Gen X Sims Enthusiast. Occasional mixed-media artist. She/Her.
| https://twitter.com/DellaLuna | |
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Just verified with a Twitter test account:
Twitter is now blocking all links to well-known Mastodon instances (including mastodon.social and hachyderm.io) from being tweeted or added to profiles.
Best-case, a heuristic is broken, and it probably has no staff to run it anymore. That's my most optimistic theory, and even I'm not naive enough to believe it at this point.
“Free speech", my ass.
Freedom doesn't hide alternatives from you or try to prevent you from leaving.
Public Service Warning
Mastodon has a very big surge of new users right now. There's no way to tell if it will be sustained, but at this early point it looks similar to Nov 18 when Musk pulled the employee purge.
It is very challenging for system administration to accommodate so many new users. If your server starts to struggle, it is not broken and will get sorted out.
We're all in this together. It's our social network. Be patient. What we are building is amazing.
Multiple Covid infections a year don't have to be the norm.
Treatments and prevention are still improving, so the longer you can avoid it the better.
The following 🧵 is based on an article I wrote with @[email protected] for @[email protected]
1/n
https://theconversation.com/covid-treatments-and-prevention-are-still-improving-so-the-longer-you-can-avoid-it-the-better-192140
🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/Kit_Yates_Maths/status/1600867354417979393
Update on the Club Q shooter. Lawyers are no longer, apparently, using they/them pronouns for this individual.
(Friends and family have used he/him. Thus far no one has come forward who knew the accused as nonbinary. However, others have said the person frequently used anti-gay slurs.)
Also included links recent reporting about the racist website owned and operated by this person, and a previous act of terror where the individual boasted of being the next mass shooter.
https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/club-q-shooters-lawyers-not-using-theythem-pronouns
@WalterShaub Hey Walt - Thanks much for the verified list of Mastodon folks that you made available. Since it was an .xls file, I made the first column a .csv for import and merge into Mastodon. Easier. Just tested it - works perfectly but I recommend people export their following list for backup first before import just in case. It's on my Drive so others can benefit:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JDZG92qhLpnGqyN-vVw8c1QLm-fwSN3H/view?usp=share_link
Cheers!
As long as the topic of image description has your attention, I'd like to try & reproduce on Mastodon something I & several other volunteers organized on Twitter. It’s 2 hashtags to assist with image description.
The first is #ALT4me — blind & visually impaired individuals can reply to an image that lacks ALT text with this tag, so that sighted volunteers can then reply with a description. The strength of crowdsourcing this is that each person adds unique details from their own perspective, that when combined, form a detailed & meaningful conception of the image. It also allows one person to give a quick triage description, & then others can fill in details as they see fit.
The 2nd is #ALT4you — if you come across an image that is particularly striking, or one that you believe will quickly become iconic & part of a shared visual imagery/memory, please describe that image & tag it with this tag. This is particularly important during unfolding news stories that quickly break & change, leaving behind indelible visual impressions, that then shape most peoples memory & consciousness of the event. Obviously, for the blind/VI, without a description, search images, no matter how important, remain perceptual and informational black holes.
Thank you all again for the outstanding image description I have encountered so consistently in my limited experience on Mastodon.
As a blind individual, I have to say that #Caturday on #Mastodon is far far more enjoyable then at #Twitter, where the vast majority of cat photos are not described.
It is also been fascinating for me to hear descriptions written by those who sent the image, immediately followed by Apple image recognition’s attempts to describe the same image. Only rarely does that add anything to the ALT, & often directly contradicts it.
There is no auto magical solution to image description. It is something best done by a human, for only that human can explain the “why” of the image: the reason that image was chosen to speak so eloquently without words for those who can see it. ALT allows you to provide those words.
If your instance is having troubles, I'm sorry.
With the whole #Twexit, Mastodon's userbase has jumped from about half a million in October to 7 million as of today.
All the admins are working hard to keep the lights on, but many only become aware of the problems when they happen.
Be patient. This will resolve, and the Fediverse will be all the stronger for it.
Meanwhile, if you want to help, head to your instance's /about page, and see if they have a patreon or tip jar.
George Takei 
🏳️🌈🖖🏽
Marco Arment
Mastodon Migration
Bettina Struff #FBPE
Evan Urquhart 🏳️⚧️
Dave Pentecost
Gregory J. Rosmaita
Bryan Elliott 🌻