@mentallyalex@beige.party
@mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

mentallyalex

@mentallyalex@beige.party

I was told once that Mastodon is a friendly void that yells back. I really like that.

The world is a big place filled with terrible and wonderful things. I sometimes comment on them at length.

Made 3 people laugh at my HashTagGame entry - Aug 24, 2023.

"One of the fun ones" - Lisa Melton, Jan 2024

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

mentallyalex, to random
@mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

Apparently today is a day of chaos.

I woke up and had a great idea in my head to write about. I took a shower beginning to outline the point I wanted to make. Organizing my morning tea and petting my kitty I did a few minor edits to the concept and began the 'bullet list' I keep in my head.

I sat down at the trusty computer, powered up and opened my doc... and found myself jumping into conversations about Mastodon onboarding.

Wednesdayโ€™s writing child is full of woe.

victor, to random

deleted_by_author

    •
    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @victor I always read your ๐Ÿ˜… guy as a nervous silly. Like you said something anxiously. :)

    Alice, to random
    @Alice@beige.party avatar

    Taco Bell has menu items that are more supreme than our court justices.

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @Alice taco bell is way less salty too.

    TonyStark, to random
    @TonyStark@progressivecafe.social avatar

    Raping a child is despicable. The death penalty is despicable. Two wrongs donโ€™t make a right.

    DeSantis: always pandering for votes. I mean, rapists would get the death penalty, yet the 10 year old who gets pregnant would be forced to give birth. The Republican Party used to at least pretend to stand for less government and fiscal responsibility. Now, it has no moral compass and no value at all.

    Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill allowing death sentence for child rape-
    https://www.axios.com/2023/05/02/florida-death-penalty-child-rape

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @TonyStark

    I am convinced that they believe they're designing a governing body in which fundamentalist views and leanings are rewarded and conservative viewpoints surge forward to gain more control.

    What they've done is pissed off the less authoritarian folks into fighting back against them. Whipped up a dangerous frenzy in their own houses - and they walked too close to the edge to be able to walk back from the war they've decided we need to have.

    The Repubs aren't the brightest of their generations. Sure, some of them are smarter but the grand majority of them are multi-generational wealth. They are accustomed to luxury and easy lives. Over abundance and wasted consumption.

    And they've decided the servant class needs to be "further brutalized". If they would read history, they would see how that ends. They literally can't win. It's not something that can happen.

    I could and likely should write a book as to why I think this won't happen - but it won't. Literally can't - there are too many factors that short-sighted tiny minds like DeSantis aren't calculating.

    @TheRealBozoTClown

    pivoinebleue, to random

    My God! The Republicans want to ban books but are going to train 3rd graders in battlefield trauma care!!!!!!!! ๐Ÿ˜ณ๐Ÿคฌ This is insane!

    Texas HB1147 | 2023-2024 | 88th Legislature

    https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB1147/2023?t=tgOZAax6IlGfgKVTuOAhcg&s=09

    >Bill Text (2023-03-13) Relating to the regulation of bleeding control stations in public schools. [Left pending in committee]

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @pivoinebleue That is sick and reprehensible.

    The entire state should be held in the greatest of contempt and their leadership should be flushed into the darkest voids.

    Ghoulish profiteering worms that have been allowed to infest our country. They need to be expelled.

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @pivoinebleue the sickening part is, they really don't.

    They know this is all performative they've just extended beyond being able to act rational.

    No reasonable and serious person believes a child could be dependable in a situation like that. Adults are rarely dependable in those situations. We have video and meme footage of these same fascists being not-dependable on Jan6th.

    If any of them do feel like they could be, I highly encourage them to stop being cowardly and hop on a plane and help the Ukraine people.

    mentallyalex, to random
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    Today was a very long Tuesday, wasn't it?

    Maybe just me?

    I have a lot in the air at the moment and keep adding more side projects.

    Good news? More writing!
    Bad news? Long form, story stuff. Pure fiction.

    atomicpoet, to fediversenews

    So will there be a fork of Mastodon without quotes and full text search?

    Many people came to Mastodon because it didnโ€™t have those features.

    But now that Mastodon will have those features, those folks should have a place to call home.

    @fediversenews

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @JorgeStolfi if I reply to you in order to harass you or bring my followership on top of you, I have to alert them of the conversation, my desire, your information, and how to best target you.

    By quote-tweeting, you are able to identify most of that stuff all in one go. It's blasted out to anyone who watches your tweets however they watch them... and it has an easy way to click through and lump on.

    To be clear, I'm not advocating for or against them - I'm simply giving you an example in which a quote could be used to bring about harassment or abusive behavior.

    As a feature, copy/paste circumvents "QT" and screengrab captures "details" if you want to make it one-directional.

    @aswath @atomicpoet @fediversenews

    tchambers, to internet

    Is that bad? That sounds bad.

    https://www.similarweb.com/blog/insights/social-media-news/twitter-blue-checks/?utm_medium=gtm_share

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @tchambers Depending on how you're comparing things I suppose.

