This isn't one of those "ignore the rules" suggestions: this is a suggestion that we make ourselves visible in our fullness from the jump. We bring all of us to this dead elephant site and figure out how to be our full and complete selves.

I say this because the massive influx of new users creates an opportunity to push the norms of this place in a direction that enables us to be all of who we are. And yes, this is going to involve friction. It will involve conflict.

But growth is never easy, nor is building a new home from nothing. And, even in my newness to this site, I would caution long time mastodonians to give us the space and time to figure out how to be our full selves without demanding we submit to norms (not rules) that limit who we can be and how we can make that present.

I promise you your site and your communities will be better off for it.

@shengokai
[I see you updated, thanks!]
agree with everything you're saying about honoring the need to be fully present

But also a little squicked by the phrase "kow tow" which is orientalizing

it basically means "bow" in translation but in Anglophone use it often means "unwarranted submission to authority"

Unfortunately, that extra meaning _probably_ comes from Anglophone ideas about Chinese submissiveness, and, uh, yuck, i don't think you mean that