Paid in cheese

The closest thing to groups we have on mastodon really are just boost bots. It’s pretty annoying that mastodon doesn’t have more. But it’s pretty understandable that mastodon users would assume that.

I’m guessing the issue is with mastodon users at-ing multiple communities on Lemmy/etc creating unnecessary cross posts / duplicates?

I’m not sure what version they’re running on their flagship but I last posted from there on March 20th and my blog federated to Mastodon.

More for the OP but if you’re looking for a blog with a comment section, I wouldn’t recommend WriteFreely at present. Customization is also unnecessarily painful.

It does federate. Social features are rudimentary. I end up using my existing microblogs to promote the posts anyway.

I knew all that going in and chose it anyway. It’s not for everyone but it does what I need it to at a price I’m fine with.

Mostly I agree but I disagree in this way:

Face to face, especially in a small community, some people take it upon themselves to establish what they see as the right and proper rules for the community. Everyone must have a grassy lawn cut to exactly three inches is kind of the least terrible end of this.

“Queer people are a danger to our children”, “Everyone must be in a straight, monogamous relationship, that produces children who aren’t autistic or disabled in any way,” etc. and, because it’s in person, they have much more power to ruin lives.

We see some of that behavior in online communities but people generally have much more ability to “vote with their feet” or even abstain online.

I had Instagram for five minutes before they started trying to share my account with acquaintances who didn’t know I was queer. (Which is a crime as far as I’m concerned but not relevant.) I immediately closed my account. Imagine that had been a neighborhood I’d just moved into. It might not even be possible for me to move before I faced months of the real life consequences of being forcibly outed by a neighbor.

There’s a veneer of politeness in meat space. Sometimes there’s more than a veneer to it. But often not.