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I'm going to talk about sexual harassment online for just a little bit here.
Bear with me.
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Like many women online, I get sexual harassment in waves here on the good ol' fediverse.
Today was a rough day, other days are less rough, all of it is unwelcome, and that's a bigger problem than one online community. I don't expect Mastodon (or any other ActivityPub thing) to solve that problem 100%.
When I see it, I block it. Often enough it's a bad server, and I defederate.
This impacts the visibility of the comment.
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Why ... just why can't so many people just behave ordinary and decent?
This is just sad. So sad 
So here's what happens practically:
First, I get a disgusting remark (or several) and block/defederate/whatever.
This remark does not pass through to other servers, who often enough *also* are blocking/defederating/whatever.
That means you, dear end-user, don't know that any of this happened.
So when I say something like "harassment is rough today", you're not seeing what I saw.
I personally feel like that's a problem. It gets in the way of understanding the scope of the issue.
I don't need to see you being harassed to believe that you are when you say it.
I understand that there's clearly a bunch of people who fucking do, because some people can only learn from things they experience directly.
Folks, dudes, please believe women.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want to host harassment and share it around. I get vile nightmare fuel you don't want to see.
Defederating is a good solution. But I feel strongly that Mastodon (as the putative leader pushing the protocol) could do two things.
One would be to make it easier to share naughty-lists full of bad actors in real time. This would help stop issues before they start.
The other is blocking replies.
I know, I know. "Blocking replies is impossible". "You can't stop people from disagreeing with you on the internet".
I've heard it all, and don't really care.
Here's my proposal: much like how I can set the post visibility here, I should be able to tell my server to drop any replies to that post.
Not "don't send notifications about replies". Drop them. Don't host them.
And compliant servers would honor that request in the UI.
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I'm not asking to regulate your speech, dudes.
I'm saying I don't want to host it in certain contexts. And I think it'd be nice if the popular server software enabled that.
This would make the choice of "post or stay quiet" a lot easier here. This might encourage more folks from marginalized communities to come here instead of Bluesky or other platforms.
It might help *grow* this space. And I care about that.
"But how does blocking replies promote speech?"
Good question. Let's imagine selfies.
I don't share a ton of selfies because I get creepy comments.
I would almost certainly post more photos if I could tell my server "drop all replies that aren't from people I follow".
The lack of reply limiting is causing me to self-censor.
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"But Veronica, you can mute posts containing certain words!"
True. And I do. But that stops *me* from seeing it. My server still hosts the harassment in that case. It's sending it to other servers.
I don't like that. Ethically that feels very bad. And potentially dangerous.
I want more control over what my server hosts. And the fact that I don't have that control? That's a choice from the folks pushing the protocol.
Fin
I'm hoping for a good solution to be found. You should not have to deal with harassment.
@hamkaas I don't see value in private accounts, personally.
If I want to share with friends I have group chats. The entire reason I post on social media is to be social with a broader community.
On the Mastodon i did it only once. But on boardgamearena... boah, hundreds of bad players (incl. their behavior).
Some really good ideas here.
Sorry harrassment is a thing. That sucks.
Be better, men.
I wish I could just thanos-snap those people out of existence.
Yes. I'm saying harassers don't deserve to exist, if it offends you, fuck you.
@Johns_priv people have a right to exist, human rights are universal for everyone; not 'some humans rights'; this is not up for debate,
stop trying to make everyones rights conditonal; stop trying to make it something that can be be tossed out whenever someone fucking feels like it; if "people have a fundamental right to exist" offends you; and is a 'problem' to you, then you are part of the problem; fuck you,
I don't have a computer science degree but I don't think people cease to exist if someone blocks them from replying to their post.
@Li @Johns_priv @vkc
💯. I don't get 1% of the trash you do, and managing who shows up in my posts is something I've wanted for years. I'd say that's the number-one feature request I see discussed on here, honestly.
Vicious abuse is a serious problem, to be sure, and a lot of us are deeply, bone-level tired of other forms of obnoxiousness as well: drive-by snark, tone cops, debate trolls, and other pests.
I can't count how many times I didn't share something bc of what I imagined the replies would sound like.
Christ. Yeah, exactly—that's the core counterpoint to the "just mute/block" argument. I don't want some troublemaker's nonsense defacing my work. It isn't just offensive to me, it also drives away other people who I do want to interact with.
I've participated in over two decades' worth of online communities at this point, and the "speech at all costs" principle that seems to define the thinking around these things has *never* resulted in better, more fulfilling interactions. Not even once.
I'm not marginalized in any way that really matters, and it'd even help *me*. I'm forever self-censoring - I'll type out a reply, then think "ahh, this conversation doesn't really need my input" and delete it.
There's really two features that should be part of fedi (think you've asked for both before?): ability to limit replies (signal when a post is not starting a public conversation), and ability to disown replies as canonical.
Let others say what they want instead of trying to guess!
@fwaggle yes! This makes sense to me, and feels like it'd *foster* conversation instead of blocking it.
If folks ask me questions here and I reply, often my reply (with a large following) triggers a lot of unwelcome replies for the OP.
I can limit visibility, of course, but then multiple people ask the same question instead of learning from each other.
Being able to tell my server "drop replies that aren't from the OP" would be amazing for encouraging conversation.
