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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • I agree with the intent but not the method here. I think the fediverse usually waits for activity before proceeding with its usual systems and that should probably apply here.

    I say, if a magazine has zero activity after the first month, it should have a public flag on it “Inactive” when someone visits. If someone wants to take over, they’ll automatically get control. But I think it’s okay to leave the space for people to post there, without necessarily assuming they want control over it too.

    I think inactive moderators should be handled slightly differently. One month seems too short to demote them. I say if a magazine has had no moderator log in for 3 months, the magazine is marked “No Leadership” and anyone who asks gets promoted, but let’s leave the demoting or deletions to real humans to review and commit to.


  • The fediverse should be more resistant to this (I hope). The people in charge of instances are pretty comparable to super moderators since they both can control a lot of internet real estate. The fediverse’s response to bad instance owners is to just switch to an instance that’s run in a way that you like better. Or even better, make a new instance that’s less bad!

    If there’s an instance with a problem super moderator, then the same solution should work right? Go elsewhere, or make a new magazine. If there’s a single problem user dominating all communities in multiple instances, well. Time to start “@free.folk” or whatever lmao.


  • I love your question! I think these words are examples of a trochee!

    In English poetic metre and modern linguistics, a trochee (/ˈtroʊkiː/) is a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one.

    It’s usually easy to recognize a word that’s a trochee because it’ll sound like kids TV show title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Power Ranger Mega Turtles lol.

    In this case, it’s trochaic dimeter because there’s two trochees. “LET’S-go RAN-gers!” You may have heard of iambic pentameter, somehow that one always seems popular to people. Well an iamb is just the reverse of a trochee, and pentameter means you’d put five of them on each line.

    Now that you know what trochees are, you’re gonna see 'em everywhere. Or maybe that’s just me lol.

    Edit: For extra fun, what do you think is going on with the clapping afterwards? I feel like we’re doing something with this at the end, but it’s late and I should go to sleep hahah. Good luck!






  • Huh, okay! I’m mostly nodding along in agreement here.

    I was never much of a social media user, however, I think one thing that reddit did right was the awards. Unfortunately, the moderators likely didn’t see any of that income (something to keep in mind considering the budding state of alt social platforms). Point being, I think something like that is much more rewarding than an upvote, while a conversation outweighs both.

    Interesting, that’s unexpected! I’m surprised because I see huge piles of reddit awards as pretty comparable to huge blocks of discord emoji reactions, and you said you don’t want the emojis lol. Do you just like that actual money was committed, or what’s going on here?

    I think we should very cautiously approach how we handle money and transactions affect anything around here, so… strong hesitation lol.

    I’d argue that it isn’t healthy at all. But this circles back to the clout chasing argument. I think healthy discussion is going to give a user more than an arrow can ever give, while also promoting critical thinking and the development of more substantial connections among users and the community.

    Huh. Okay, well. My initial reaction is confusion, but I’m willing to review my beliefs lol.

    So of course, healthy discussion is incredibly valuable and positive. But what if I don’t really have anything meaningful to say?

    For example, imagine I see a thread where someone has refinished their bench (probably in a woodworking or DIY kind of magazine). Let’s say I arrive late to the thread too, so plenty of people have already asked all the interesting questions like techniques, what products were used, origins of the bench etc. So usually this is where I’d just upvote lol.

    I don’t want to pass by with no interaction, so… I guess I’ll pick random small talk so they know I like it? “Neat! Can’t wait to see your next project!” or something?

    So instead of 25 high quality comments and 60 upvotes, that thread likely ends with 50 comments of which half really just say “Nice!” (+ an unknown amount of upvotes). I suppose it’s nicer to hear the specific words of encouragement, but it is certainly much more effort and likely a poorer noise:signal in the comments lol.



  • Discouraging Clout Chasing Behaviors:
    Promoting Content Quality and Relevance:

    I see your goal here, but how would this actually work? Like what buttons does the user see?

    Are we all still collectively deciding what counts as valuable contributions? If so, this sounds veryyy similar to what we already have using either upvotes or boosts lol.

    • “Agreement” sounds like an upvote. I like this content.
    • “Mark as quality” sounds like a boost. More people should see this.

    So what metric(s) do you actually want implemented?

    alternative ways to measure influence and impact (insightful comments, fostering discussions, valuable contributions).

    If those are the buttons you think we should have, I don’t think the internet can be objective enough to make these reliably more useful than an upvote.

    If I see buttons saying “Insightful / Fosters Discussion / Valuable”, I’m mostly going to just hit any or all of them when I like the content. And I’ll click none of them when I dislike content, 'cause duh that’s not insightful or valuable!

    So what should we actually do to achieve these noble goals?


    Engagement, interactions, relevance, and authenticity

    Ehh, sorting by interactions can encourage excess commenting or spamming near content you want promoted. More interactions doesn’t necessarily mean higher quality. I’m commenting several times on this post, but it could have been one commentary for the exact same content. Should this thread’s quality be treated differently based on my format?

    Unfortunately, engagement is highest around controversial topics, which again doesn’t necessarily indicate the highest quality content.

    I’m pretty sure sorting by relevance is how YouTube & TikTok try to serve you content, but I don’t think we should aspire to black box algorithms.


    Agh, I swear I’m not trying to just shoot down all your ideas. I’m trusting based on your writing that you’re open to collective constructive criticism. You’re obviously thinking here, thinking more than most people do lol.

    It’s just that this is a very complex issue, that will need very nuanced solutions. Humans have spent a heck of a lot of time, money and effort trying to figure about it, and we still seem to get it wrong a lot haha.



  • Hmm, I think I understand your goals here, but I don’t fully understand their implementation. I’m gonna reply in sections because you deserve nuanced response!

    Hiding Voting Metrics:

    Okay, so I participated in a similar discussion about removing downvotes recently.


    Right off the bat, one of the key concerns here is that the technology we’re using makes all voting public as a baseline. You can opt to close your own eyes (hide them for yourself or for your instance), but other people or instances will still see the votes because ActivityPub transfers information as “users acting upon other content.”

    So unfortunately this may be a hard feature to shift without fediverse-wide agreement (or fediverse splintering).


    Anyways, I have some concerns about the actual goal here, because we can’t actually prevent all fear of judgement or backlash. Anytime you say anything, someone can disagree with you by text comment, which can be very strong disagreement while staying within normal moderation limits.

    But! I can see that mitigating the effects of voting may reduce the punishments for participating outside narrow echo-chambers, and that seems important. Even if I don’t think this is the correct solution, it is a worthwhile discussion!

    I propose making downvotes have no effect on reputation. It’s okay to know people disagree with you. We just reduce the extent a downvote harms users. I’m even willing to make upvotes have no effect on reputation either, to address some of your later concerns.

    This would let people casually agree/disagree with comments as we all seem to like doing. Rather than committing to a full comment when I don’t have a meaningful contribution, a little upvote feels like the correct way to say “Nice!” vs no response and letting the author think they aren’t being seen. But benign voting would be for just that specific content with no further ramifications lol.

    I do find vote counts have benefits for me, letting me feel the pulse of community response, and I’m idealistic about finding a healthy medium!