuff you would see showing up on your server is whatever you choose to follow, plus whatever they share (and also whatever relays you connect to if you want to, but relays are optional).
I run a website at https://fedi.garden that recommends instances, and the official Mastodon list is at https://joinmastodon.org/servers
These two sites are good because they have certain requirements for being listed (https://fedi.garden/about-this-site and https://joinmastodon.org/covenant).
There are also other sites with much bigger selections of servers, but they usually don't have requirements so they're more dangerous to rely on.
@FediTips @wintervoid01
"you donโt care about transferring anything else, you can skip steps 5 and 6"โฆ the people you follow are in a csv fileโฆ when I transferred from .cloud to .social my followers came over but I skipped steps 5 and 6 so I had to follow my followers manually and then pick up other follows gradually as I remembered themโฆ
Steps 5 and 6 let you transfer the other stuff (including people you follow).
You should only skip those steps if you *just* want to transfer your followers (people who follow you).
They're done by two different methods to prevent spammers cloning followers and spamming them.
@FediTips
you might include that
and also the reasoning above
Thanks for the feedback ๐
I've added another sentence to it and tweaked it, is this better?
"If you just want to move your followers (people who follow you) and don't want to transfer anything else, skip steps 5 and 6."
"If you also want to move your follows (people you follow) you need to include steps 5 and 6."
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services there are other fediverse communities to join as well, not just mastodon. there's always something which fits your requirements...โโ
p.s. If you're already on mastodon.social, you can move to a different server.
If you only just signed up and have no or very few followers, easiest option is probably to sign up on another server and forget about your mastodon.social account.
if you've already got a significant number of followers and you want to keep them, you can move your account to another server using the transfer process. There's a non-technical step-by-step guide to moving your account here: https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server
p.p.s. For people wondering why mas.to is better option than mastodon.social, here are some figures:
mastodon.social currently has ~20% of active Fediverse accounts
mas.to currently has ~1% of active Fediverse accounts
Mastodon.social is just so much larger than other servers and keeps growing, it is putting the network itself in danger.
I totally get the idea of having a single suggested server, but we need to regularly rotate which single server is suggested so we spread growth out.
@FediTips
Run a new theme every month to highlight the diversity here
I run an account at @FediGarden and a website at https://fedi.garden to highlight good well-run smaller and medium-sized servers that people can join ๐
@FediTips How is mastodon.online holding up?
Mas.to is also part of Fedipact, the instances that refused to federate Threads.
Meta has no place in the Fediverse.
Eugen at .social federated with Threads without consulting the users on .social
@FediTips
So how do I carry over my follow list? It's like 150 people.
@FediTips
That's people I follow.
That's covered in steps 5 and 6 of the transfer guide:
https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server/
@FediTips and even though Iโm biased, I think our moderation team is pretty okie-dokie. ๐ Weโre not perfect, but we care and we try hard. And we LOVE good people and Mastodon.
I have subscribed to several interesting hashtags but since I get very little traffick in mas.to I suspect it is the server. Not the hashtag.
Can I somehow follow the hashtags from another server than my own? @FediTips
@luupilotti Hi! I guess that's what groups are for. @FediTips has also a website covering them here https://fedi.tips/how-to-use-groups-on-the-fediverse/
Hope this helps. I also migrated to a smaller server using the guide lately and it was very easy.
The traffic mainly depends on what the tags are, mas.to has good connections to the Fediverse and should be getting as much as you could typically get.
But as Frankie says, groups are a way of getting exactly the same traffic on all servers. You can find more info in the link they gave (https://fedi.tips/how-to-use-groups-on-the-fediverse/).
I would advise following as many tags and groups as you can until you are seeing the amount of content you want.
Good initiative but to get larger population to the fedi instead of just us nerds, this implementation has several usability flaws.
Firstly, users would need to understand how the system technically works to be able to find posts and get visibility. This is a far fetch.
๐งต
...secondly, users will need to learn and remember to use not just hashtags but also group names. This will not happen. Only those understanding the inner works of fedi, and whom spefically want a certain distribution can use it.
