Prof. Monophylos FortikosSome hours of reflection and distraction have only solidified my decision: whatever the solution is to my desire for a microblogging platform that encourages thoughtful discussion and is home to the broadest and most diverse possible range of interests and personalities...mastodon.social is NOT it. I have had some doubts previously, doubts I was willing for a time to set aside, but the experience of my friend @voz has exhausted my patience.
Before I go further, let me state plainly what this community has lost in driving @voz away: a fearsomely intelligent, experienced woman with immense practical knowledge in fields that, frankly, do not get the tenth part of the respect they deserve in communities dominated by gamers and programmers. That I was able by chance to meet such a person here, after years in the Twitter wilderness, _was_ one of the most important reasons I was giving Mastodon a chance.
I am an old-fashioned sort, I suppose...a relic of dusty libraries and laboratories. I do not suppose I will ever succeed in getting used to the modern world. So to see one of my best friends here being treated to superficial kibitzing about using "yt" to denote "white" gets on my last nerve. Does EVERY conversation have to be reduced to mere pop-culture reference? @voz https://mastodon.social/media/9H3VhCNo0hdU2ZJ3Qf0 https://mastodon.social/media/bqUOWrjbCtc35KAQ560
Some users here seem to grasp what has been lost here. More users, however, are taking refuge in the usual, infuriating preoccupation with _tone_ that seems to prevail on Twitter and other social media. Never mind the substance of what happened! What matters is that it is "drama", and "drama" is bad. My friend was guilty of stirring up "drama", it seems--and I suppose that I am doing the same now. The trivialization of this dispute as mere "drama" sets my teeth on edge.
Crom, Awoo.space Admin@Monophylos I'm really upset that voz was sent packing & wish I could see the stuff that prompted her original posts to begin with so we could at least contemplate taking administrative action.
That said, I think the Snowcrash jokes were insensitive but I'm trying to understand what calling out here is going to accomplish- these folks already know they've screwed up and calling them out *again* doesn't seem productive.
What we really need right now are tools for moderating issues like this.
@Monophylos I've been speaking with folks more involved in the dev side of things and we all agree that we need to do the following:
1. Add reporting/moderation
2. Upgrade our Code of Conduct
I'm going to be speaking with some folks tonight about our existing code of conduct and figuring out how to improve what we're doing as a community. I welcome any other input you have on what you'd like to add to this.
@vahnj I don't have any other well-formed thoughts on the matter, yet. I have been beginning to contemplate an exit strategy, possibly a custom instance, although I have little aptitude for administering such a thing. I am not certain whether merely tweaking the existing structure will be sufficient.
@Monophylos One of the things we really want to encourage folks to do is to in fact start their own communities.
Gargron is also pushing forward with developing better guides for how to start up your own instances so people can better own the moderation of their instance.
I know @hoodie or @KitRedgrave would be super happy to help you with this if that would help at all!
I'm really sad to see you go though.
@vahnj @hoodie @KitRedgrave Thank you. I'm still not entirely decided on my course of action. I have certain ideas about how a microblogging platform might be structured in a way that would at least tend to suppress the trivialization of discussion. Getting rid of means of instantaneous, content-free interaction (favoriting, "boosting") might be salubrious, for example. But such changes would stray rather far from the central model in this case, yes?