cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/6853479
mastodon.art has decided to suspend firefish.social from their instance due to issues with its administrator. The administrator of firefish.social was found to be boosting posts from a known harasser on another instance. mastodon.art takes a firm stance against racism and suspending full instances in these situations is part of their policy as a safe space. The known harasser has a history of using slurs, harassment, and editing screenshots to spread misinformation. However, the administrator of firefish.social has now forged a screenshot to paint mastodon.art in a negative light.
I spent way more time than was warranted digging into this completely petty drama.
Eris seems to have been widely blocked and defederated for using the word ‘based’ and for thinking ubuntu.buzz was about linux. I’m not sure what kind of perspective makes that a priority, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be one based in compassion or world experience. Half the people I’ve met who use the word ‘based’ have nothing to do with 4chan, they’re just young. The first time I heard it was in reference to Mark Bunker during the Scientology protests in 08. Which, while certainly connected to 4chan, I don’t think can really be cast in the same light as all the Gamergate crap and everything that came after.
Defederation is an important feature, and people should be able to defederate from whoever they want. What isn’t okay, though, is people going out of their way to propagate pettiness as much as humanly possible. Eris seems a little rough around the edges, but I also get the impression that the folks interacting with her in all the overly dramatic nonsense I just read are not acting in remotely good faith. They resemble a twitter mob looking for somebody to hate on, taking zero interest in understanding or nuance. No thanks.
I almost thought I had written your comment and completely forgot about it. No, I just almost made the exact comment and want that hour of my life back.
If there was some over the top racist rant, I sure didn’t see it. And the admin pushing for the defederation sounds so bizarre. Bizarre is the best word I could come up with because “petty” makes me think it was like high school politics. This is closer to a grade school sandbox argument.
The worst I saw was “defedfags” and it was used in a way that was meant to highlight how they never said anything offensive. Like saying, “If you thought what I said before was offensive, let’s see how you respond to something intended to be negative.”
The crazy thing is that the decision is being made because the admin just liked a post. It’s not even because of the post content - which has nothing controversial and appeared maybe 8 times in my Lemmy/kbin feed yesterday.
Editing to add that this is the article: https://kbin.social/search?q=wakeup+call
The admin of mastodon.art is terrible and a huge, huge troll - just ignore them and move on lol
What other art focused Masto instances do people recommend? .art seems to get involved in a lot of drama and I’m getting tired of it.
Defederation is one of the big issues fediverse social media will face, now is getting more population and will be more in the future
How is it an issue to be faced? It’s an advantage of how the fediverse is built.
It can force those who disagree with defederating to find a new instance that has access to all the communities they want. It also makes onboarding new people significantly more complicated, as their choice of instance will drastically influence their feed.
To be clear, I’m not arguing against defederation, just pointing out that it causes issues that need dealt with.
those aren’t issues, they’re features.
your instance should be curated in a way you agree with. new users should always understand what they’re signing up for.
But what happens (as did recently) when instances change direction? What happens (as did last year) where one instance admin had the wrong contact details for another so a message didn’t get through and ended up with an instance blocked and defederated for no good reason. What happens when an admin has an episode and gets in an argument that results in tit for tat blocks.
How can any new user know this might happen? How can they know what they are signing up for when descriptions are so brief?
Defederation is a good thing but unfortunately the people are human and fallible.
You can always set up your own instance if you are disturbed by the actions of admins on instances that you have joined.
Alternatively, if the instance you are on changes direction, you can easily find a new one. It literally took me about half an hour after I learned about the Fediverse to get myself set up on several instances, then later on I decided which I preferred. But I didn’t delete the other accounts- they’re still there in case I want them someday.
But what happens if the instance you are on is defederated through no fault of your own. As has already happened, even not through the fault of the instance admin but another instance making a mistake and adding it to a block list.
There isn’t an easy way to migrate everything to a new instance. And the migration options we do have a a bit buggy.
Perhaps people have seen the survey of ex-mastodon users? It really brings out that federation is simultaneously an advantage and a problem.
At the moment, it looks like the only solution is to have multiple accounts and when you do it’s starkly evident that there’s content that you miss because of federation issues
I think the issue is that your are expecting a perfectly seamless, Reddit-like experience, with all the admin work done for you but also always done to your satisfaction. That isn’t what the Fediverse is about. It’s more of a DIY ethic than a “The admins suck but this is all we have” like on Reddit.
I’m also not sure what you’d need to “migrate” to a new instance other than yourself. Karma isn’t super relevant here.
My main account is on Beehaw, which has very rightfully defederated with some other instances. When I log in using accounts on other instances, I don’t see a massive amount of missed content. In fact I’ve seen so little of interest that I’ve stopped looking, it’s not worth my time.
Is it just me or is mastodon.art the source of almost all of the drama on the fediverse?
@donuts I recently had a short conversation with someone from mastodon.art. They denied the GIMP devs an account on their server, because GIMP is a slur word. And they made a public announcement of this fact. Looks like the moderation/administration people are assholes, if they act and communicate like that. This community is new to me and all I know is about this GIMP announcement and this new drama.
I don’t get it why tge commenters are upsetti of the way .art admin cleans their house.
If they smell anything fishy, it’s their duty to protect their instance’s users. It’s what is promised for joining .art.
There’s a reson it’s such a humongous instance. Because the admin is doing a stelar job.
It’s not to my taste, that’s why I’m on another instance. But my lord, leave people be.
If the admin is doing such a poor job, the instance will collapse, and people will simply migrate.
To me it looks like fragile egos are all around, and somehow get “offended” when defederation happens.
Also, GIMP is both a slur and a shitty graphics software. I’d personally block it as well.
How are people starting drama over a FOSS program that has been around for 25 years? Gimp is free, open-source, and good software. People starting drama over that are looking for trouble.
Why is everyone calling it drama. How difficult it is to understand a dumb rule that says “no slurs”?
“Gimp” is literally a slur. The makers were aware of it and did for the lulz. Now they’re denied an account in an incredibly moderated instance because the name is a slur and everyone’s “why the drama11??11”
I think you have a different view on the project from reality. According to Wikipedia, the name “The Gimp” is a Pulp Fiction reference. The people who came up with the name “The Gimp” don’t even work on Gimp anymore. They’re CEO and CTO of the company developing CockroachDB. To imply that the volunteers running Gimp’s social media are some slur-crazy edgelords is counter productive.
I don’t think any people think of the slur when talking about the project, and I think this is a bunch of Twitter drama nonsense. If you want to change it, then join the project and change it, don’t harass volunteers.
Wait since when is it a slur, and for what? I’ve only heard it refer to a particular role in a BDSM context
