I see a lot of the drama that is happening between people of color on the platform and the mastodon dev team.

Emelia 👸🏻

@blogdiva @polotek fwiw, Eugen is no longer calling all the shots, @renchap is now making more of the engineering decisions, and having a small team is absolutely not by choice, but instead constrained by funding as noted in the 2022 annual report figures: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/10/annual-report-2022/

Basically you can't hire full-time engineers without money. Each full-time engineer based in Europe costs you about €80k/year on average; folks based in America have much higher salary requirements too.

Julian Fietkau

@blogdiva @polotek As a relative late-comer, my impression is that the Mastodon team has recently put a fair amount of their capacity into making the project more approachable. @andypiper and @renchap have both specifically focused on barriers to entry and new collaborator onboarding this year.

I don't want to tell others where to invest their effort, but I'm at least not the only one who thinks the vibe around the project has been improving: https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/112860534061070294

Tim Bray

@blogdiva @polotek Our tech stack is 100% boring/vanilla. Our co-op structure is off-the-shelf boring, taking mostly just the defaults for our legal jurisdiction. The only thing that’s innovative is the combo: co-op owned instance. Observation: Requiring membership approval and a $50 payment is *amazingly* effective at discouraging griefers.

Marco Rogers

@timbray @blogdiva funny how it's often people who aren't paying any money who are the loudest.

Rui Seabra

@polotek

@timbray

How about starting with code and participating in standards bodies meetings?

It's #FreeSoftware and #OpenStandards!

Even if the mastodon "gods" don't like something, absolutely everything is in your power to get organized and do something about it.

Don't tell me anyone needs an external power to force the whiteys (like me) to do something.

Because you don't!

That's the proprietary mindset.

Please come and join the free world, you're welcome!

yes, it's me, liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

@polotek @timbray i know you're being facetious, but there is a tech nut to crack in turning digital production, including social media activity, into a form of payment. it shouldn't be taken lightly by the fediverse if we're going to deal with sustainability beyond how much currency (fiat and otherwise) a project gets to accumulate on a monthly basis.

Marco Rogers

I cannot stress enough that the problems we are discussing are not technical problems. They are people problems. I know many people are going to disagree with me on this. I'm not interested in debating it today.

I do not believe in focusing on technical solutions to people problems. I would appreciate it if people would understand and respect that when they seek to engage with me personally.
https://mastodon.social/@RuiSeabra/112877191090748791

esmevane, sorry

@RuiSeabra @polotek @timbray

This isn't helpful. Marco knows all of this. He's very experienced with software, open source, Mastodon, the social web, all of it.

He knows what he's talking about and I think if you reread this thread you might notice you've only repeated his own words back at him.

Marco Rogers

@ironchamber @RuiSeabra @timbray this person's bio does a very good job of explaining exactly what to expect from them. They are on brand, and I can respect that.

Jon

1000%. Great thread. Here's my take on it, from Steps Towards a Safer Fediverse

I want to know how I can find and support people that are aligned with my values.

This is something I've heard from a lot of people. I've been working with @[email protected] on setting up a federated forum site (with opt-in federation), would it be useful to host some discussions there?

[I'm thinking of a forum for a couple of reasons: it supports private forums, for stuff that's more useful to discuss with limited visibility; and, longer-form discussions are going to be useful for something like this.]

@[email protected]

Mike Macgirvin 🖥️

There are a number of fediverse platforms that are more closely aligned with your values when it comes to online safety and control of your inbox. Be aware that not all of them are like Twitter. The Twitter interaction style itself promotes and encourages harassment and abuse by design; and this interaction style is baked into ActivityPub - the underlying protocol of the fediverse. It takes a lot of effort and thinking outside the box to provide relatively safe online spaces within the confines of said protocol. But people are doing it.

I work on a very small project known colloquially as "the streams repository" and I'm personally driven by online safety. I'm not saying my software is what you're looking for. It's way out in the fringes. However - if you take a good look at what's available and look at the trajectories and visions of some of the alternatives, you might just find a new home -- with a front door lock that actually works.

Cheers.

Pete🎸🎶🐍📽🎞☮🌍🙂😭

@polotek

I'm European with low melanin levels.

I am working hard to understand why some people believe in the myth of race, and how that affects their prejudices, and how it is used in society to simplify discussions to the point of not being reality.

Ruling me out just because of my skin pigmentation and place of birth seems... I dunno... wrong?

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Marco Rogers

@pete just based on this post, it doesn't actually sound like you're "working hard to understand". Can you maybe try again to tell me what work you've put into trying to understand?

Pete🎸🎶🐍📽🎞☮🌍🙂😭

@polotek I’m not sure that’s necessary. The discussion point is that it seems wrong to me to exclude people based upon their skin pigmentation and birthplace. We’re not discussing how hard I am trying. If that’s the important discussion then I’m happy to continue, but it would be good to set out what is an acceptable definition of “trying hard”, otherwise it’s easy to move the goalpost and never acknowledge my efforts.

Marco Rogers

@pete I am discussing how hard you are trying. It is a prerequisite to me spending any more time engaging with you on this topic. Obviously you have the choice of whether you want to meet that requirement. I'm fine either way. But yes, it is required if you want to have any further discussion with me personally. Cheers.

damon

@mikedev I think what you have built can be a strong foundation for what people are looking for with a sprinkle of whatever they like about Mastodon

Pete🎸🎶🐍📽🎞☮🌍🙂😭

@polotek

How can I prove that I am good enough?

Marco Rogers

@pete first off, you can really practice not making assumptions and jumping to conclusions. I didn't ask you to "prove" anything. I asked you to give me some info to help me understand.

If you don't even understand why it is historically relevant for Black people to be wary of this conversation, that already gives me a lot of conversation about your journey in understanding things.

Marco Rogers

@pete there were lots of other signals. Like the phrase "the myth of race". The journey that white people have to go on to understand these things is well documented. You're giving off lots of signals that you're not very far along. It doesn't make you a bad person. It does probably make it a waste of my time to engage with you.

I hope that helps explain where I'm coming from. And I sincerely hope you find somebody who is willing to spend more time educating you. But it won't be me. Take care.

Joe Fox

@polotek @pete for someone to make this post, it sounds very much like he/she is trying to understand.