I haven't really been paying attention to GoToSocial lately (because I start to think about the colossal task of figuring out how to migrate my domain from one fedi software to another, I keep hoping someone else will do it first and I can copy their homework) but I think they're working on the former at least.
But without support in the wider software it'll just be confusing also.
But even things like we have to tell people "boosts welcome" - why do we live like this? It could be better!
I wonder if a white-list approach could work? As in, you can mark specific users as "allowed to reply", and anyone not marked as such cannot. This way, you could cultivate your own circle of people you trust, so people like you, who get way more abuse than most of us can imagine, could still get some of the benefits of having a social presence and interaction online.
Of course, the downside is that it puts the onus of being safe online on the vicitim. Certainly not a perfect solution.
@chrislowles yeah, GoToSocial really is the go to option (heh) for someone who wants fine-grained interaction policies *now*.
docs.gotosocial.org/en/stable/…
those who want to stick with mastodon, well, it'll probably be a long wait, so don't hold your breath.
@Stoori @chrislowles I've had my eye on that one, but my fear is that without it being pushed by the protocol it's not going to be effective.
I think Mastodon has to change their mind about it, and until they do we've got problems.
He should moderate his own speech before he types.
Simply don't be a dick to others.
you are inexplicably generous.
I am definitely asking my fellow dudes to moderate their speech, to treat strangers with decency and respect, to be aware of alternate interpretations of their written words, to remember John Scalzi's wisdom ("the failure mode of clever is asshole").
And to just give a shit about other people, quite frankly.
yep, Bluesky lets you turn off replies for a post at pretty much any point.
They have kinda crap moderation tools, but they do have that.
I would love to get a shared blocklists feature!
Also, people who say they want "free speech" are lying. They already have free speech and can post anything they want online.
What they actually want is "free access to my audience". They want their comment to be read by the thousands of people who follow me, for free.
I should be able to decide who has access to my audience. If they want an audience, they should get their own, by regularly having something worthwhile to say
I love this idea. Bluesky has shared blocklists and while they can be used by bad actors, the truth is anything can be, and I'd much rather block preemptively if someone says "hey, this person is a bad actor". Like anything, it needs to be vetted by the person using it, but I've found it saves me a lot of headaches on Bluesky.
Dropping replies is also a great idea and would give servers more ways to be net friendly.
@Lats
Hate speech is rigorously moderated here, so I don't know how large a problem that'll be. I'm more concerned about disinformation and, more generally, people presenting one side of a complex argument and preventing anyone from expressing the opposite view.
In the early years of the Covid pandemic, we saw lots of anti-vax disinformation. At least, in those days, it was possible to argue against it, so that anyone reading the thread would see both sides. Once disinfo agents can restrict replies, that'll no longer be true.
If Fedi turns into a hall full of people with megaphones, all shouting at one another and blocking replies, it'll kill it for me. I'll be gone. And I'll really miss the place.
Shared block lists, OTOH, seem like a great idea.
@vkc
This even sounds technically feasible without too much hassle.
Whilst we can't always be sure that all instances would honour such a "reply block", once the big ones do it, a lot is gained.
Smart idea. I wonder why no one has proposed it, already.
This wouldn't solve quoting harassment 😕
Not sure I understand the request here.
Are you saying I should be able to post and limit who can reply to zero, or some specific set of followers/followees?
ideally block replies at any point, so if you decide a post has blown up enough and is attracting bad quality replies, you can just lock it.
I've seen people delete good posts for this reason, and it's a shame.
I've often wondered why that isn't ‘a thing’.
Of course various servers/clients might try send replies anyway — maliciously or through not understanding — and in some scenarios those replies may even end up appearing to other users (on the same instance, say).
But none of that, *none of it*, explains to me why an implement can't simply do ‘if object references object, throw away’.
Hardly computationally burdensome, and I'm no AP expert but I can't imagine it breaks the protocol.
Hide subthreads by blocked users when looking at a post's descendants by ClearlyClaire · Pull Request #18468 · mastodon/mastodon
This is about the server not returning known subthreads started by people blocked by the post's author, not the viewer. e.g., if we have A → B → C → D → E, where a → b means “b replies to a”, a...GitHub
I hope, that you will find a way, to heal from it and to keep them away in the future.
I agree that it’s problematic that we don’t have a way of knowing the scope of abusive posts.
I haven’t seen any of the abusive posts you are referring to. It would be easy to jump the conclusion that you are exaggerating the problem. But instead I choose to acknowledge that I don’t know how bad the problem is.
Part of me wants to know enough that I could have an informed opinion about those posts. But at the same time I don’t want abusive posts to get more exposure than necessary.
I won’t claim to have a perfect solution to any of this. I am thinking that some sort of distributed moderation system with some statistics visible to the public might be part of a good solution.
@kasperd I very much want distributed moderation. I think it's critical, in fact. This already happens in an almost sneakernet-style way with sharing lists, but it's not real time and critically, not official.
I'd like to see an official, sanctioned ActivityPub blocklist server in which groups can control this themselves.
It's still whack-a-mole but you aren't playing it alone.
, what was this remark concrete?
If don't want to drop it publicly share it privately.
@verbrecher you're telling a woman to change her behavior if she doesn't want to deal with harassment.
That's... not good
, yes harsh enough.
But did it work just to restrict / block / report this freak and that's it? Or not too simple in the case? 
