Amelia Bellamy-Royds :progress: / is on Nostr

Music (mostly blues & roots), gardening (weather-permitting), and everyday life with some science, politics, and public health, from a chronically exhausted, early 40s homebody nerd.

Also at Amelia Bellamy-Royds (npub1kym…59km) for web-dev nerdery, although I haven't actually been working for years.

All currently rooted in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (#YEG), a settlement built at amiskwacîwâskahikan, a traditional gathering place of Cree and other indigenous peoples.

😷➕💉 > 🤧➕🤒 !

Pronouns: she/her
Location: Edmonton, Alberta
Alt Mastodon (for work / web / tech): https://front-end.social/@AmeliaBR

Last Notes

2024-07-28 20:52:15

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There *are* people trying to make these things happen, but they are having a difficult time convincing the software devs who think the existing tools are sufficient, and that it's individual users' & mods' responsibility to do more if they're receiving more harassment.
All of which is always made worse when complaining about the outright hate results in a flurry of disbelief & offence that anyone dare criticize the free & open social media alternative.

2024-07-28 20:47:06

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Yes, to be clear: no magic technological solutions will remove the need for moderation. But better tools can help admins & moderators, so they're not playing "whack-a-mole" one report at a time.
Things like making full federation opt-in (allow-list) instead of opt-out (block-list), or giving new servers suggestions of servers to block based on the block lists of other trusted servers. Making blocks follow moved accounts. Summarizing # of blocked accounts per server.

2024-07-28 19:41:14

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But you're right that the next step beyond awareness is tools & tech for better moderation, and I don't know how the average user can make that happen. There are the Mastodon (and also ActivityPub & other fedi tools) GitHub issue discussion pages, but that requires a level of commitment & know-how just to find them, let alone contribute. For most users, what's needed is more of a way to see the different proposals & say "yes, that's a good idea" or "put my donation towards that work".

2024-07-28 19:40:02

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Also: That a solution looks different depending on how you use social media. Creating a very restrictive community is desirable for some, but not for those trying to get a message out for political organizing, fundraising, small business, or independent news publishers.
I saw 2 posts the other day: a white trans woman raving about how little harassment she gets, probably thanks to a server with strict blocking. And a black (cis) woman saying she gets as much abuse here as on Twitter.

2024-07-28 19:39:34

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I think being aware of the issue & trusting other people's descriptions of their experiences is an important step. Recognizing that you don't see DMs, follower-only replies, or replies from servers your server has already blocked. That (depending on your server/client software) you might not see lots of other replies which may not be hateful but still annoying in their redundancy. That dismissing complaints & demanding proof or explanations on its own makes people feel unwelcome.
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