    For Twitter? Yes.
    For Mastodon and the Fedi? Nope.

    We just need to help them find their voices here.

    atomicpoet, to fediversenews

    This is so true.

    Once Twitterโ€™s Blue Check became attainable to everyone, suddenly the โ€œlegacyโ€ Blue Checks didnโ€™t want it.

    So much about social media is about clout.

    The reason the old Twitter influencers donโ€™t like Mastodon is because they have to build their clout from scratch.

    Meanwhile, Bluesky is rolling out the red carpet to them.

    Personally, I donโ€™t like clout chasers. But thatโ€™s me.

    https://beige.party/@mentallyalex/110301245950084900

    @fediversenews

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @atomicpoet Even if they relied on their management companies to do this, or high tier'd boutique pay-to-play federated instances - great.

    I could absolutely see the need for some to want to take that exact route for safety/brand/etc.

    As long as they connect to us, that is a design that allows for the growth of both.

    @andresmh

    atomicpoet, to internet

    For what it's worth, people on aren't hostile to .

    They want to read Mastodon posts.

    It's incredibly sad that people on Bluesky can't talk to Mastodon and vice versa.

    @fediversenews

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @atomicpoet poor choice of design, as is being discussed everywhere.

    I would imagine that BS is betting on the "twitterati" celebrities and big names from Twitter shifting to BS and causing everyone to flock to his new walled garden.

    It's silly because this place already exists. Exclusivity isn't the new hotness.

    @fediversenews

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @CarolynStirling
    It works well.

    If you only allow celebrities, certain classes of journalist, etc. onto the platform as creators and the 'regular people' to consume until you're 'stable enough for capacity testing' you build in a group that has a head start.

    Worked for Gmail, Facebook, etc. People enjoy feeling exclusive, look at how quickly they moved away from the checkmark once it was obtainable by 'regular' people.

    @atomicpoet @fediversenews

    TonyStark, to random
    @TonyStark@progressivecafe.social avatar

    Donโ€™t like your own kid going to a play?

    Great. Keep them home while the rest of the kids go. Itโ€™s the same problem over and over- people who donโ€™t know what theyโ€™re talking about insisting their thoughts are more important than othersโ€™ rights and making sure no one can do the thing they object to.

    Houston-area schools scrap field trips to see โ€˜James and the Giant Peachโ€™ over concerns about cross-gender casting at Main Street Theater-
    https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/arts-culture-news/2023/04/27/450282/houston-area-schools-scrap-field-trips-to-see-james-and-the-giant-peach-over-concerns-about-cross-gender-casting-at-main-street-theater/

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @TonyStark :blobcatgiggle: can you imagine?
    No makeup, no costumes... just a bunch of people cosplaying 1990s Businessman.

    I can smell the old spice from here.

    @MariaHill

    atomicpoet, to fediverse

    Evan Prodromou (@evan), the co-author of , does not like Bluesky.

    He believes it's a setback to the Fediverse and slowing its growth.

    https://cosocial.ca/@evan/110300493306700391

    @fediversenews

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @evan The amount of effort and angry nights spent fighting the same problems all because he wants to claim 'ownership' is ridiculous and harmful.

    You are right to be annoyed. I'm a user, not a fedi-developer, and I'm annoyed by it. It seems at best myopically focused and at worst childish.

    I wish they would embrace the collaborative nature of the Fediverse and bring their creativity, brilliance and dollars into a better fedi.

    @Jonathanglick @coachalaiskas @atomicpoet @fediversenews

    mentallyalex, to random
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    Are there ways to see which toots have been boosted a lot?

    I'm trying to see if there are 'toots' I've done here that I should transfer to elsewhere so they don't get purged.

    Mrfunkedude, to random
    @Mrfunkedude@mastodon.social avatar

    So let me get this right...

    The Mastodon app is no defaulting to mastodon.social so that when people join they aren't confused and can decide to switch instances if they choose.

    Which, let's be honest, most wont.

    I get trying to play to peoples expectations. People expect Mastodon to be like Twitter because that's what everyone compares it to, and when they are asked to select an instance, their brains glitch and they become disinterested.

    Will this work? I don't know. Time will tell.

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @Mrfunkedude I don't mean to be contemptuous but the decision to lean the app and website into a central hub is a move that needs to be measured carefully.

    I'm not intending on making this "a thing". But I want to be precise with my issue.

    The struggles that places like decentralized environments like Mastodon solve, almost entirely hinge on the ability for certain groups to defederate away. If people don't feel "safe/secure" on their 'home slice' they won't really explore.

    Since mastodon.social is the 'catch all' that will encourage stronger personalities to emerge and lanes to establish that might feel intolerant. The current design allows for other places to exist and help reduce that. LGBT, non-white, etc.

    If they are putting a 'face' on Mastodon - as you mention it will discourage exploration and other environments. People won't look at "mastodon" as the collection of environments that access the fediverse. They'll see it as solely represented by whoever is loudest on Mastodon.Social.