@vkc (Veronica Explains) This thread is worth a read. It contains actual practical solutions to a host of problems I've heard about many times over.
I hope of gets serious consideration.
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I get why it would make sense to have something like this.
And on old twitter the setting of only allowing people someone followed to reply meant that I - as a nobody small account - could not participate in many discussions as I wasn't allowed to reply.
Hoping this could be a more granular setting than it used to be there.
@cy "I... could not participate in many discussions as I wasn't allowed to reply"
The thing is... nobody (not you or me or anyone else) should be *entitled* to participate, and more critically, *entitled* to another server's hosting resources.
I like granularity too, don't get me wrong, but only because I want to see *more* communication fostered, and flexibility is important there.
#UI #Design Grumps' #Manifesto:
- Scrollbars should be thick enough to grab easily with an ordinary mouse.
- Scrollbars should be a part of the window decoration, NOT inside the content of the window.
- Active titlebars and inactive titlebars should be completely different colors or brightnesses. Obvious at the quickest glance.
- Client Side Decorations are stupid, I don't care how many people say otherwise, or how many times. They're just awful on so many levels.
- All text should be of decently high contrast, and any text atop varying elements like videos should be outlined and/or shadowed for maximum visibility. No more stupid plain white text atop bright videos, you absolute station wagons.
- Any program, whether gui or CLI, should be comfortable and usable in either light or dark mode, depending on the user's preference.
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@rl_dane
"SiR, We HaVe A vIsIoN!¡!¡!"
Blast those pompous station wagons.
I would like to make two amendments to the great manifesto:
1. Tied to client-side decorations (which is greatly dislike), applications should never be able to override the presence of window borders. And, if they insist upon that, then the option to enable and set window border width must be mandatory.
2. Do not require pixel perfect placement of the active point of the cursor to resize or move windows.
Oh man, yes!
Requiring pixel-accuracy for anything on modern displays is insanity.
#LibreOffice is guilty of this on occasion.
I've definitely struggled with LibreOffice on that front quite a bit as well.
Also, Visual Studio Code (along with VSCodium and Theia IDE) is a royal pain, especially because it doesn't present window borders without enabling the native titlebar (which has it's own quirks and features). The problem there is losing vertical real estate, an already significant issue on 16:9 screens. 🤦🏼
I have tried to use JetBrains PyCharm for my projects, but I feel like it's clunkier and slower than VS Code (which is already clunky and slow in its own right).
If I had the spare time, I definitely want to sit down and learn set up and use NeoVim to my liking. If/when that happens, I'll be more than happy to ditch VS Code.
I get most of these, but not the "scrollbars should be part of the window decorations" thing. What do you do for multiple scrollbars in a single window, like Masto's multicolumn UI?
So IMO they should be window content.
Definitely server-side decorations though.
Well, you can have scrollbars for content within a window, but it shouldn't be in-line with the content inside the window.
Basically, the way firefox worked in 2009 or so. I'm not sure when they made the change to the modern style of scrollbars where the scrollbar is inside the content being scrolled. It's stinking weird.
Found an example of how it used to work:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia…
You see, the scrollbar is separate from the text/content being scrolled.
Now, it's an optionally disappearing element within the content being scrolled, so it gets in the way, badly, if you change the firefox config to have a decent-sized scrollbar.
*OH*, so what you mean is "no overlay scrollbars"?
That's not in the window decorations, it's still window content (as evidenced by the existence of that sidebar scroller there), but yeah overlay scrollbars suck! (We're on KDE and hardly ever see them.)
But the entire mozilla suite does. :/
I think Firefox has an about:config you can flip.
Maybe widget.gtk.overlay-scrollbars.enabled?
Here's all our scroll-related settings, if that's helpful.
Also our Firefox is a bit older than what's current. Hopefully that doesn't have an effect.
The scrollbars still aren't the widest, but they could be worse.
Any time I create an account where the password policy forbids a certain class of character I know I might as well just hand my PII over to the data brokers directly.
Edit: autocorrupt
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Today I was reminded that old online chats offered context awareness for the people online: you knew you won't be a bother to a friend who has a smiley flower as a status; and you knew you might not be getting a quick reply from someone who's Away.
Today I don't even know if my friends are online or not. The messenger apps make the assumption that everyone is online, and if not, they will receive a push notification, and will reply to you as soon as possible. But this assumption is barely true. I bet it makes lives harder, especially for ND people
(Edited for a pixel-perfect screenshot)
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@reidrac Teams has something similar but I have been using it for two months and not sure what the Icons mean.
Find it interesting that Signal.org that AFAIK uses the same protocol as WhatsApp allows to schedule messages. Telegram could schedule as well. Outlook emails also offer you to delay post if person is away.
But WhatsApp does not have the delay feature. Maybe because it's business model is Mata data and this removes purity from the data?
@reidrac xmpp has specifications for pretty much every feature found somewhere else (useful or not). But presence was so important that it is part of the protocol core, and even of its name! Whereas concehts like "group chats" are later extenions.
Some "modern" clie/ts don't really make the presence visible, however, or let you control it.
I was involved with Jabber (before it was called XMPP) shortly after that decision was made, so when people still remembered why.
A big part of it was that Jabber wanted to support lossless bridging between different IM systems. Being able to run an ICQ, MSNM, AIM, and so on bridge on your Jabber server meant users could switch immediately and retain their existing contacts. If only a subset of Jabber features worked with those contacts, that gave them an incentive to switch (and a good migration path). If only a subset of other-system features worked, that made it much harder.