This is a good use case but at the same time a fail for the need to discover like minded ones whom often are not engineers in it or tech. They just post stuff, sometimes with hashtags, sometimes forgetting....
E.g. I am intersted in steamboats in active use, and would like to have a way to find other steamheads, many of whom have no idea of fedi insides or even what a hashtag is.
Or another interest in EU CRA related topics. Thus higher changes writer knows how to use fedi.
On fedi or mastodon, are there ways to e.g. create feeds similar to Bsky?
I'm not sure exactly how the Bluesky feed operates, but it sounds somewhat similar to Fedigroups? You can apply to create one by filling the form on the front page at https://about.fedigroups.social
If you do create a group, let me know about it and I'll give it a shoutout over on @FediFollows
@FediTips They also do better with accessibility!
41% of images with alt text vs 22% (as of 2024):
https://mastodon.social/@AltTextHealthCheck/113283072378297446
@FediTips mas.to is also welcoming of well-behaved bots, while not catering directly to them. I have a few daily posting bots (including @jucikadaily) which I moved from botsin.space when it closed.
it's educational reading the comments & opinions.๐
how do i see stats on mastodon.world?
was i just randomly assigned to it?
Mastodon.world is currently just under 1% of the total active Fediverse, based on what's at https://fedidb.com
You wouldn't have been randomly assigned, but there are many ways you might have joined. At some point you (or someone helping you?) would probably have chosen mastodon.world from a list of some kind? Or maybe you got an invitiation?
@FediTips this is extremely interesting info. ๐โ๐๐๐ ๐ฆ๐๐ข ๐
Don't know how i got on Finland, but i'm very happy to be here๐๐ i loved my time there, irl, & have a good friend there, who i ironically, convinced to get on bsky so we could at least chat when i abandoned fb & whatsapp
now i'm banned from bsky & they still haven't given me my shit back๐คฌ๐คฌ๐คฌ
speaking of meta, i heard threads is on the fediverse, but didn't see them. i have so many questions. thanks for the resource๐
@FediTips how do you switch servers?
There's a complete step-by-step guide here, and it answers lots of questions about the process too:
https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server/
@FediTips I did this not long ago and it worked smoothly
Woo, brilliant to hear! ๐ฅณ
What about people who want to connect with more local folks -- like they were in the bird-x-land? US-based people in the FDVS seem to be _mostly_ tech workers and people with a bunch of free time.
I'm on my second and a half instance but lost everything from the first instance and many followers. This instance is fine but I don't get a lot of interaction and it's not helping with our modern isolation problems and I have a pixelfed but similar lack of interaction or "being seen".
@FediTips
Nice guide ๐
I totaly agree with you.
There's something else bothering me about Mastdon (mainly about dev) Long story short: i tried to make my own server last year, but just can't. Basicaly I wanted to use Mastodon as the activitypub engine, add front-end on top of it. But I had so many issues. The community didn't help, at all.
I'm starting to think it's on purpose.
Now i'm coding a full activitypub server, with xmpp userbase.
I hope more dev will know about AP, XMPP & fedi stuff
There are also many other Fediverse platforms apart from Mastodon, for example GoToSocial is looking pretty good ๐
Hmmm
It was tempting at first but i'm not fluent in go ๐
Also npm or JS stuff server side is a no go for me. So there's that.
Anyway, enough of my life ๐คช
My point is : mastodon is not what it says it is. It's not for the masses, It's a bit community driven, but not realy, mostly monolitic, not so well documented, heavy and tricky to install.
And i think this is by design.
@FediTips I think, I may disagree with you, but feel free to discuss as Im not into the debate :)
months ago, I wrote what I call a simple guide to join & use Mastodon in Indonesian and for newbies.
in my written guide, I suggest the peoples to join mastodon.social first. the reason is always the overwhelm over the plenty choice of instances, & also to get the newbies immediately jump into onboard of Fediverse.
immediately telling them about how decentralization & federation works, makes them more overwhelmed too, as they're used into the centralized system. my main expectation: let them to be in mastodon.social (or any big instances) first. as the time passes, they'll slowly learn what is Fediverse, decentralization, federation, etc., than immediately told them, and they're overwhelmed and get bored easily.
