#indieweb 2023-04-25

2023-04-25 UTC
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[tw2113_Slack_] can someone provide an elevator pitch explanation of what bluesky is?
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[tw2113_Slack_] a more twitter offshoot than mastodon?
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epoch seems more like nostr than mastodon
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[tw2113_Slack_] i probably worded it badly, but my guess was it’d fall between twitter and mastodon in comparison. Bluesky is more twitter-like and more direct copy
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[chrisbergr] bsky is like twitter 2008. few people, no advertising, playground. But with the cool feature that you can use your domain as a username. Visually it looks like the current Twitter
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Seirdy_ amazing that they thought an mvp was ready before blocking worked
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[tw2113_Slack_] gotcha
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Seirdy_ there's even a toggle for "allow hate groups"
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Seirdy_ like you can choose whether "political hate groups" are muted
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Seirdy_ that combined with the mvp lacking proper blocking functionality sort of tells me the sort of priority they give to online harassment
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Loqi friendly reminder Seirdy_, it seems like this conversation is more appropriate for #indieweb-dev (MVP)
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[chrisbergr] lol, I thought "what is he talking about?" and then I found it. Strange!
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Seirdy_ im not discussing any technical aspects, only social aspects like their leadership and priorities
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Seirdy_ unless there's a technical barrier to shipping with actual safety features
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Seirdy_ which IMO still isn't a real excuse
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Seirdy_ if you wait till these things become a problem, you've waited too long.
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Seirdy_ there's no "control-z" for this
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Seirdy_ you can't un-do a harassment campaign, a conspiracy movement, a hate group
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[snarfed] They haven't really shipped per se, they're just building in public and early access
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Seirdy_ yeah but it has to work first.
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[snarfed] And they've been actively building trust and safety tools early, before opening to the public, for exactly those reasons
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Seirdy_ basic safety features are part of an MVP
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Seirdy_ it's like beta-testing a car with no seatbelt
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[snarfed] Long term plan is https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/4-13-2023-moderation
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[snarfed] They agree with you
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Seirdy_ i'm saying they shouldn't have rolled out yet, even in closed beta.
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Seirdy_ that's a really, really basic feature.
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Seirdy_ basic moderation and safety features should come slightly before "have a working front-end".
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Seirdy_ what's worse than no functionality is harmful functionality
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Seirdy_ if there's anything recent history has taught us, it's that you don't "move fast and break things" when creating social networks.
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[chrisbergr] Tbh I've never seen so much moderation / report / filter tools that early. This is usually always the last thing to be considered. They are really strong on this topic, in my eyes.
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Seirdy_ if you're comparing it with other investor-funded social networks, yeah i imagine it doesn't look so bad. but even being compared to them IMO is a bit of a smell.
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Seirdy_ when your argument is "it's better than a microblogging network whose design helped jan 6 happen" i am going to be extremely concerned.
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Seirdy_ if you're creating a social network, you're creating something that is dangerous by default until you add safety features.
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Seirdy_ most people who run social media companies or projects like this don't really have the experience of what targeted harassment campaigns and hate groups are capable of.
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Seirdy_ so when i see something like bluesky, run mostly by people who have no experience with harassment, shipping a *toggle to allow hate groups*, i just sigh and think "this again..."
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Seirdy_ this is one think i like about GoToSocial, a Fediverse server written in Go. They got blocklist-importing, authorized fetch, etc. working by default (and made authfetch mandatory) before having basic features like a working front-end or account creation without the CLI.
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Seirdy_ if you chase growth before safety, you'll get popular at the expense of safety. the network effect becomes a feedback loop; it becomes hard for people to "opt out" of your network.
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[tantek] Have to agree with Seirdy_ that any kind of even semi-public social product in this day & age needs to be pre-hardened for known harms & abuses. “On the roadmap” is no excuse.
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[tantek] aaronpk, [chrisbergr] yes plant-based may help better convey the 🌱 symbol meaning with/without other symbols in the abstract
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[tantek] To put it another way, you wouldn’t launch a product even “just beta” with http: only and sending passwords in the clear would you?
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[tantek] Same thing with avoiding hate/racism/abuse with random people interacting in your online system that we know can & do lead to physical violence or harm
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[chrisbergr] Your comparison with http is great, [tantek]. I never disagreed with Seirdy's points, I'm sure they know what they is talking about. But what I don't see is Bluesky being open to hate/racism/abuse, despite strange sounding settings. Of course, I haven't found any bad corners like on Twitter yet either. That could mean that they don't exist or that they just haven't gotten through to me yet.
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[chrisbergr] Okay, just tried. If you search, you will find.... 😞
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[tantek] exactly. without more information, I would *guess* that the Bluesky "MVP", the "minimum viable" in particular, was very much evaluated through the lens of a fairly "safe" / privileged individual (insert various axes of race, gender, sex orientation, income, etc.)
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[tantek] aaronpk, [chrisbergr] in sleeping on it, I'm even more convinced by your feedback, updating/editing in place now
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[tantek] 🌱
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[Murray] To add to the Bluesky priorities, from what I've heard accessibility is also not a particular consideration at the moment, and that's another "easier to build in from day one then patch in later" decision which, IMO, feels like they could use a different team tackling the actual UI/UX, as the current focus seems to be deep on the plumbing
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[tantek] aaronpk, [chrisbergr] updated: https://tantek.com/2023/114/t1/venues-reviews-personal-pages
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Loqi [preview] [Tantek Çelik] 🌱 I have long been a fan of @Foursquare.com and @Swarmapp.com, having created many venues, posted many tips, and (checks profile) over 45,000 checkins. I recently joined @happycow.net and before I start posting new vegan (friendly) venues or revie...