The ICQ protocol had this fixed set of states. One of the other messengers had status messages as free-form text. As a result, XMPP built in both. And, because it was XML, you could also put a load of other things in (e.g. the music that you’re listening to).
I wrote a little daemon (20ish years ago) that would record status messages and push them to a microblogging platform (back when Twitter was one among many and not a clear winner), so you could use a Jabber client to publish microblogging things in realtime to your contacts and more slowly to other people.
I think it says a lot that at some point in the mobile phone era, the default became "available."
I do like the idea of having different "levels" of access, though.
I still sometimes have to send the nohello.net link
I've also just politely requested people to simply ask the question or provide info else I will assume the hello is the start of some message and just wait instead of responding.
This has had a decent success rate but if it fails I'll go with the link. Once people understand that if they want my attention they need to actually give me info, they start using async messaging as intended.
when I flashed LineageOS, all push notifications that relied on google's proprietary code broke.
It was awesome.
Sensitive content
Sensitive content
They are not the same! A message can be one or the other, or both or neither.
In discord "@silent" is my friend, I use it all the time but it feels like an afterthought.
Sensitive content
@accidentlyAnton being able to send silent messages in Slack would be nice too...
Wait, it also supposedly works with this @silent prefix?!
Free for chat connected you with people using the "random chat" function. It was fun, when suddenly someone from the other end of the world messaged you because you're free for chat.
Gamedev Mastodon
Mastodon server focused on game development and related topics.Mastodon hosted on mastodon.gamedev.place
I never had an ICQ number. I just used AIM/Yahoo/MSN via Pidgin and Adium. That's an interesting feature.
I was one of the last holdouts on AIM, still messaging the one or two people on there in the last year it was alive. I do miss that era for sure. I still have some ancient AIM logs stored somewhere.
@djsumdog @allo @Blackthorn there is a moden server for AIM/MSN/ICQ: nina.chat/
I'm thinking of maybe joining, but then maybe I'm better off joining XMPP.
I totally agree. The "Focus" settings on an iPhone sort of work this way, but not like old AIM... I could reliably hold "office hours" and block messages completely when I was away.
The assumption the user is "always on" is a bad one.
@santhor when I was online from the phone, it was showing everyone that I'm "online (mobile)" or "away (mobile)", hinting that my replies could be shorter than if I was using a computer.
I think people don't use it because there is an assumption that everyone is always, permanently, terminally, online. If we foster the habit of "getting online is an action", people will be using it!
my phone is permanently on DnD, because there is no way to stop every fucking app from pinging at me all the time. Every time they update, they add a new category of notification so they can demand my attention. While there are types of notifications I might like to have, it's too much effort to selectively enforce "leave me the hell alone", so nobody gets to ping at me. Such toxic design.
I used to love gadgets and getting new ones, but now it's days/weeks to make it tolerable.
@swelljoe I used to simply turn the data off on my phone, but then I started working for Facebook, and the coworkers quickly explained to me that DnD is the only way to survive. I kept turning off the data anyway 😁
As for the gadgets: Palm OS 5 devices are as neat as they used to be when they just came out. I also am having lots of fun with my Nintendo DSi and Gameboy Micro!
👋 sharing one thought - next text, ask the friends to disable their push notifications.
sounds wild. hear me out. 👀
this enables you to free your mind from learned behaviors designed to disrupt whatever you might be doing in real life in favor of what some other human or even algorithm decided. yes, even if it is your bestie wanting to share a cute cat video - especially if it's a designed-to-deflate news headline. nope! 🙅♀️
opt into your phone existing in your life via your personal, inalienable free will. this seems like the strongest, way to take active control of reframing one's relationship with one's devices at present. 💃
**not trying to show up as a reply guy - just offering what seems to be working well fired me and sharing if others find use in it. ✌️💙
the only problem was that it's really hard to consistently/reliably keep that status updated..
Discord has it too. Typically people use custom status just for memes and not as actual status, and other ones are just set permanently and forgotten about, haha. But the automatic online/offline is sorta helpful occasionally (though way too often someone's "online" just because of leaving a PC running in the background haha)
@valpackett yeah, my Discord is permanently "away". But my ICQ used to switch between "Away" and "Online" depending on my usage of the app - it'd switch to Away when I was coding, but would switch back to Online when I opened the app. Discord allows me to set "Away for 1/2/4/8 hours" but won't show my actual status based on my actual activity. :<
If we don't count "Nina plays gdb" and "Atsuko plays KiCad", of course.
luckily I can set do not disturb on a timer on my phone.
iMessage folks receive a banner if they text me. Others don’t get that context.
Otherwise I generally limit notifications from apps and never have work apps on my phone
Then again, those were IMs from another era. Nowadays most messenger apps are catered towards reading your data, spamming you with ads, and being obnoxious.
It's like 90sNerdTurrets. I see that image and my mouth is going like: 233810060
Does it still exist?
Kidding aside, thanks for reminding me of that time. And I completly agree with you. We, I suppose, are the small portion of a generation who grew up with the internet, used it properly, and transitioned into what we have now. We sometimes forget how it was in the beginning.