I think, this is how "the blue butterfly" platforms does that they can got more sign-ups in the name of "decentralized", where seems their decentralization system is still "over paper", and when something bad happened, user still had no or less options to left from the same network.
where in Fediverse, of course, if something bad happened in mastodon.social, peoples can easily migrate and jump into any instances.
in my written guide, I only explain them a little bit how decentralization works, but didn't force them to understands fully. of course, as my guide is written for Indonesian audiences, I also suggest fedi.my.id as the second instance I recommend after mastodon.social as that instance is created by Indonesian for Indonesian. and also I include a guide how to migrate account from mastodon.social into other instance, example: mstdn.party.
we may have disagreement over this, but again, I also thanked much to you too, for providing a complete guide about Fediverse for who wish wanna to learn about it more that I simply can't cover in my capacity. and I already include your site in my guide as a "Further References" ๐ค
I understand not wanting to overwhelm people with choice, but why not just suggest mas.to instead of mastodon.social?
It's just as easy to sign up on mas.to, and just as easy to use, but it would be a much better option for the health of the network.
Mastodon.social is currently 20% of the network while mas.to is just 1%, which makes mas.to much healthier for the network as a whole. (You don't need to tell new people this part though if it's overwhelming them.)
@FediTips yeah, I think my main reason why I suggest mastodon.social is its simply "officially" managed by the Mastodon gGmbH, the main developer of the Mastodon itself.
as I previously said, as my written guide is for Indonesian audiences, I also suggest them to join Indonesian instances such as fedi.my.id and/or misskey.id (powered by Misskey, connected with Fediverse), as signing up into English instances may overwhelming them too, like they'll only found English/German speaking posts that shares European/American affairs that may irrelevant for Indonesians.
and also I didn't forget to told them to check the official lists, so they can look other non-Indonesian speaking instances if they didn't wish to join the bigger mastodon.social. its good too, if at the end they can end up into mas.to, mstdn.party, mstdn.social, etc., and I told them they can still use & follow my guide as the process & the interfaces will much likely same too like Im signing up into mastodon.social, and not need to worry if their friends will end-up in other instances as they'll eventually connected each other, regardless about the instance :)
"I think my main reason why I suggest mastodon.social is its simply "officially" managed by the Mastodon gGmbH, the main developer of the Mastodon itself."
I don't understand why that makes mastodon.social a server to recommend?
@FediTips thats it, like mastodon.social is kinda like "defacto" & "main" instance of Mastodon, that organized by the developer itself.
maybe, I can add this answer: my main approach while writing the guide is, how if me being positioned as a newbies? like:
let say, I didn't need to know over the choices. choices can be overwhelmed me. when lookup "joinmastodon.org", its immediately recommended to join mastodon.social. wanna to pick other server? okey, I need to join Mastodon ASAP or I need to compare the plenty of instances one by one? I think mastodon.social & mas.to have its advantages and disadvantages? should I took that for consideration? oh look mstdn.social, should I join mstdn.social then? oh look toot.community, should I join toot.community instead?
with this approach, I can see, newbies might wasting time and overwhelmed over choices, or joining the ship first ASAP, although for first its was the bigger mastodon.social. I agree the part if the mastodon.social is too big and might unhealthy, but I believe, as time passed, the newbies can learn about the choices and migrate later when they found an instance that they see its fit for them (or even good if they can selfhosting for themselves)
I often see people posting an intro or something saying they finally joined Mastodon, posted from mastodon.social. Itโs always tempting to suggest they migrate right away to another instance, but I donโt want to scare them off.
I wonder if more could be done up front to provide random assignment to a group of open, general-purpose instances or something.
My only complaint about mas.to is low char limits. And thatโs it. lol
Why the constant criticism of mastodon.social? Instead of welcoming the fact that people are joining the Fediverse through mastodon.social, the instance is being worked against. That, for me, shows the central problem of decentralized networks: instead of being happy about growth and supporting each other, people work against one another.
