when the bsky exodus happens, please remember these things:
- dont be the fucking mastodon hoa. everyone hates those people. nobody cares if you think someone should be using a platform "your way". it drives people away. fucking stop it.

- dont shame them for going to bsky. do not mock them, do not give them grief. they made a mistake, and if they come back here, dont shit on them for it.

- make them feel better by coming here, not worse.

- i cannot overemphasize this: dont be the motherfucking mastodon hoa. the entire reason bsky has been as successful as it was, is because too many people here told people "how to behave" on their first day, or shamed them because "they werent doing it right"

if you want mastodon to thrive, you have to make it "worth it to come here". nobody likes being shamed by rando strangers.

@Viss 100% this. I've deleted draft toots plenty of times because I was worried it wasn't a proper post for Mastodon. I haven't used bsky nearly as much but I never felt that way when I did.

@Viss You know that 80% of masto users will do exactly all these, right?

@Viss so I'm pretty sure under those guidelines, most Mastodon instances would probably do the same thing. I don't want to see non-consenting adults licking toes, even if it's AI.

@Sempf we should be shaming THOSE PEOPLE not new users

@Viss I'm not gonna be a Karen about it but I'll block and set up filters if it gets to be too much.

@da_667 yep, hard same. ive never had one actual blind person complain that something i posted couldnt be understood. ever. its all just virtue signaling by people who berate people into doing something 'because its sounds like the right thing to do' and they have no idea that their behavior is the poison keeping people off the platform.

@Viss Agreed. If a person only wants to hang out with people who have never made a mistake, they should be prepared to spend their life alone

@jalefkowit im just sick to death of all the virtue signaling

@da_667 @Viss i gave up and made friends w/ alt-bot. It’s been kinda fun seeing how it interprets the tour posters. But yes, the hoa vibe when I first got here was wild.

@chremylus @da_667

i wrote this, and then was shamed for using ai:

https://github.com/Viss/gptocr

@Viss @da_667 Its a worthwhile habit to be considerate of others accessibility. I've seen plenty of posts by people who use screen readers expressing how much they appreciate this cultural norm of the fediverse. ...

@HeliosPi @da_667 i haven't seen a single one. if the person who is actually impacted by my actions wishes to say something to me, politely, i will happily oblige

but i will outright refuse and ignore people who scream at strangers "on behalf of someone else" when that someone else hasnt yet said a word themselves.

its performative fuckery and im over it

@HeliosPi @da_667 like, ok if a blind person actually replies to a meme or something i post saying "hey this seems fun but i cant read it cuz im blind"

I WILL FUCKING FALL OVER MYSELF TO MAKE THEM HAPPY.

but if its some rando, who doesnt follow me, screaming at me or shaming me on behalf of a blind person who has never seen my content?

fuck that hoa bullshit. everyone hates that behavior. we shouldnt encourage it.

@Viss @da_667 It sounds like it's how someone communicates this that's the issue? Also that the person communicating this doesn't identify that it effects them. But you must be aware that this does effect people. Right?

Irregardless, with a choice between people who (try to) accommodate others and people who don't, why bother with the people who don't.

@HeliosPi @da_667

listen - this thread is about not shaming people who are using the platform "in a way that you disapprove of", not intentionally inflicting trauma. and you're now changing the subject to be ab out intentionally inflicting trauma

the whole sentiment here is that this place should be welcoming, and not chasing people away

now youre arguing with me about the semantics of a sign in some random coffeeshop

you are literally doing the thing i just said people shouldnt do

@buherator there are definitely a few things that they nailed, and there are a few features i think would do really well here - but theres a huge issue of "people want to win arguments on the internet" and will literally fucking fight about anything in order to get that dopamine hit

and when those people dive into public discussions it derails them, and directly harms the goals of the people having a discussion, so we languish

and it seems like no amount of rationally explaining it will help

@da_667 @Viss I try to consistently provide alt text, because to me it’s the right thing to do, but I agree that the people who harangue others about it aren’t helping any.

IMHO there are better ways to encourage a culture of valuing accessibility.

@Viss I warned people. I warned about all kinds of stuff.
Nobody listened.

I don't give people grief. I block idiots who say stupid shit though.

@Viss yep. 1,000% this. i barely stay here b/c of that toxic culture that is still very prevalent.