Better
I've said for many years (and will continue to die on that hill)
Chat services peaked at MSN Messenger 6.2!
Specifically 6.2 though. Everything after that in MSN Messenger was downhill
7.0 added "Winks" who the fuck liked using those?
7.5 added Nudge. And then people learned that nudging was controlled by the *sender* so you could spam it endlessly with a simple patch. A great way to end up slapped upside the head
8.0 onward had the "Windows Live Mesenger" gross UI rework
Huh, makes me wonder if I have any where it's not a thing.
Like IRC I feel like culturally it's idle/away unless active, XMPP does presence, Slack Web puts you offline constantly, …
when I was just starting to use the internet as a kid, it was gchat. So many good conversations happened in the panel on the left of Gmail, and the status icons made it all possible. I know that descended from a long line of other online chat systems. I was really sad when gchat was phased out, and my friends and I had to develop new communication habits together.
You make a good point about the assumption that everyone is online. The closest thing I have to statuses these days is in Slack, but those feel less trustworthy in terms of auto-updating, and since push notifications are sent anyways they don't serve much of a purpose.
@jacob yep! Yep.... Yes T_T
By the by, I got the inspiration from reading blog.danpetrolito.xyz/i-built-… about a tool that would show "presence" in Discord. And then I found one of many papers from the olden days that actually did some research on the topic of "online presence" oppl.info/publication/oppl-200…
I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric
This is a story that started back in 2022, but I think its a perfect time to reflect on the impact that it has had on my friend group still to this day.Dan Petrolito
I'm still confused by the number of people who are apologetic for not immediately answering. I keep reassuring them, I'm totally comfortable with async communication.
I leave a message, you get it when you can and unless I'm calling, texting and otherwise throwing up signal flares, that's all fine.
i notice that both Discord and Teams make a halfhearted attempt to follow this protocol.
I have Discord on my phone, so really I'm only 'away' when I'm asleep.
yes! 100 times this!
Just to be able to wake up in the middle of the night with insomnia and take a look to see who else is kicking around was priceless. Asynchronous conversation just doesn't cut it.
I miss that stuff so so much… Been thinking about it for a while now. (and yes, i’m ND)
And as a general thing, I hate the untold assumption that everyone would always be online nowadays
@mausmalone indeed. I personally decided not to install work Slack on my personal phone; it is inconvenient at times, but at least I know there's no sudden "hey, a quick question if you're still around" at 10 PM.
Sadly, not everyone can afford this...
@mausmalone I assumed something to that effect, but I wonder if there isn't something like that you could say.
I doubt they'd think it through very well, lol.
well ... yes and no. It depends on how you set it up. I'm currently on 5 Slack workspaces and only 4 of them are actually work. One is a shop-talk group for higher-ed WordPress users and on THAT workspace they allow vendors.
Anyhow, sure I could go "Away" on that workspace, but not on the other 4.
I'm feeling pretty violent about it!
I don't even use it directly, using the Iron browser instead.
Back then, I rarely saw most of those. Most people were only ever available, away, or offline.
I imagine that's because all of those were set automatically by the computer. A person would be listed as “offline” if the computer was turned off or modem disconnected, “away” if the computer was idle, or “available” if the computer was actively being used.
turning off read receipts is essential for any messaging app that offers it. People don't see when I "read" their message and I don't see when they read mine.
I do miss the context statuses of ICQ, MSN Messenger and the like though. Wouldn't object to seeing something like that come back somewhere
Yeah! ICQ. Now THAT was a cool chat app.
(4229782, I'm prettttty sure - although I haven't used it in a decade)
oh wait. did some digging. I was right! Ha ha, hilarious. Uselses information ftw!
but yeah - those notifiers, SO helpful. Holy heck yes.
Interesting. I would usually think “if everyone is on, NO ONE is on” and that, similar to texting or email, the un-statused blindness would lead to the assumption of “if they’re there and they want to, they’ll answer, but I don’t have to expect anything.”
On ICQ I was usually perma-offline anyway. Don’t think I saw anyone really lean into the myriad of statuses; would usually think that kind of “choice fidelity” would lead to its own stress.
@cthellis I think both "they will get a notification and reply" and "idk maybe they're not online right now and I want to have a focused chat so maybe I won't message first" could happen at the current model.
Lots of people in the comments mentioned that they didn't really use any statuses beyond Online and Away, and I think it is fine too!
Interestingly business-grade chat apps still have this (3CX phone systems, Microsoft Teams).
It's just consumer-facing products that have removed it for some reason..
you are so right about this. The expectation of constant availability is very unhealthy and I think we are all familiar with the negative effects.
Even on sites/apps where you're still able to set a status, people don't respect it.
On top of that, I passionately despise read receipts. I feel like the only effects of that are unnecessary anxiety, drama, possessiveness and control (they only make sense for important work/school e-mails imo)
I've been using #XMPP for the last year or so, wondering if the halcyon ICQ days of yore are still to be had.
After testing it with several friends connecting to my own self-hosted #Prosody server, here's what I found:
- Yes it all works, on all XMPP clients. But MacOS/iPadOS/iOS clients are not all that mature at this time. The #Linux (#Gajim, despite no video or audio calls) and #Android (#Conversations) XMPP clients are the best, IMHO. Always favor those, I say, and they are confidently installable and reliable today.
- Yes, use OMEMO encryption on personal chats. But when it comes to group chats, OMEMO is not necessarily the right move.