Warum die stรคndige Kritik an mastodon.social? Anstatt die Tatsache zu begrรผรen, dass Menschen รผber mastodon.social dem Fediverse beitreten, wird gegen die Instanz gearbeitet. Das zeigt fรผr mich das zentrale Problem dezentraler Netzwerke: Anstatt sich รผber Wachstum zu freuen und sich gegenseitig zu unterstรผtzen, arbeiten die Menschen gegeneinander.
@FediTips how do I know if I'm doing it right?
@th3haccoon @FediTips it's the bit after your username. So mine is lgbtqia.space, from @ mx verda @ lgbtqia.space whereas yours is infosec.exchange, from @ th3haccoon @ infosec.exchange, like FediTips said.
Yeah, you can find out more about your Fediverse address here: https://fedi.tips/whats-my-accounts-address-how-do-i-follow-other-peoples-addresses-how-can-people-follow-my-address
If you want to, you can log into your account on your server's website instead of an app. The website is usually the same as the name of the server, so for you it would be https://infosec.exchange ๐ This is particularly useful on a computer.
@FediTips FWIW I'm reasonably sure Facebook never supported XMPP federation. They supported logging in via XMPP with a regular XMPP client (c2s) but they didn't support s2s. Meaning you could only chat with other Facebook users.
GTalk had federation and it was somewhat bad when they shut that down. But I don't remember Facebook's XMPP access being very relevant for the larger ecosystem.
@daniel @FediTips I agree that it would be a better example. Wikipedia has decent references if you'd like to update the article: https://support.google.com/talk/?hl=en&sjid=7890123663244584468-EU
@FediTips Can we copy this post over to other social media? Say bluesky for example...
@FediTips I honest I become be more happy I deleted account on BlueSky and Reddit too. I donโt like toxic place hurt Trans community I wish they leave them alone and I hope more Trans people join Mastodon it better for them to stay safe and enjoying read posts right information and support friendly with Trans community.
Thousands of sites using the popular #Ghost platform are now Fediverse compatible, so you can follow them from Mastodon etc ๐ฅณ
Here's how to discover and follow them:
1. Go to https://explore.ghost.org
2. Click category tab you want (swipe categories right to see more)
3. Click on a site to preview, then box-arrow icon to go to it
4. Copy the site's domain name
5. Paste @ index @ (domain name) into the search box in Mastodon etc without spaces
6. Click the profile and then "Follow"
@FediTips unfortunately this does not seem to work when the "ghost" is not the index of a (sub)domain... for instance https://www.bio-sourced.com/blog/ I don't know what the right handle should be, then.
Anyway, would definitely be useful if they could auto-generate the fediverse handle as a link next to the rss feed icon... (though the rss feed also does not seem to work for this site)
Yeah, it doesn't work 100% of the time. As well as the directory/domain issue, some of the sites don't have Fedi compatibility switched on.
However, after going through hundreds of the ones listed it does seem to work for most of them so far.
As a workaround I've been curating the sites and adding the good ones that work to fedi.directory so people can easily follow them by just copy-pastng the Fedi address. You can see the ones I've added so far at https://fedi.directory/tag/ghost
@FediTips This is an accessibility nightmare! When I went to the site, I saw slides and whatnot, but below that were normal links for the categories. I clicked on oneand it brought me to the list for that specific category. But each newsletter was presented as a button, not a link. When I tried to click on them, nothing happened. I switched from Firefox to Supermium but that didn't help. I am using Windows 11 and NVDA.
Thanks for this headsup, that sounds awful! I can't find anything mentioning accessibility on their site either.
For what it's worth, I'm currently manually curating the good Ghost accounts onto fedi.directory at https://fedi.directory/tag/ghost which is hopefully more accessible. It's unfortunately just a big long list in the Ghost category but the same accounts appear in their respective topics on the https://fedi.directory site alongside Mastodon and other accounts.