@hrbrmstr ive found that its a finite number of people, and once you've pressed your experience through the proper RO filter, they just quietly disappear and its just wonderful.

like, in this exact circumstance, one guy decided to call me out as 'being the mastodon hoa for telling people what to do', which is literally exactly what my post said not to do, so without hesitation, directly into the sun he went.

@hrbrmstr no discussion, no argument, no interation, just instant vaporization.

100% of the time if you make a post making some huge, broad, sweeping generalization like "dont be a shithead", there will be some shithead who does exactly the thing you just asked not to do.

straight into the sun with those people, zero hesitation.

it worked GREAT on twitter too. i blocked so many infosec idiots that way. cleaned shit up super well

@Viss i hope it gets better b/c Bluesky just deleted the AI trump/musk video from everyone's posts using "nonconsensual" as the excuse (vs. their real fear of POTUS retribution). So, if they fully go to the dark side, Mastodon is pretty much it besides Signal.

@Viss i thought we are all idiots for getting into infosec?

@hrbrmstr yeah this thread was exactly because of that. they have broken the seal, and now that there is blood in the water, and ...

if_it_bleeds_we_can_kill_it dot gif

@hrbrmstr yes, we are all collectively dumb for getting into this profession but some of us have decided to act like those fucking monsters from the first riddick movie and just attack whoever is next to us because there isnt 'a better target' or 'a read badguy' or whatnot.

people think that they can somehow look good by 'attacking someone', and it never works.

those people would do well to ... leave.

@Viss @hrbrmstr Guess I’m fucking done with Bluesky

@Caseydunham @hrbrmstr i tried it over there. i really did. but its 100% doom, the sky is falling, political this and that. blow by blow this and that .. whatever.

youre not gonna social media post your way out of this nightmare we're in. and making everybody depressed and anxiety riddled is hurting more than it is helping.

come here, treat it like you did irc 15 years ago.

post cool shit, be friendly, be chill and welcoming.

let the xanax requirement live on bsky, dont let it come here

@Viss To be fair to Bluesky, it is hard to argue with their definition. If this were a video of, for example, Taylor Swift in Trump’s role, it would be clear that it is abusive.

I loathe Trump. I also loathe non-consensual AI fakes. Just like dropping bombs on children, some things are bad, no matter who does them, or why they are done.

I’m not a Bluesky user. Not likely to be one. But this is decent moderation. The video breaches basic standards.

@Viss @buherator Buckle up for quote posts round 100000

@Viss I of course agree with this take. Buuuut I also suspect there won't be a Bsky exodus. Most of the moral outrage about that moderation decision will be done in post form, not material action that takes effort on the part of the user.

"Bluesky is not the liberal utopia I thought it was, but on the other hand, I don't want to have to choose a Masto instance or learn new posting paradigms."

@buherator @Viss I understand, but let's not forget that quote posts were a directly-cited feature that led to Black Twitter largely failing to find a home here. That and, y'know, the racism. But for real: quotes mattered.

@Sempf update - i've blocked about half a dozen people now for doing exactly this.

im actually pleasantly surprised that the number is so small. if i had tried this back on twitter, the figures would be way way way different

@hrbrmstr @Viss did they?

https://bsky.app/profile/marisakabas.bsky.social/post/3liwlwvvq6k2s

@v4rd4453n @hrbrmstr

see for yourself
https://www.404media.co/bluesky-deletes-ai-protest-video-of-trump-sucking-musks-toes-calls-it-non-consensual-explicit-material/

@v4rd4453n @Viss it was for a bit at least — https://bsky.app/profile/marisakabas.bsky.social/post/3lj3vlpdkbk2o — so i guess they caved to popular pressure. (neither is great tbh)

@Viss
Like..
Not even a little greif?
Like..
None¿
😢

#blokkityblokkity #replyGuy #agreeWithMeOrElse #tastyGatoraid #paperSkin

@Viss tbh you should basically never leave a negative interaction with anyone you don't follow. Either block, mute, or move on.

I absolutely do not accept anything but the most incredibly gentle and positive criticism from anyone who doesn't follow me, immediate "I am an asshole looking for a fight" red flag

@Viss hookers and coke can be looked at as a olive branch

@Sempf @Viss Not 80% of masto users, just the noisy ones.

@ubik @Sempf so far, about 7 of em.

@Viss I've been here for years and still get the "mastodon HOA" in my mentions every so often.