- If you don't need privacy in an XMPP group, then don't create a private group, but rather a _public_ group (the safer choice for reliability of message delivery). No OMEMO is possible in a public group, and the messages propagating around will be reliable, even to clients who vanish and re-appear after prolonged absences.
- If you really need OMEMO encryption in a group chat, create a _private_ group, not a public group. **Clients who vanish from the group for prolonged periods may miss out on some of the messages when they return (say, a few weeks later)**.
- I kept a wiki with several more quirks noted, which came up, and felt confusing and frustrating to my (non-geek) friends using XMPP.
As to your Apple-ecosystem-confined friends, at this moment in time, maybe talk to them 1:1 in #Fluffychat/Matrix, which affords encryption, and is all #OpenSource, like everything above. (Groups in #Matrix have a track record of failing for everybody in them very badly every 2 or 3 years or so.)
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@d1
Can I suggest Delta Chat to you both?
Decentralised, can self-host if preferred, no KYC, no phone numbers, anonymous, group chats, multi platform, multi OS, synchronised accounts across devices/platforms/OS's.
Even works on TAILS OS.
I'm using it on an iPhone XS iOS 18.5, a 2015 MacBook Pro running Linux Mint and a Samsung S9 running Lineage OS, fully synchronised.
Great UI, awesome UX.
Well worth a look at least...
Delta Chat: Delta Chat, decentralized secure messenger
Delta Chat is a decentralized and secure messenger app 💬 Reliable instant messaging with multi-profile and multi-device support ⚡️ Sign up to secure fast chatmail servers or use classic e-mail serv...delta.chat
@d1
Always improving, and very receptive to suggestions for improvements.
I use multiple Profiles a lot for non family chats. That way you can just delete the profile when a group or contact reaches end-of-use status.
You can always rejoin.
@avoca #Deltachat feels Alpha quality to me, *once you stray off the path of plain old 1:1 encrypted text messages, with possible file attachments, including voice memos* - which Deltachat is brilliant at (uniform clients on all supported platforms is greatly appreciated).
The #XMPP world is more "Beta-quality" feeling to me - is the lesser of evils for those geeky types who can manage its quirky landscape, and still feel like they're having fun.
*The devil is in the details* for all these ecosystems: XMPP, #Matrix, and Deltachat.
If you want something to "just work", I say use #Signal and refrain from complaining about its centralized nature. At least something "just works" today in this domain (end-to-end encrypted instant messaging, which is also reasonably private), which is reliable and trustworthy *for now*.
@AdmiralMemo sounds like a fair evaluation of "when", but I still don't think that this is necessarily "why". Lots of people in my circle used ICQ on mobile and leveraged the status system.
Curiously, every now and then Facebook tries to bring the status back in Messenger, but I'm not sure it worked out
@wink that is true, but also consider: it means people weren't always online, there wasn't an expectation that someone would reply immediately if they're offline; but you could somewhat expect a reply if someone actually was online.
Imagine being able to login to WhatsApp once a day to check messages and chat with friends, rather than getting push notifications 200 times a day
Also as someone who has most notifications off and manually checks when he feels like it, it simply is not a problem for me, with the tradeoff of responding hours late :/
@storm hooray, finally someone other than me complaining about this.
I feel less alone in this presenceless future.
I remember that. Also remember being blown away by ICQ. That was such an innovation for the time.
In a way, the same status indicator exists today, at least on the receiver side, but it's hidden in complex layers upon layers of phone settings 😞
To be fair, I like not knowing when people are online and not, and people not knowing that of me. I also always turn off the typing and online messages when possible. I feel seeing those statusen causes anxiousness. "he read it/is online, why doesn't he reply". "he's typing, why does it take so long".
2/2
I would argue, people assume others reply asap, not the app. And that's those people's fault.
The thing I love about chats is that people can reach me when they have time, and I can reply when I have time for it in my own pace. Think about that thing you keep forgetting to ask me at midnight? Sure send a message. My phone is on DND-mode and I'll read it and reply after I wake up and have time, no rushing. (I don't do this to others unless I know they feel like this too).
@Nina Kalinina
That depends on definition of being pushed.
If there is no threat, then it's not a push, but a decision (imho)
Indeed things have changed. The assumption "always online and available " is bad indeed.
I must admit I actually really like the async way modern chats use.
I can have a conversation with my friends over multiple days, no need to check if they're available or not, they'll reply when they have time. No pressure.
@me
On a very surface level, yes, but not really, no. I can't send you a burst of messages with 10 seconds between each one without it being super annoying to you by email.
Also not made for rapid exchanges , like if you reply to my message while I'm writing one, I won't be able to read it without reloading the page or something
Also not sure you can jump in a call seemlessly from an email exchange, it's just not made for realtime communication
I'm a little bit sad, that #Gajim by @gajim removed #XEP-0108: #UserActivity
xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0108.h…
I used it to signal my colleagues when I'm at lunch break etc.
@d1
User Activity
This specification defines a payload format for communicating information about user activities, such as whether a person is currently working, travelling, or relaxing.Peter Saint-Andre
None of my friends expect me to reply immediately, nor do I expect them to. We're even used to (non-urgent) chats pausing without further comment. When something is important+urgent enough to requires rapid responses, usually everyone unterstands that and acts accordingly (like saying "gtg for now" when they have to)
For me ICQ represents a time of the Internet-era where it was almost friendly.