@FediTips This is excellent! I love how each one is under a different heading, so they are easy to navigate!
p.s. This doesn't work for 100% of Ghost sites, but it seems to work for most of them. It depends on whether they have Fediverse compatibility switched on.
p.p.s. I know the discovery process above is fiddly, which is why I've started manually curating good quality Ghost sites that are Fedi compatible on fedi.directory along with their Fediverse addresses. You can browse the ones listed so far at https://fedi.directory/tag/Ghost and just paste the addresses straight into your Mastodon etc search box.
p.p.p.s. If you are finding this all a bit complicated and you just want to click on an account and follow it, you can see lots of good Ghost accounts listed in the latest post thread over at @FediFollows
(Don't worry if an account looks blank, this is normal. This is caused by being the first person from your server to follow an account, but new posts by the account will show up as they are published.)
@FediTips โจ In the 1800s, artists imagined the year 2000โฆ Flying machines, futuristic cities & inventions that will blow your mind ๐คฏ
๐ 100+ rare vintage illustrations
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๐ https://payhip.com/b/WoZE7 Grab your time machine now!
#RetroFuture #VintageArt #Futurism #TimeTravel #Ebook #HistoryLovers #HistoricalArt #Steampunk #SciFiArt #IndieAuthor #BookLovers #CollectorsEdition #MindBlowing
Tested with Emojipedia. Your instructions said to copy the domain, but the sub domain was also needed.
So...
"@index"
It took forever before a result popped up.
No problem subscribing.
Only problem was that none of the five existing posts were visible, but I guess/hope new posts will work better
Thanks for the tip!
Yeah, I couldn't fit the word subdomain in the character limit ๐ so I assumed people would guess.
The first time you enter the address on a particular server it can take a while to resolve, but after that it should come up straight away.
As with all Fedi accounts, if you're the first person to follow from your server it may look blank but posts made from this moment onwards should start showing up when they're published.
Oooh! @GrapheneOS just added support for RCS in Google Messages.
https://grapheneos.org/releases#2025092700
Regardless of whether you use a 3rd party OS, do you use RCS messaging?
Yes! I use RCS.: | 50 |
No! I don't use RCS.: | 94 |
I don't know. Maybe?: | 36 |
I want to argue about something.: | 1 |
Closed
@Edent @GrapheneOS depends how you define "use".
Regularly no, it tends to be some messaging app. It is enabled though and i have sent messages using it occasionally
@Edent @GrapheneOS I'd love to use it more. Sadly, there's no support for RCS on iPhones in my country.
@Edent
I think it happens automatically on my phone but no idea what percentage of messages go over it.
@GrapheneOS
@Edent @GrapheneOS RCS is good, RCS using google servers is not. Give communication data to google is same as WhatsApp and other gafam messaging... Better use signal or telegram
@kazord @Edent We plan to make our own RCS app including support for the new MLS end-to-end encryption standard that's going to be implemented by both Apple and Google in the future. However, it should be noted that RCS is largely a Google service and carriers have nearly all delegated most of it to Google. Carriers are expected to host some part of it themselves but it still seems to be largely a Google service in most cases. Even using RCS on an iOS is essentially a Google service.
@kazord @Edent It doesn't really make it any worse than it would be hosted by carriers. It's giving metadata to multiple carriers and parties they share that with based on being tied to carriers. If anything, Google largely hosting it makes it a lot more secure and they have better privacy practices than carriers. Carriers likely never would have provided end-to-end encryption themselves. In general, RCS is not a good thing beyond replacing SMS and being usable for people without a specific app.
@kazord @Edent RCS with E2EE is a massive upgrade over SMS, that's all. RCS without E2EE is just more usable than SMS which in many ways is a bad thing without E2EE since it encourages using it. iOS currently only has RCS without E2EE. Apple has been gatekeeping E2EE as something only available between iOS users via iMessage rather than allowing secure communication between iOS and Android. They've said that's going to change, at some point, but they're dragging their feet on shipping it.
@GrapheneOS @Edent RCS was intented to be host by carrier, they didn't want to pay the associated upkeep ( software and server cost)
Google took it to fight against iMessage.
E2E or not metadata is there, I let my carrier know my number and location, I dont want google to have it, and serve me more ad...