The block button does wonders.

@soatok yep. its getting a light workout today. only about 7-8 of them so far. even one guy who gets honorable mention in saying that i dont deserve to be here because i had the audacity to sleight blind people, despite them, or alt text being absolutely nowehere in any of my post. at all.

so theres a fair showing of logical fallacies and insecurity on display today

@Viss Still sometimes a dilemma. I have a user on an instance who posted a bloody open wound, now a second time, with no CW or media hidden. I'll be keeping my mouth shut.

@murph if you dont like what you see, then either mute the user, or report them to the admin and have the admin apply whatever the agreed upon policy is.

dont shit on the user who made the post. if you want the system to work for you, you have to use the system in the way it was designed.

screaming at the user is bypassing the system entirely

@Viss On the topic of alt text: https://furry.engineer/@soatok/114056066805850030

@Viss @Sempf Do you mean blocking if they're pissed at you calling them out?

I feel like blocking, while defo a step you can take to shield yourself, doesn't do much to encourage/promote the welcome culture... Do we need to start using a hashtag? Something like #welcomeculture or #shamefree ...

@nicr9 @Sempf
- one guy flat out said 'you dont belong here, go away, and take your bsky people with you'
- several people called me the hoa for saying not to be the hoa
- one guy 'begged' to shame people
- several attempted to claim my post was about alt text (it wasnt) and then berated me for "not considering blind people to be human"

for the ones who werent insufferable shits, i muted. everyone else was an outright block

@Viss this makes no sense, mastodon would delete it too.. why would they quit bluesky for mastodon? Delulu....

@Viss Shame on you for telling me how to masto!!

@Viss oh is that why so many videos/media are wonky today

@Viss no alt text people bother me.

@Viss @ubik Yeah I overstated my case. Just like the US right now, the loud ones are playing in the red zone all game, while the rest of us hang out around the 50.

@Viss I use both platforms and while I thankfully haven’t ran into the MHOA, I can definitely say that if the only engagement people get here is criticism they’re not going to want to stay. Like em or not, a social media needs different kinds of people!
Sure this site actually got me into the habit of providing alt text, but that was more because I saw other people doing it rather than someone screaming at me to.
Both platforms share the issue of not boosting posts though.

@Viss @buherator

@Viss just five words: Be excellent to each other.

@nobrainnopain i couldnt have said it better myself

@Viss Each lifecycle of social media is smaller than the previous one. Bsky people were super excited about the increased engagement and positive vibe and for a few months compared it with the hellsite.

Then came starter packs for building the social bubbles they had at X. The same social media celebrities are there, so much of the content is very familiar.

So maybe people were looking for an X replacement.

I do post there as well, so I am not one to criticize. Just my observation.

@darthstar i tried it there. it very much seemed like the folks who feel comfortable there are looking for a one-way relationship with their audience. they want to broadcast to tons of folks and have somewhat of a captive audience, which is a limitation of masto.

so at least from what ive seen, the folks who dont care about replies to their post are the ones who enjoy it there most

@Viss Given that so many people haven't left Xitter I’d say not many will leave Bsky over this.

@dxzdb i dont think this will be the thing that opens the flood gates - but what it shows is that bsky will cave to political pressure to bend the rules for someone scary making threats.

and now there will be blood in the water, and they will try again. and again and again.

and iteratively, at some point, cracks will begin to form.

@Viss the irony of this post

@Viss I only associate "mastodon hoa" with white racists complaining about block lists.

@squeakypancakes there are a lot of people who make angry, pointed demands of people for a variety of things, like content warnings, hash tags, alt tags, using certain phrasing or words, etc - and to people who are new and do not understand the culture here its EXTREMELY offputting, and if thats their first experience, they leave and they dont look back.

and they go to bsky. because it looks and feels just like old twitter. old habits. 'its comfortable'. etc

@Viss
My headmate, Alyx, rarely shares photos on Fedi because of anxiety around alt-text. Most of the time it's not an issue, but sometimes our disabilities make it too much.

Then, the pile-on comes. Either it's outright anger or passive aggressive hashtags meant to be helpful but are often a form of public shaming.

Alyx used to share all kinds of photos in passing. They would take a photo of something they found interesting and share it immediately, sometimes with no text of any kind. With ADHD, it's "share now or never." Alyx opts for never.