Where you could randomly A/S/L and it was almost OK!
You could also easily amalgamate them into a single interface instead of having a billion separate apps (and their desperate venn diagrams of contacts)
Wait, what. Trillian (for one example) still exits.
🤯
Well, I've finally reached the point where I have to stop putting off getting new glasses.
Picked out new frames that are rather different from anything I've worn historically, and I can't believe how stupidly much I love them.
Sadly, it's going to take a couple weeks before they're ready, so I have to keep wearing my boring old glasses for a while.
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Before bezos owned the papers he harassed their reporters if they tried to report anything about Amazon with accuracy. I've read several articles that noted no one wants to investigate Amazon because they cause so many problems when information gets published about them
So of course i think he has every incentive to lie and project his ego. Who's gonna check?
JFC DuckDuckGo is using AI now???
I'm starting to think AI is the new glitter. It's like the STD of the tech world.
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DuckDuckGo Settings
Customize DuckDuckGo to your liking! For example, change the fonts and colors, or boost results from your region.DuckDuckGo
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Startpage - Private Search Engine. No Tracking. No Search History.
Search and browse the internet without being tracked or targeted. Startpage is the world's most private search engine. Use Startpage to protect your personal data.www.startpage.com
The one bright side to all this is that now all source code is now arguably poisoned with AGPL, an extremely copy-left license.
One step closer to ending proprietary and copyrighted code!
Has had it for a while now but it's an actually good implementation that's very non-intrusive. You can even customize how often it pops up and disable it entirely. Unlike other competitors (Google, Brave Search etc) it just doesn't shove it down your throat and doesn't show up on every query ever.
I don't want AI in my search engine but if I'm gonna have it, I'd much prefer DuckDuckGo's approach honestly. duck.ai is also a fantastic way to access LLMs if you *really* need to.
DuckDuckGo - Protection. Privacy. Peace of mind.
The Internet privacy company that empowers you to seamlessly take control of your personal information online, without any tradeoffs.DuckDuckGo
You can turn off DuckDuckGo's AI feature, but it takes several clicks, and you have to do it again every time you reopen it.
To do it, run a search, click on the gear thingy below the magnifying glass thingy. Then click the All Features setting, which reveals four search settings. The AI Features button is on the right. Click and set to off and choose never.
There are also features under Privacy and General worth turning off.
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn
Next stop is Iran?
Me playing #NetHack: Why am I doing so poorly with this bow and arrow?
Turns out I'm not holding the bow and am just throwing the arrows.
I guess that explains it. 🙃
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I was shocked to see how few people know of #OpenTyrian for Linux, one of the best ports! It's free on the Ubuntu repos. After installation, run 'game-data-packager tyrian' on a terminal, and it will create a .deb file for you on your home folder. Install the deb, and you'll have all the game data available for the game to work properly. Very enjoyable game!
Running here on my Linux Mint.
#games #game #gaming #scifi #shootemup #linux #dosgames #opensource #foss #tyrian #linuxmint #mint
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Seriously!?
Who sets off fireworks in a thunderstorm?
I'm ready for the weekend.
It took me 3 tries at importing a PGP key to realize the customer sent me their Private SSH key instead of a public PGP key.
I'm not ready for this conversation.
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Yeah, unlocking the bootloader may be challenging.
It's why I've always avoided their hardware. The hardware itself is lovely, but their OS is kinda meh, and they're usually locked down.
Motorola/Lenovo, too.
Almost just fell for a spearphishing attack. These things can be scarily convincing if you're not paying attention. It was an email purporting to be from my VPS provider saying there was a problem with my payment information.
Apart from the fact that the email address it was sent from and the site it linked to were random domains obviously not associated with my provider, the fact that when I looked at the source of the message, the image of their logo was <img src="https://en.wikipedia.org/..."> was a bit of a tip off as well.
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I got one "from" a service provider.
It said I had to log in to confirm something.
My password manager didn't fill in ID and password. I was just about to do it manually when my Spidey sense wondered why.
The login address was 1 character off. Another good reason to use a pw manager.
Extremely niche #AskFedi question: can someone recommend a pen that (a) has a pointed nib (one that splays under pressure), and (b) uses ink reservoir cartridges?
I seem to be able to find dip pens with pointed nibs, and cartridge pens with tipped nibs, but cartridge pens with pointed nibs elude me.
I don't know if I'm looking for something that's technically infeasible, or just difficult to obtain.
I'd be grateful for boosts and pointers. Thanks!
✍️✒️
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I'm so mad at myself right now.
I went to a routine blood work appointment. I do this every three months, so I should know the drill. I forgot the appointment card. No problem. I booked it online, so they'll have it on file. Problem is, When I reached for my wallet to get my health card, it wasn't there. They need one or the other. I had to reschedule the appointment.
Worst part? When I got home, I found my wallet in my messenger bag. I had it the whole time. 🤬
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Nah we don't.
We have traitors day on July 4th but that's mostly to wind americans up and make jokes about tea.
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I laid down "for a quick nap" this afternoon. Just woke up. It's almost midnight.
I guess the sleep deprevation of the past week has finally caught up with me.
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Hey #Bookstodon. I'm training hard to earn the title of World's Laziest Marketer. Thus four of my first-in-series books are free for the summer months.