OpenBSD -current has moved to version 7.8 #openbsd
https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20251001044004
Last night I laid in bed thinking about what animals would look like if they were crossbred with giraffes, and then spent a long time thinking about whether there was any species that even physically could do so. Even Elephants would have trouble I would think. But like if a Giraffe did manage to impregnate another animal, what if the baby got both the long legs and the crazy neck, they would probably need a C Section. Anyway, I checked there are no species that can interbreed with Giraffes, they branched too far off, they adapted too hard. Even other types of Giraffes rarely mate.
@RickiTarr my daughter says sheโs going to draw a frog-giraffe for you, and then thought about it more and laughed and milk spilled out of her mouth. Will post the drawing when ready
๐ blog! โCan you use GDPR to Circumvent BlueSky's Adult Content Blocks?โ
In the battle between the Online Safety Act and GDPR, who will win? FIGHT!
I'll start by saying that I'm moderately positive on Online Safety. If services don't want to provide moderation then they shouldn't let their younger users be exposed to harm.
The social networkโฆ
๐ Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/
โธป
#BlueSky #gdpr #OnlineSafety
Or just give up on bluteski, forever
@kevinrns I'm curious, did you read my blog post?
I considered this the pertinent, completely accurate point.
"If services don't want to provide moderation then they shouldn't let their younger users be exposed to harm."
We can all help protect users from bluesky. Its an job, an avocation, a duty.
Stay off bluesky, contagious enshittification deepens.
@kevinrns
So you didn't read this bit?
but since you have a post about brid.gy, you probably already knew that :)
@Edent Interesting. Incidentally didn't they violate GDPR by not requesting an extension to the SAR within 1 month?
Going to the shop, does anyone want anything?
@astronomerritt Coffee beans, we just bought a burr grinder and would love to test it out...
@RegGuy genuinely donโt know if my local corner shop stocks coffee beans but it actually might, itโs surprised me before
@astronomerritt I was surprised to find my local place does after we decided to buy a grinder. We got a really nice one on sale and not boosted by tariff tax. So a big win for us.
@astronomerritt World peace, and an end to hunger. But only if you have room in your bag.
@astronomerritt
pint of milk
nice bikkies
oh, can you pick up some marbles while you're there? I seem to have lost mine
@charism8 if my local Spar stocked marbles Iโd be much saner than I am now
did get some nice bikkies though. practically mandatory innit? if you have to go to the shop you deserve a reward for going.
@astronomerritt The subtle level of charming comedy in your posts keeps me coming back for more...@charism8
@RegGuy This is lovely of you to say, but I am pretty sure that among the people of Northern Ireland I am considered less funny than average ๐
@astronomerritt Ah, but I have but a touch (great-grandmother) of Irish in me, so it still tickles me funny bone.
@astronomerritt A fallen leaf collected on the way?
@MartinVuilleme thereโs certainly a lot of them!
(unfortunately I just got back, else I would have picked one up for real!)
@astronomerritt If you could somehow track down a Mars Delight that would be amazing (RIP to a real one)
@DrChris unfortunately my local Spar does not exist outside of space and time (though I swear some do)
@astronomerritt am I too late to ask for a Double Decker?
@astronomerritt I left Ireland with entirely too few Starbar Duos. Could you grab a handful and hurl them west for me, please?
@bucknam winding up for it as we speak
(I've never actually tried one of these! they definitely sell them at the shop so I'll grab one next time I'm there)
@astronomerritt can you see if they've got any tuits. Preferably the round ones.
@dburke now there's a joke I've not heard since I was a kid :D
@astronomerritt Well, I did buy my folks a bowl with this joke on a school trip to Ironbridge, many many many moons ago.
@sam Thank you so much! That's great to know. And yes of course, you can make this request (and any other feature suggestions or bug reports) on our official feedback forums:
You can also upvote and comment on this related request here:
https://kagifeedback.org/d/7527-kagi-translate-should-be-able-to-translate-images
My device is an Amazfit Band 7
@sam
I'm afraid we have no such feature. The only way to do this currently is to export your database, edit it to add an activity, then import it again. So, practically impossible for most people.
But there is always our issue tracker where you can request new features. Not sure if you're the same person, but this specific feature was requested there just yesterday: https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge/issues/5416
#RaspberryPi 500+ Launches as the Ultimate All-In-One #Linux PC Based on Raspberry Pi 5 16GB RAM and Featuring a Mechanical Keyboard with RGB LEDs https://9to5linux.com/raspberry-pi-500-launches-as-the-ultimate-all-in-one-pc-based-on-raspberry-pi-5
I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:
Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time."