A disabled person not wanting to share photos because it sometimes requires too many spoons for alt-text, a feature meant to help disabled people, is a disappointing but natural reaction. Disabled people don't need more labor added to their lives.

Alt-text is the one area where we believe LLMs and AI tools could actually be beneficial.
@TheZeldaZone

@VanessaNightshade I'd mute "alt text" and related terms if it's an issue, mutes are great I'm glad you can access Muted Words directly from the homepage on mastodon. I don't usually get messages about alt text though I pretty rarely post without it I suppose.

I'd def say not to over-work oneself on alt text, if it's a throaway image a throwaway description is fine, "screenshot of (game)" is often plenty

It is one area where AI might actually be useful for once. Describing and summarizing stuf

@VanessaNightshade And you can receive bad comments by using tools that help us. (I’m autistic and ADHD).

@Viss

@VanessaNightshade it can be okay it. I was mildly impressed when I asked youtube's AI "does sniper wolf die in this video" and it answered correctly on my MGS video, though I'm not sure exactly how it comes to that conclusion, could easily be because I marked it up "sniper wolf battle", comparing to screenshots of boss fights idk

@TheZeldaZone @Viss Tankies and nazis (which seems to be increasingly the same thing lately) deserve negative interactions as a minimum. Especially on fedi.
Does that sound acceptable?

@richlv @TheZeldaZone this is not an approach that scales.

the only thing that does adequately scale, and gives them the sufficient negative reinforcement is to block them.

with no oxygen, they cant do anything. without victims they cant victimize.

just insta-block and move on.
if everyone else does the same, then they "find themselves outside of the room" and can do no more damage.

@Viss I don't agree. People are going on bsky because most people are going there and almost none are on Mastodon (at least from my pov/experience).
But I made the choice to loose followers and be on the plateform that is solving most problems regarding social media. That was a tough choice. These people don't want to choose or sacrifice anything. I don't see the point not to remind them, this is a politic decision : ethic vs comfort. Pick one.

@Viss @TheZeldaZone It would truly be great, but I fear many won't block. It would allow for the repetition strategy to work.
Challenge + report is my approach, although not sure how sharp and consistent the mods are.

@Viss Why though?

Unlike VC-backed companies with limitless money, real people are running Mastodon infrastructure that they need to pay with real money.

I don't think people stupid enough to migrate from Twitter to Bluesky are going to improve the Fediverse enough to offset the increased server cost, if they came here.

Quality over quantity.

@Viss
I am neither shitting on or screaming at anyone.
I'm also not reporting them. I'm keeping my mouth shut, which seems to be what's desired.

@murph i have found that "responding to them in any way" is what encourages their shit behavior, so at the very least, youre not making it worse!

@Viss damn is that the reason why Bsky is so laggy?

@Viss absolutely. “don’t punish behaviour you want to see.”

@Viss @Caseydunham @hrbrmstr
I miss Emo Kylo Ren.... at least we have Riker Googling here.

@Viss

@InsiderTreat @Viss That's because bsky IS twitter. People there are encouraged to NOT care.

I think it's ok to tell fediverse discoverers what is considered good etiquette and what is not (even if it's something that evolves with the community, including newcomers, of course).

We do NOT need the fediverse to turn into open source twitter...

Besides most people who come from twitter/bsky EXPECT something like twitter/bsky and they NEED to understand it is NOT.

@ZoidbergForPresident @Viss and this is where I would normally feel the regret of posting because someone shows up to tell me I'm doing it wrong. 🙄

@Viss They made a mistake? How?
I appreciate that you tried but this still comes off as condescending.

I'm curious if you think that Bluesky should allow non consensual AI erotica?

I have no issue with them blocking it, as long as they are consistent in applying their rules.

@Viss agreed, but I am glad bluesky is functioning as a gateway for Mastodon. It will be easier for people to quit there when they start seeing similar patterns emerge.

@calbearo absolutely. having an extra layer of filtration is great

@Viss
What is "hoa"?

@Viss It's wild that people go gaga for bluesky when it is literally the descendant of twitter. Talk about jumping out of the frying pan into the fryer.

@Viss Twitter refugees always wanted a drop-in twitter replacement and bluesky is that. As much as I love this place, its a different vibe. The masto HOAers (amazing description btw) def did their share of damage to potential new users, but I think checking out mastodon was a pit stop for a lot of ex-twitter users who were on the way to bsky anyway. Just my 2 cents.

