Notices by Cas 🏳️‍🌈♻️♿️🇬🇧 [main] (cassolotl@dev.glitch.social)

“I left Mastodon 27 days ago”

https://medium.com/@cassolotl/i-left-mastodon-27-days-ago-ae34919290e1

A follow-up to the post I wrote when I first left Mastodon, to see what’s changed since and what hasn’t.

#mastodon

So yeah, I'm white, and I'm not a woman, and I'm technically-minded and want to be involved in the project, and this whole website and the Github issue list and the Discord for devs are very hostile for me.

Anyone less like safe men than me will have it worse. This project is wonderful, and I appreciate the work that Gargron and everyone else does, but it is a hostile and thankless near-monoculture and I have to fight to be here.

Thank you for your patience while I ranted. <3

#ForkOff

And then there's the accessibility! We've got a (bad) image description UI and people make "add image descriptions for visually impaired users" posts that do the rounds all the time, but VISUALLY IMPAIRED PEOPLE AREN'T HERE because there are many things about the Mastodon UI that are not usable to people with screenreaders!

#ForkOff

I have been sealioned and well-actuallyed when saying the fediverse is not diverse.

White men and furries and trans women is not diverse, people! I LOVE that furries and trans women have a home here, I really do! But the presence of a single marginalised group is not diversity!

#ForkOff

I have to block SO MANY White Man Avatars on here, so many more than I have to block TERFs on Twitter as a person who shouts about being trans and having trans experiences, even!

Here's a chunk of my regex filters on the federated timeline. I had to do this because otherwise my federated timeline was unreadable as a non-coder, no matter which instance I was on.

linux|programming|sysadmin|infosec|opsec|partition

linux
programming
sysadmin
infosec
opsec
partition

#ForkOff

I have been saying from the start that this place gets MORE "well actually" and hostility for me than Twitter, and a lot of people told me it wasn't true. I'm starting to understand why that is.

It's because the people telling me these things are safe men, and I am a nonbinary non-coder, and I visibly try to get involved in a project when I can't code. I try to get involved as a user.

#ForkOff

"I only want to code something for me, and you are lucky that I am willing to share it." And that is true! I am lucky!

But the truth is that projects like this NEED the bug reports and feature requests and mock-ups and complaints by newbies and non-coders. No developer is so good that they can make something without that!

And if the developer or developers are all safe men who push anyone they don't understand away, they will ONLY EVER MAKE A WEBSITE THAT WORKS FOR SAFE MEN.

#ForkOff

Ultimately every FOSS project like this that I've run into is (or becomes) selfish in this way.

This is hard to describe. It's like... in FOSS we are meant to all have equal power. But devs sometimes think that means we should all have equal skill, and if they can fork the project so can I. And if I can't, it's just because I haven't learnt how to code then that's just a formality and a matter of time and work, and I can go and do that.

(I can't.)

#ForkOff

There is no way I could ever fork the project myself! I ask for changes sometimes because I want something that works for me and people like me. But I've been told to #ForkOff so many times - it's the standard response when you're a user and you ask for something that the dev doesn't really get.

When most of the devs are straight white cis men and you don't code, if your experiences are met with #ForkOff, a website that is made only for people NOT like you is inevitable.

As I'm sure a lot of you will know, I've put in a lot of effort to help this project as best I can. I don't code but I know the issue list, and for non-code issues I can redirect duplicates and such.

If there's an issue I think has merit I'll post it here and help average non-coding users learn how to support a feature request.

I've made UI suggestions and mock-ups that have been implemented.

I've never been formally acknowledged or thanked.

#ForkOff

"Estonia To Become The World’s First Free Public Transport Nation"

https://popupcity.net/estonia-to-become-the-worlds-first-free-public-transport-nation/

YES free public transport is one of my idealist utopian dreams! :) Bring it on!

#PositiveNews #GoodNews #environment

I made a flow chart of which #Mastodon posts end up in which timelines!

So, you can see how each instance will have a different local timeline, and even a slightly different federated timeline - and you can see why the federated timeline moves so much faster than the local one, too.

#FAQ

http://switter.at, the instance for sex workers and clients created in response to #SESTA / #FOSTA getting all the safe sex worker sites taken down, just hit 50,000 members and 400,000 posts. :) #switter

Look at these satisfying numbers! :D

https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues

#mastodon #meta

#MASTODON POST PRIVACY - who can see your post?

PUBLIC 🌏
Anyone can see and boost your post everywhere.

UNLISTED 🔓
✅ Tagged people
✅ Followers
✅ On your profile
❌ Local and federated timelines
✅ Boostable
✅ Visible to admins

FOLLOWERS ONLY 🔐
✅ Tagged people
✅ Followers
❌ On your profile
❌ Local and federated timelines
❌ Boostable
✅ Visible to admins

DIRECT MESSAGE ✉️
✅ Tagged people
❌ Followers
❌ On your profile
❌ Local and federated timelines
❌ Boostable
✅ Visible to admins

#FAQ #needhelp

#MASTODON POST PRIVACY - who can see your post?

PUBLIC 🌏
Anyone can see and boost your post everywhere.

UNLISTED 🔓
(Replies are unlisted.)
✅ Tagged people
✅ Followers
✅ On your profile
❌ Local and federated timelines
✅ Boostable

FOLLOWERS ONLY 🔐
✅ Tagged people
✅ Followers
❌ On your profile
❌ Local and federated timelines
❌ Boostable

DIRECT MESSAGE ✉️
✅ Tagged people
❌ Followers
❌ On your profile
❌ Local and federated timelines
❌ Boostable

#tootorial

A collection of things I made for people new to #Mastodon, based on questions I commonly see in the public timelines during influxes of new folks. :)

What the heck with these privacy settings? https://cybre.space/@cassolotl/98998860005309510

Local vs. federated timelines? https://cybre.space/@cassolotl/99049526570400165

A two-way Mastodon-Twitter crossposter? https://crossposter.masto.donte.com.br/ @crossposter

How to find and interact with toots that haven't reached your instance yet: https://dev.glitch.social/@cassolotl/99520879850631808

#FAQ #FAQs #mastopedia #tootorial #meta