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[tantek] I realized I was mixing the "what does this icon mean" in isolation vs in-context (with or without other icons) in one list, so I split them into two lists accordingly. Hopefully that makes it clearer why if you only see 🌱 next to a menu-item, that means that menu-item is vegan and gluten-free
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[chrisbergr] Well done! Minimal change, big impact for the readability of your iconography 🙂
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[tantek] Thank you [chrisbergr] — your feedback was greatly appreciated. Since the point was clear communication, the fact that my initial braindump failed to do that was a pretty serious shortcoming 😂
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[tantek] also gave me an excuse to add 🌶 spicy and a couple of my fave vegan (friendly) SF spots and vegan items
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[tantek] each one of those allergens is one that affects someone I know personally
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[chrisbergr] I love spicy food. Unfortunately, I get it far too rarely because neither my wife nor the kids can handle it 🙂
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[tantek] ah! so you would still find it helpful to be explicitly indicated 🙂
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[marksuth] Update for IndiePass is now published in the play store.
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[marksuth] I'll be posting a blog post about what's changed etc. later on
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[tantek] Whoa amazing!!!
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[tantek] [marksuth] when would it be a good time to update the related wiki pages? E.g. currently /IndiePass redirects to the old name, it should be vice versa right? And of course using the new name "IndiePass" in all the content of the page and put the former name into a "formerly known as" section?
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[tantek] (I'm happy to help with wiki edits)
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[marksuth] I guess the best bet would be when I've published the announcement post, and also when fdroid has updated with the new version
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[marksuth] I've given https://indiepass.marksuth.dev a lick of paint, and have https://indiepass.app pointed at it as well. I'm going to put an update on the old site that for the most part will just redirect, but keeps the callback URL working for people who've not updated yet
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[tantek] Sounds good. Looking forward to the post!
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[jacky] (implicit) indieweb promo? https://twitter.com/wagatwe/status/1650857993288798209
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[schmarty] So hyped for IndiePass! marksuth++
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Loqi marksuth has 6 karma in this channel over the last year (18 in all channels)
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[Tim_Nolte] Woot! [marksuth] ++
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Loqi does a happy dance!
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[schmarty] jacky++ haha, YES, wow I am surprised I hadn't seen that criticism of Twitter blue yet since people seem to rush to criticize IndieWeb for domains costing money!
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[Tim_Nolte] marksuth++
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Loqi marksuth has 7 karma in this channel over the last year (19 in all channels)
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[tantek] that whole thread tho 🔥
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[pfefferle] [marksuth]++
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[timothy_chambe] Can folks who know BlueSky moderation tools better than I confirm if I go this right? They seem to be focused on (I think) purely moderation at the individual level. So a user can set their moderation preferences, although when clear, actual "white nationalists" just showed up they said they "might kick some off their infra." So I don't *think* by design that bluesky has the moderation at a server level akin to ActivityPub
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[timothy_chambe] servers or Mastodon, or even to a slight degree Nostr rellays. Is this view close to accurate?
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aaronpk i'm pretty sure they have always said they will kick anyone off their main server if they want to
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[snarfed] [timothy_chambe] from https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/4-13-2023-moderation : "Any _service or_ person in the network can choose how these labels get used to determine the final user experience."
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[timothy_chambe] They did say they might "kick some content of the infra" but not sure exactly what that means.
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[timothy_chambe] [snarfed] - helpful, akin to what I think i see: users can moderate labels or what they see -- but unless I'm wrong (the content itself say "White power" content )remains on "the network" and benefits from things like discovery, amplification, and maybe some some algorithm choices, no? Not sure there is moderation at the server level, only the user account level.
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[snarfed] "Any service" there refers to server level
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[snarfed] The architecture does seem to preclude deleting things entirely, but both servers and users can use various tools to never show it
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[snarfed] Also it's very very early, they're still actively building (and sometimes designing) pieces of this
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[snarfed] There was a good conversation here yesterday on whether they should have launched anything at all before that. Fair points! Software is never "done," but still
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[snarfed] one result of federation is that you can block remote content, users, and servers at various levels, but you can't necessarily delete it outright like you can on a centralized social network. tradeoffs!
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[timothy_chambe] OK thanks for that clarification. Will be looking as deeply as I can into exactly what "never show it" means at a server level. I think that is one place where BlueSky would benefit from exaclty that Federation model of moderation.
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Loqi friendly reminder [snarfed], [timothy_chambe], would you mind moving this conversation (federation) to #indieweb-dev? thanks!
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[timothy_chambe] Yes: maybe we make a "bluesky" channel like we did Wordpress?
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[snarfed] Maybe yes!
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[snarfed] Definitely start by reading their blog post ^
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[snarfed] more on Bluesky delete support, they do have a way for PDS admins to fully delete eg CSAM and other illegal material: https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/discussions/889#discussioncomment-5724576
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Loqi [indienews] New post: "IndiePass 0.81 Released" https://marksuth.dev/posts/2023/04/indiepass-081-released
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[tantek] marksuth++
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Loqi marksuth has 9 karma in this channel over the last year (21 in all channels)
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[schmarty] haha, oh, the eventual iOS version will be the cross-platform flutter update?
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[marksuth] [schmarty] yes it will. Now that I'm back in the swing of things so far as IndiePass is concerned, the flutter version is getting more attention as well
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[schmarty] marksuth: very cool! i'm hanging on to this old version of indigenous ios for dear life until IndiePass can replace it 😅
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Loqi marksuth has 10 karma in this channel over the last year (22 in all channels)
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[snarfed] marksuth++ awesome, congrats! can't wait to start using it more and try the desktop version, especially once you get through enough of the app infra and start shipping feature requests
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