-- The Mower, by Philip Larkin
I finally bit the bullet and spun up my own instance. I've picked a fun domain name that others might end up enjoying too, but for now it's just me, myself, and I.
It's running on #Snac2 on a Hetzner (ARM64!) instance in Germany, so the connection is a bit slow for me as I live in Asia, but should be fine for most everyone else I suppose. I could have put it on a Vultr instance, but this'll do for now.
Other than this.. nothing new to report? You may know me from the #BitBang #Mastodon instance, but since I've been wanting to give self-hosting a try, I figured now is as good a time as any to actualy try.
Now onto figuring out everything else surrounding self-hosting something like this ๐ .
Do say hi, if you'd like!
Mwuhahahahaha. Minty Jazz bass acquired
@morachbeag that's a nice color
@mynameistillian ain't it lovely? If you look up the same one in all fenders promo crap they make it look like badger puke in their photos, but in real life, minty goodness
@morachbeag badger puke sounds like a grindcore band name
but also i lowkey hate how so many guitars have so little customisation options...i would kill for a black/cherry red superstrat
@mynameistillian heh. The perfect name!
Oooo cherry and black would be damn nice
@sam yeah I figured I had enough sunburst in my life๐
I'd love to have a crack at building something
Better toss my cellphone since I donโt charge it while out of the house!
@georgetakei The same old stupid lies the oil companies have been trying to implant into the minds of the stupid since the 80s.
@georgetakei haha wow a classic "anti wind/solar energy" talk point I've heard in france in the last few years too...
I guess I should remove the solar panels from my roof and stop charging our EV and running the house for about $7 per month. What a scam.
@georgetakei I got a real charge out of this post. I'm storing it up for a day when I need a good laugh!
@georgetakei For several months of the year my battery will hold enough charge from the solar panels during the day that it can power the house overnight.
And that's not counting the winter days when there's so much wind power being generated that the utility is giving it away for free so I charge my battery up.
@georgetakei solar is useless due to lower capacity when it gets over 65 degrees, wind, inconsistent. You want reliable clean energy go nuclear.
I'm paying Google ~100 euros a month for their services and the privilege of publishing Conversations on the Play Store.
For a week now, I have been unable to release any updates because I'm still hoping to talk to someone at Google about their false accusation that I'm collecting users' email addresses, and any publication would reset my slot in the queue.
Rhonda you dumb bitch
Laurie you dumb bitch
RaeDonna you dumb bitch
Michael you dumb bitch
Faith Ann you dumb bitch
Jim you dumb bitch
Carrie you dumb bitch
https://radaronline.com/p/carrie-underwood-tennessee-farm-crisis-animals-risk/
Rachel you dumb bitch
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/opinion/medicaid-conservative.html
Kimberly you dumb bitch
Austin you dumb bitch
Aaron you dumb bitch
Breck you dumb bitch
Michael you dumb bitch
Ran you dumb bitch
Eri you dumb bitch
Steven you dumb bitch
Chris you dumb bitch
Iris you dumb bitch
James you dumb bitch
Joseph you dumb bitch
Nora you dumb bitch
Lisa you dumb bitch
Ela you dumb bitch
Rick you dumb bitch
Mark you dumb bitch
Jason you dumb bitch
Anne you dumb bitch
Vick you dumb bitch
Christian you dumb bitch
Michael you dumb bitch
Stephanie you dumb bitch
Evan you dumb bitch
Joseph you dumb bitch
Robert you dumb bitch
Steven you dumb bitch
Pamela you dumb bitch
Syndee you dumb bitch
Frank you dumb bitch
Mercy you dumb bitch
Glenn you dumb bitch
John you dumb bitch
Anthony you dumb bitch
Jacob you dumb bitch
Jensy you dumb bitch
I have always been amazed how so many voters vote against their own self insert.
They vote and elect candidates who WILL harm them. The fail to see what is in store for them, in spite of listening to what is said.