@Viss used to be called satire.

@InsiderTreat @Viss If you intend to post something without being ready to discuss the shape or meaning of said post, maybe you shouldn't have posted anyway, no ?

It's ok to make mistakes, that's how we grow as humans.

That's my take on it anyway.

@ZoidbergForPresident @Viss no mistakes were made lol. Please continue to tell me how to use my time on this platform.

@lackattack youre not wrong

@lackattack

@Viss

it's all over that place man, 5 sec. replays

@Viss I've been using Bluesky for a couple months now, and have not seen a scintilla of evidence for this kind of thing.

@Viss 😢I sadly agree.

@Viss i was actually considering joining blusky but not now lol

@MATAK79 its possible that my view into things is skewed because of who i follow but its .. not.. so great.. there.

@Viss completely disagree with your position.

if people want to shame others for doubling down on corporate owned social media, that's fair.

is your top priority is you want more fedi users at any cost to the quality of experience?

my priority is honesty and consequences. they counteract bad behaviour.

it is wrong to self-censor out of courtesy to the discourteous. to self-restrain for the comfort of the selfish.

I think directly stating expectations is more important than coddling.

@VanessaNightshade @Viss @TheZeldaZone Yeah, dueling disabilities has kinda defined my life for the last decade or so, like faceplanting on the concrete when I fell over a curb meant to protect someone in a wheelchair. This is just a hard reality of being disabled: what works for one can be difficult for another.

I wonder how many of the folks who shame other folks for “not recognizing the needs of disabled users” are actually disabled?

@alameth @VanessaNightshade @TheZeldaZone this post has resulted in probably a dozen people straight up calling me an asshole for telling people how to behave, and a couple of them telling me to get off mastodon and go back to bsky, or trying to change the topic to alt text despite me not even mentioning it.

i subscribe to what i call "reaver math". about a tenth of a percent of people are just vile, and with a big enough audience, you are guaranteed to encounter them.

@alameth @VanessaNightshade @TheZeldaZone they are few in number, but aggressive, loud and persistent. considerably louder than regular people who tend to be either neutral or polite. these people will look for practically any excuse to make someone feel miserable, shame them, or tell them that somehow they are wrong and so there have been overwhelming numbers of people running around masto screaming at people about this stuff who fit this trope

@alameth @VanessaNightshade @TheZeldaZone so far as i can tell, they believe that they will somehow be percieved as 'white knights' or 'the good guys' for slamming 'the terrible user who didnt use hashtags or alttext or content warnings' and they think that they're gonna get praise for it.

but really they're just bullies.
and they're bullies in person too.

if youre familiar with firefly/serenity, same reavers. same math.

@alameth @VanessaNightshade @TheZeldaZone oh, and carl, to answer your question about how many of these people beligerently screaming at folks on behalf of disabled folks? its next to zero. ive seen HUNDREDS of people screaming about it, and ive seen .. maybe 3 actual disabled people making comments about what they would actually prefer. possibly four.

i dont mean to diminish their needs, but its not anywhere near congruent to all the screaming and fighting done by their 'unrequested proxies'

@Viss

Ok, sure, but they're not going to come to Mastodon

There are many design features that work against Mastodon (ex. being required to re-post a thing to your own feed in order to help it trend) but the biggest single reason you won't get people moving into Mastodon is the lack of algorithm

Interacting with social media that doesn't have an algorithm making judgements for you requires a total rewiring of how you use social media and for what. The average SM user is not interested in that

@Viss @Caseydunham @hrbrmstr Ah, I'm not the only one who noticed that. Good.

When I tell my friends what I like about Mastodon, I explain that it's mostly folks who want to share their interests, be it photography or hiking or open source software or naming all the birds in their back yard. Often they're activists, gay, trans, disabled, or non-neurotypical, but that's not what they post about: it's the reason they gave up other social media.

@alameth @Caseydunham @hrbrmstr yeah, and youre not wrong!

but the reavers are here too, thankfully though, in a much more narrow supply :D

@Viss yes, mock #magats instead

@Viss Breaking - Bluesky has restored the Trump/Musk video at HUD

@InsiderTreat @Viss See? Now this post shouldn't have been made: it advances absolutely nothing.

I'm sorry you don't see the difference...

@ZoidbergForPresident @Viss 😂