Benefit from my laziness! Read some fun mystery novels. Maybe buy some of the subsequent books, if my work tickles your fancy. Boosts appreciated. Thanks! 😎
SUMMER FREEBIES 👉🏼 cheribaker.com/collections/sum…
#books #selfpromo #marketingsucks #mystery #cozy #DRMFree
Summer Freebies
Mars hasn't had a murder in 70 years, until today. Outlaw Justice is available in stores...Cheri Baker
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Just heard a kid address his group of friends he was physically seated with as "chat". Is this a thing?
Maybe I'm just old.
@Darcy Casselman That's what I'm wondering too.
<cliché>Kids these days...</cliché>
🎶 MODULAR SYNTH NIGHT! 🎶
Join us for this month's Modular Night and synth jam at the Shakedown in Benson!
June 25th, 8pm.
Bring some modules and join in the fun! We do this on the last Wednesday of EVERY month.
2735 N. 62 St, downtown Benson, Omaha.
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In case anyone here is also using Reticulum, I can be reached at: lxmf@32f62870f2d7c418b59f1c5f9f1617e2
Don't know yet if it's something I'll use long-term, but it is at least interesting to play with for now.
Just made it to the third story. It actually made me double check what year this book was published. It shockingly parallels some recent events.
(comment on Radicalized)
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For reasons I shan't get into, Katy had to adjust her diet for 24 hours, and I decided to do likewise so as to not make the experience any more unpleasant for her than it had to be. After reading the label, I have come to the conclusion that Ensure meal replacement shakes are not designed with diabetics in mind. They have about 75% of the sugar content of a can of Coke.
Oops...
Roommate just moved out, now I "have an office" for the show in an hour - @vnikolov on introducing activateable and deactivateable type checking to common lisp through a macro package (I think!)
anonradio.net/ #lispyGopherClimate
Also maybe @shizamura (?)
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90 minutes sorry! I do not control daylight savings time. At least I think so, let me check!
@vnikolov
If I didn't have work in the morning I'd stay with y'all too but alas 😔
the pass along thing is that i have a comic
meanwhile maybe on thursday or friday I can get record something about semantics that you can use later
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> 90 minutes sorry!
Wait a minute, why *are* you confused? I get confused because I *do* have daylight savings here in California, but since you set your show to 00:00 GMT come hell, high water, or daylight savings, I was assuming you *didn't* have daylight savings there in New Zealand.
well at least *you* are going to be there. I'll just read things you say in lambdaMOO out for Vassil to respond to live.
@shizamura @vnikolov
@dougmerritt
Well particularly @shizamura and I desyncronized. It's more that I know and care about each of you individually, so if one person ends up at the wrong time, it's a show-shaking disaster.
@dougmerritt
> using GMT.... when lisbon time is right there
👍
Yes, Prince Enrique was there first.
(Name spelling from memory.)
@dougmerritt
> the history of GMT
I think that in four words it is "Britannia, rule the waves", so "zulu time" is an apt name in my not so humble opinion...
Show subtopic! Lots of the superdimensional fortress like radios and history
@vnikolov @shizamura
History of time, with respect to radios and time zones? Maybe a bit of a big subtopic
@vnikolov @shizamura
I don't use SDF.
I think I might have gotten a paid lifetime account when they were new, although I may be confusing them with someone else, but whoever it was, I lost my pasword. 🙁
@dougmerritt
An improvised "elevator pitch".
In the long history of GMT and UTC, a significant reason why longitude 0 (and hence time zone offset 0) is at Greenwich is British global dominance in seafaring in the past.
However, _long_ before that, and even before the Spanish, the Portuguese started ocean exploration.
Prince Enrique the Seafarer (didn't become king) led that in the 14th century.
(I think there is a monument to him in Lisbon.)
(Continued.)
@dougmerritt
One of the most prominent seafarers that came out of Prince Enrique's efforts was Vasco da Gama who found a route to India via the Cape of Good Hope after a century of exploration of the west coast of Africa (about the same time as Columbus sailed to America).
Magellan was Portuguese.
By the way, the Portuguese sailed very near to South America, but didn't discover it.
(They found favorable winds and currents in the West Atlantic for their return voyages.)
> introducing activateable and deactivateable type checking to common lisp through a macro package
Much more modest than that.
***
You remind me of:
"Freddie Mercury:
vocals, vocals, Bechstein debauchery and more vocals"
Exactly fifty years ago.
May he rest in peace!
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Looking to lure people to the fediverse? Share @_elena's explainer with them. It's a four-minute video that makes things simple for anyone to understand.
news.elenarossini.com/fedivers…
#Fediverse #FederatedSocialMedia #OpenSocial #OpenSocialWeb #ElenaRossini #SocialMedia #SocialNetwork #Tech #Technology
📺 Introducing the Fediverse: a New Era of Social Media
A 4 minute video that aims to introduce the Fediverse to people not familiar with itElena Rossini
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So funny! This morning I already had shared the post and later on I saw my own avatar poping up in the video 
❤️
Very sweet indeed @_elena 
and very well done!
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At the hospital again for nearly two hours. Still waiting to see the one after-hours doctor they have on staff...
It's going to be a long night. I can already tell.
Time to go inside for some fresh air.
...weird that that's now the world that we live in.
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Jonathan Lamothe
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