HarkMahlberg

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

kbin does let you hide your own followings and magazine subscriptions, so my guess is it wouldn't be hard to implement hiding your up/downvotes. Ernest the developer is almost certainly more concerned with handling site traffic and stability first, but you could always add an Issue to the bug tracker.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

High quality take. There's just one practical issue, most users of the internet are creatures of convenience, and they're not super big on the philosophical aspects of online culture. Fragmentation, friction, healthy interactions, these aren't considerations of the average social media user. They like integration, centralization, and (at the risk of sounding derogatory) being part of a hivemind.

As an example of that behavior, despite the scores and scores of videos and articles telling people not to pre-order games, to be wise with their purchases, gamers on the whole still pre-order games on a large scale.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

kbin.social goes and pulls that information for you - you do not need to go to kilioa.org yourself to see it. You would search kbin.social for "apexlegends", the name of the magazine/community, and subscribe to it from here. kbin understands what you want, and goes and pulls it from kilioa.org for you. Once you're subscribed and kbin pulls the content, you can then reply to it, all from kbin.

This is theoretically how it works, but the site is still brand new, still a work in progress, and it's getting the reddit hug of death right now. So it may take some time to iron out the kinks.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

You can make them private in your user settings.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

I'm more of a visual learner and none of the explanations of the Fediverse included a detailed map of all the different entities involved. By all means, please make corrections, I'm sure there is at least one misunderstanding in there somewhere. Also not sure how Mastodon fits in, seems like the format would be incompatible with kbin and/or Lemmy. Thanks.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

My understanding is, to reach content found on other kbin instances, it is not necessary to create logins on them and go to them, rather the content on those instances can be "rebroadcast" to the instance you have an account on. You don't go to the content, the content comes to you. Likewise content you generate on your "home" instance can be rebroadcast to other instances.

I realize that's an optimistic assumption, one that I can't prove. By what mechanism the content is rebroadcast, I do not know.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

I think the conversation in this thread might help: https://kbin.social/m/kbinMeta/t/12719/Why-aren-t-you-seeing-as-many-posts-from-Lemmy-communities#entry-comment-53517

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

All good points. I had the same argument with a software engineer friend, he touted the Free and Open Source Software aspect, the removal of an untrustworthy central authority, the ability to connect with only the servers you want and not the ones you don't.

And I just said "if you can't explain it to someone without a master's degree in computer science, it's not gonna gain mass adoption." This image was just my attempt at explaining for myself, it's not even as layperson as I wish it was.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

I believe disassociating from Nazis, CSAM, etc is still very possible in a distributed network like this, the instance admin just blacklists the instances they don't want to interact with. But it requires the user to find the server that best aligns with what they want to see. A centralized admin won't do it for them.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

I see. So this is how kbin and Lemmy and Mastodon share content despite being totally different user experiences. They just implement the protocol as they see fit.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

I simplified it to the three I saw gaining the most traction. But thanks for the link!

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

All software and online communities go through growing pains, it's still Eternal September after all. Have you noticed the users making test comments just to try out the different markup options (bold, underline, strikethrough, etc)? It's always fascinating to see a new platform make those kinds of baby steps.

I suspect kbin will improve as requests for features gain traction and the developer (the only one!) finds the time to add them.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

No offense taken lol. I share many of your concerns about the viability of mass adoption of a complex system. The average user is not a computer scientist, and we can't expect them to have the time or patience to learn all this stuff: it needs to be intuitive and user friendly.

I think the Fediverse can get there, if not today, soon.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

People understand the idea of a "Client/Server" relationship intuitively, even if they don't know what HTTP is: "this website is the server, and I am the client. I ask it for info, and it gives it to me."

Fediverse asks its users to extend that knowledge with the "Server/Server" relationship that underpins ActivityPub, kbin, Lemmy, Mastodon, etc. It's a new, unfamiliar relationship without a clear real world analogy, so that begs lots of questions, and the instinct is to be helpful and welcoming and answer those questions. These are good intentions mind you! But it's complicated, and that will limit adoption as users self-select and find something else "more their speed."

I'm optimistic though. The Client/Server relationship of the internet was once new and unfamiliar to users. I think with time (maybe a lot of time, maybe not) people will figure it out.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

Standup response, I hope Christian finds a promising career ahead of him.

If I'm being honest, I wouldn't be nearly so kind to Reddit following his ordeal. Even if Reddit renegs on the API pricing completely and go back to making it free, the trust has already been sufficiently broken that I wouldn't return. They won't stop monetizing the site just because they lost some users and pissed off their developer partners. They'll just be subtler, quieter the next time they try to screw you over.

Second chances are important, but there are limits to trust. Reddit slapped their users across the face today; despite any promise or apology they make in the meantime, there is no indication that they won't do it again tomorrow to get what they want.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

Former guy has not quit the race despite being under indictment, Ron Disaster hasn't quit either, Pence literally just entered the race. As they say, it's anyone's game.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

The National Review is a right wing propaganda arm masquerading as journalism. Prior to January 6th, they had no problem with Trump. They're only turning on him now because he makes conservatives look bad, but notice how the author is still going on about Hillary's emails.

Take everything, even a piece like this, and everything out of Washington Examiner too, with a big grain of salt.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

In the video, the residential density they have selected has a blue base, and the buildings are being plopped (cool on it's own!) on blue tiles. I can't tell if that means those are mixed commercial/residential buildings? But why have that be limited to a single density out of six? I'm sure we'll get more info soon.

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

CT's Department of Agriculture has a pretty thorough map of farmer's markets: https://portal.ct.gov/DOAG/ADaRC/ADaRC/Farmers-Market-Nutrition-Program/Authorized-Redemption-Locations

West Hartford apparently will have one every Sunday until November: https://www.bluebackfarmersmarket.org

HarkMahlberg, 11 months ago

Powodzenia!