Tag: mastodon

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BTW, disregard that.

If you saw that post about Roman Empires, no you didn’t! I hit Publish too soon while I was still drafting.

Address update.

@hedgeadmin@raintreeruckus.com is the old profile. The new one should point to:

@rrfederated@raintreeruckus.com

(AKA https://raintreeruckus.com/@rrfederated )

Basically, replace "hedgeadmin" with "rrfederated."

Fiddling around with the backend of things again and decided to change it up. Instead of an author profile, it’s now a "blog profile." What’s the difference? Doesn’t matter, I’m picky.

So for the… uh… single Mastodon follower. This post is for you! Be sure to update yer thangs.

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For Mastodon to not only supersede Twitter but to thrive in its own merit, it needs to not only listen to the vulnerable among us, but implement changes for a better Internet culture. The tools have been there, and so have been their highlighted shortcomings.

Now what will they make of it?Background Radiation

I wrote that about two years ago. And how are things now? Well…

The racism still persists.

Suggested features to further community have been ignored.

Concerns are met with a "just fork it yourself if you don’t like it."

Member safety is still an afterthought.

Onboarding isn’t intuitive, explained, or convenient enough.

So when Twitter finally pissed off enough people for a more permanent mass exodus, they all flocked to BlueSky– which is just Twitter with the future promise of ActivityPub integration. And has the same pitfalls, too, if the Singal situation is any indication. Some people (read: techbros) were flabbergasted at this development. I may have been angry at people for staying on BlueSky (and I still think I brought up a good point), but I still wasn’t surprised, really.

Mastodon, frankly, has done Jack and Shit to earn new user trust since 2022. It is an elitist project so narrow in scope that it doesn’t have room for improvements or user-friendly anything. It’s a reputation justly earned, in my opinion.

I remembered why I left Mastodon for the first time (around 2016? 2017?): it was not welcoming. It was gross. It was so Overwhelmingly White, the biggest Black-owned instance received so much vitriol for just existing. I went back to Twitter because it was, at least, the poison my body grew used to. And all my peers were there, anyway. But it was still toxic to me. When Muskadoo bought and reshaped that platform in his own image, only then I considered giving the fediverse another go.

You can say I’ve been advocating for the IndieWeb every since. Or at least diversifying your platforms. But for the people I was nigh insufferable about, pestering to get on Mastodon, because we need off those fucking platforms[1], because we need better for ourselves, damn it…

sorry.

But I’ve since outgrown that because… it’s hard to convince people when the new option is basically the Same Ol’ Shit– if not worse. The few that looked into Mastodon did not like what they saw, or shortly abandoned their accounts. It was true in 2017 and it is true now. I haven’t stopped recommending it as an option, but with a lot of caveats, guidelines, and invites to Actually Decent Servers due to my experience on the platform. And I am a lot quieter about it. Because it still sucks.

But why am I still there?

Because I curated my Mastodon space. I made it mine. With work, I found an instance I was happy with (and seemed stable enough to not shut down to the whims of a tantrum-ing admin)– their values and moderation concerns aligned with my own. This particular instance is also a fork of the official project, so we circumvent more of the troubling aspects. With this culture of stability ("echo chamber," ROFL) I was able to better connect with strangers on a genuine level, no matter how casual, and I’ve found myself among people determined to make online spaces accessible and safer for everyone.

I also block. A lot. The Block Game is strong.

And I remember more vividly when I came back. I logged into my .xyz account, and two familiar faces were still fighting the good fight. It showed me at at least somebody was giving a fuck, and I could learn how to be better.

So I stayed.

It took me years to get this content (enough).

Ideally, it shouldn’t have to take that long.

they obviously care if they are even bringing it up. be more concerned when people are silent!something I’ve said, about something else

[1] I still stand by this, but it’s not going to be easy. We may have to go as far as build what we want. Let’s take it one step at a time.

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Two panels. The first is a Batman sketch done by Amber, but is accompanied by the text "drawing out for you the same ol' microaggressions and straight-up harassment that has made up the majority of my internet adventures."Second panel: We see Amber now; she has brown cropped hair and glasses. She is holding up her sketch to the other party, a man named Arch who is visibly disturbed by her output.Arch says, "Th-that art makes me feel uncomfortable."Amber, with an expression of weariness, replies "Welcome to the background radiation of my life."
I’d apologize to Willis, but I’m not particularly sorry about this. Amber’s line is just too relatable. SRC: Shortpacked by David Willis.

While Twitter is having its meltdown (due to sabotage or genuine ineptitude, or both), Mastodon is another microblogging service receiving a massive influx of new users. Some are just trying it out; others plan to migrate permanently, and you’ve probably heard about it by now.


It had certainly been a learning curve away from Twitter’s centralized style, for Mastodon is made of individual instances (think: different servers) that can “talk” to each other. And the Mastodon instances can also “talk” to other decentralized services within the Fediverse! Check out Fedi.Tips, by the way; that site can explain things better than I could.


There’s been some… issues. Some users have been calling it “growing pains” or (cue eyerolling) “Eternal September: Mastodon Version.” The problem with these red herrings is the implication that the current problems are just the effects from the deluge of new users. And that said problems are a recent phenomenon.


It really isn’t, and I’m not talking about the technical stuff.


A marginalized person enters a space and realizes it is intolerant of their lived experiences and right to exist. This isn’t just limited to blatant declarations– microaggressions, the papercuts of experience, can add up over time. The prevalence of the overculture allows the same harmful attitudes to carry over because someone refuses to see beyond the tip of their nose (and, you know, unpack their privilege).


And it has become apparent that Mastodon (among other things) has a racist problem. Here are some recent examples, and certainly not limited to…


  • the Content Warning debacle: requests to put politics behind a content warning, ignoring the fact that sometimes, entire lives are politicalized (another version of “censor your life for my comfort!”),

  • the history of PoC-led instances being harassed and even shut down (Look up what happened to PlayVicious; I’ll wait.),

  • Black people being told to “just move instances/block” instead of admins/moderators doing the necessary work to ensure spaces are safe from the get-go (it’s giving strong “segregate yourself” vibes, for starters, and the onus on the marginalized to change their behavior),

  • not to mention how one instance’s “I’ll allow it” is another person’s “WTF?!” Unfortunately, sometimes that “wtf” has been trolling, hate speech, and other unsavory topics that’ll get them defederated from more decent instances.


Marginalized identities, in general, don’t have the luxury of “just picking” one or “starting fresh” in a new place. It has to have policies that align with their comfort and safety, and hopefully the moderation to reinforce it. And it sucks if we pick the wrong one: shitty mods, toxic culture, or just a petri dish of grossness.


This wasn’t “just a migration” for a lot of people, self included. I lucked out on discovering an instance that was explicitly queer-friendly, anti-fascist, and so far has been a safe(r) space for people of color– but this would be my third time moving in my 6 years of using the Fediverse, and I may move again. So it goes.


Background radiation, indeed.


So, as always, Black people are having to carve their existence into a space. Like what we’ve done on Twitter and the many platforms before it. We’ve been finding each other and talking. We’ve been remembering servers come and gone and still holding on despite the insidious grip of casual racism. We’ve drawn boundaries. We’re comparing notes. We’ve been having dialogue. We are claiming space.


For Mastodon to not only supersede Twitter but to thrive in its own merit, it needs to not only listen to the vulnerable among us, but implement changes for a better Internet culture. The tools have been there, and so have been their highlighted shortcomings.


Now what will they make of it?