"bizarro" world stuff
@bici "they vote against their own self interests"
No. No they don't.
Their interests are racism.
They voted for the racist.
Their interests are white supremacy.
They voted for the white supremacist.
Their interests are misogyny.
They voted for the misogynist.
Their interests are transphobia.
They voted for the transphobe.
Their interests are fascism.
They voted for the fascist.
YOUR interests are equality and prosperity for all people. They voted against YOUR interests.
Dnipro city is under very heavy missile attack (on top of the kamikaze drones).
The world still does too little to stop russia. #Ukraine #UkrainianView
Last Thursday, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who is the head of the Catholic Italian Bishopsโ Conference, led a prayer vigil in Marzabotto, Italy. He began by reading aloud the names of every Palestinian child killed by Israel since their genocide began.
It took 7 hours.
Just to read the names of the children.
Anyone who isn't disgusted and horrified by this needs to get their humanity card checked.
Towards the end of last night I decided to shoot M45 - The Pleiades. For me this is a very special cluster because it has almost the same story associated with it across the entire world. Almost everywhere in the world it is some variation on seven sisters being chased by a man (Orion). This consistency is unique in the myths and stories associated with the stars, and the sort of thing that makes amateur cultural anthropologists overly excited.
Here I have used two similar telescopes, but with different filters. The blue one was shot using a basic light pollution filter, and the green with an Ha/OIII filter. The overall exposures are similar (50-59minutes), and the post-processing is similar. The green one was shot on a #DwarfII, and the blue on a #Dwarf3.
The different orientations are because I had packed up the DwarfII, expecting clouds that had appeared earlier to build up, whereas what actually happened was they dispersed. So I set it out again, but only in Alt/Az mode rather than EQ.
#Astronomy #Astrodon #astrophotography #Snapseed #M45 #Pleiades
Deep beneath your feet, two enormous blobs (technically known as BLOBs) sit at the top of Earth's core. They may be remnants of a protoplanet that collided with ours 4.5 billion years ago.
New evidence suggests they're still linked to volcanic eruptions today.
https://eos.org/articles/blame-it-on-the-blobs #science #nature #earth
$2.99 Ebook/$21.49 Paperback:
https://books2read.com/TymeStarwitch
https://www.amazon.com/Starwitch-Book-Newts-Owen-Tyme/dp/B0FD2Q4RLN
https://owentyme.itch.io/starwitch
The dreaded, undead queen of the pirates kidnapped Amelia Blackwell's sisters and left her ship damaged, with almost zero fuel. Without her sisters, Amelia is a dead woman, so she mounts a desperate attack on the pirate's mountain-sized star ship, despite how slim the odds are...
@fantasy @scifi
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #actionadventure #fiction
Debian 13 "trixie" is released with Ceratopsian by Elise Couper as its default theme, featured across wallpapers, installer, and login screens. https://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/Ceratopsian #debian #debian13 #trixie #ReleasingDebianTrixie
Age verification is here, and now UK Redditors canโt access their favorite LGBTQ+, political, or public health communities without destroying their anonymity. Help us fight to avoid this future. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/08/americans-be-warned-lessons-reddits-chaotic-uk-age-verification-rollout
can someone tell me why people with the surname smith are more common than others like cook or baker or fletcher
11 years ago, the most explosive #political controversy erupted in the #USA:
President #Obama wore a tan suit
A #Republican said then:
"There's no way, I don't think, any of us can excuse what the president did yesterday. I mean, you have the world watching"
2 things:
1. the heaven of: that's our "big problem"
2. how the fuck did morons whining about a tan suit come to prevail, when they are such a fucking joke?
how did deranged lying outrage kill this country?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_tan_suit_controversy
"Around the World in 80 trees"
Jonathan Drori & Lucille Clerk
You may not know that you are interested in trees - or that you need this book in your life. But you do.
I bought this on a whim as a present for partner and it has been my morning coffee lecture for the last weeks. (I'm trying to read something instead of doomscrolling for a better start of the day). A few trees are just the perfect length for a cup. I learned so much & the illustrations are so beautiful ๐