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @JRBuckley
    Personally? I believe "they" (Eugene and Co.) should invest in an onboarding experience that introduces a guided introduction to the toolkit and uses some fun mascot like "Tooty the Elephant" to explain the experience.

    Tooty could walk you through the introduction steps of finding 'your initial people'.

    "First, we need to know what you're interests are - that helps us determine what part of the Fedi you would most likely want to see?

    With a few panels of back-n-forth providing pieces of the interface details coupled with questions and detail requests - you could have the preliminary sign up information captured in variables to be fed to whatever server they click down into with an option for "Yes, this one".

    Servers that wish to participate should have a server config something that identifies the type of server they are using a enum list that Tooty uses to filter.

    @Mrfunkedude
    apologize for the length.

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @nlarson830 This post is an exact example of your exact statement @Mrfunkedude "How do we educate past expectation"

    Assuming a bunch of things about Nick (nothing negative).

    • Educated (word choices)
    • White
    • Technology experience
      ** techhub instance
      ** data is available

    Those bias enabled Nick to lean into comfort zones of understanding and exploring that we cannot assume the average user will have.

    We need to build a system that is far more baseline and designed for an under educated, paranoid user who needs things available to explain the bigger picture in smaller more digestible bites.

    Sorry for rushing into this conversation so aggressively.

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @nlarson830

    I believe that the concept of 'choose your own adventure' to be the bigger hang up. People don't often see these apps as what they are. Portals into environments.

    People seem to act as if accounts are somehow owned and operated spaces. They learned it, I suppose, by working inside the paradigm of corporate provider. They've confused "My twitter identity" with "my identity". As if they somehow own it. They do not, they're leasing it.

    The internet is different and you only own what you can defend. @mentallyalex is owned by my admin and I am using the space to connect to people. In that space, I reference a place in which people can find more of me (my blog) that I also own.

    I believe that the "Netizenry" of the world would better be served by having an experience designed to explain to them what it truly is. The technology layer isn't really something I feel we should spend our calories on.

    We can hire developers, or use what exists. We can train features, and explain tools. But until we tackle the concept of "You are a guest unless you own the service" we're going to continue to have challenges.

    A Mastodon Clippy would offset that drive as users would better understand the ocean they're floating in. Or at the very least, it would offer the opportunity to explain it.

    @Mrfunkedude

    Mrfunkedude, to random
    @Mrfunkedude@mastodon.social avatar

    I'm fucking dreading quote posting being added to Mastodon. They better give the ability to opt out of it.

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @nlarson830
    Conceptually, at "worst" I think it's a minor feature that most people have found work arounds for.

    Technically, they "can't" enforce quotes against non-Mastodon clients but non-Masto clients would have to consume quotes from others, I imagine. I work in/around data so I'm just applying my education to the unknown. I could be absolutely wrong.

    The Fediverse on which Mastodon sits is based on many different tools. Some of them are "mini-blog" type tools similar to Twitter. Mastodon is the most famous of those by a long shot - but it's not "the" fedi, just a planet in it.

    I have a really cool visual to share: https://fediverse.party/

    Click the little menu on the upper left and it shows you an option for 'All Apps'. Kind of helps me visualize the concept.

    @Mrfunkedude

    mentallyalex, to random
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    I'm terrible at jokes.

    mentallyalex, to random
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    Me:
    So, as you can tell - MarkDown is very insidious and exists all over the place.

    In truth, it's really awesome because it allows us to communicate with clearly and aesthetically while maintaining an easy to parse document!

    Them:
    ...

    Me:
    yeah... just the chai, thanks. ๐Ÿ˜ณ

    TonyStark, to random
    @TonyStark@progressivecafe.social avatar

    Calling it a "stray" bullet makes it sound like bullets are wildlife that occasionally just kind of cross your path by chance. Like when someone gets electrocuted by "stray" electricity that "leaked" from a power line. You know, this stuff just kind of pools around sometimes! /s

    Um, no: bullets are fired from a gun by a person. And Republicansโ€™ only suggestion is to make more of these things happen.

    College baseball player struck by stray bullet during game-
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/05/01/college-baseball-shooting/

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @TonyStark Whenever I read these, I desperately want to force some management type to testify in the next shootings.

    Why did you force them to choose the word 'stray'?

    How much money did that particular article earn you in specific?

    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @TonyStark I'm sure it was approved by the editor who knows better than to piss off whoever pays them.

    It doesn't feel personal enough yet. They'll allowed to feel that this isn't something they're actively encouraging with their passivist language and dismissive attitudes.

    Looks like the shooter should be charged with multiple counts of "tried to murder several people". The fact that the bullet traveled 400yrds is working as designed.

    Two druggies got into a gunfight and accidentally almost murdered people a few hundred yards away.

    A responsible news organization would use this to showcase how weak Texas leadership is proving to be against the encroaching NRA.

    victor, to random

    deleted_by_author

    •
    mentallyalex,
    @mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

    @missy_lynn @victor I spin like I should teach a class at the gym.

    We got you!

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