Erin Kissane

@kissane@mstdn.social
209 Followers
862 Following
4.7K Posts

Thinking about books, bones, sociability, magic, and care. Co-led the COVID Tracking Project @ the Atlantic in 2020. Bunch of editorial and community work in tech, journalism, and culture orgs before that. Child advocate in the extremely broken US foster-care system.

I write a lot about community and sociability, including on the fediverse. I don't CW those topics.

Header: Closeup of elaborate Neolithic greenstone (variscite) necklace from the St-Michel tumulus @ Carnac in France.

LocationPacific NW, USA
internet websitehttps://erinkissane.com
Erin KissaneJul 21, 2023

ok migrating instances 🦆

see you on the other side and/or goodbye forever 🕳️

Erin KissaneJul 21, 2023

ICYM the (UTC−08:00) evening fedi-meta post but are interested, I wrote a whole lot about the ripple effects of interface confusion on Mastodon—and about Black Twitter and the recent troubles on Bluesky, and why people use things that are far from ideal, and also these dudes, whom I love.

https://erinkissane.com/the-affordance-loop

Erin KissaneJul 21, 2023
Something that old (old old) Twitter was and that fedi has been maybe even more—despite a lot of the specialist communities not being here rn—is *incredibly generous* in response to requests for specialist recommendations/ advice, and it's extremely cool, and I'm grateful.
Erin KissaneJul 21, 2023
@myeyesaredim I see some helpful posts from you in my client but when I try to fave them it looks like they’ve been deleted, so I’m copying out the links—thank you for sending them!
Show threadErin KissaneJul 21, 2023

Also, in case it's not clear, I really want this place to work or I'd be quietly writing novels and reading archaeology journals and taking my dumb little walks.

You got me, Mastodon, I'm writing about software again and I'm inclined to keep going.

Show threadErin KissaneJul 21, 2023
I would bet actual money that I've got some nuance of Mastodon's functionality wrong in there so when you see that please do lmk. I thought about asking instance-running friends to preview it but I've taken up enough of their time this week.
Erin KissaneJul 21, 2023

But what is the actual PROBLEM with Mastodon?? Said one hundred dozen people over several months of threads here. So I wrote it up.

It's too long, but we got bad doors, stilt-walking French shepherds, water bugs, a bunch of @/shengokai@zirk.us quotations, What The Fuck Is Up With Bluesky, and more.

https://erinkissane.com/the-affordance-loop

Show threadErin KissaneJul 19, 2023
More broadly, I'd be grateful for pointers toward resources (like *detailed* write-ups of various instances, including their blocklists and defed philosophy) that are oriented toward new users or people just getting curious about Mastodon and fedi.
Erin KissaneJul 19, 2023

Soliciting personal recs for great medium-sized to large instances you love that aren't defederating over personal conflicts between admins and that *do* use Oliphant's level-zero (or greater) blocklist. Preferably not locked to a locality.

If you like an instance but don't know anything about its blocklist, I appreciate you! But please don't recommend it in this specific spot. <3

Erin KissaneJul 19, 2023

Time to go watch an all-time fave with the kiddo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-52DcQY-BA

Le génie de la boîte de raviolis

YouTube