I don’t know, I think Musk might actually have an inferiority complex. He’s obsessed with himself, but he puts an awful lot of effort into trying to prove that he’s cool. But yeah, they’re both terrible, it doesn’t really matter who’s worse.

Probably the shirtless pic was a carefully calculated move to short-circuit theories about his lack of humanity, by showing that he has a navel. [/s]

…for real, though, at least the man utilizes his paid PR staff.

The posted content is almost all backed up elsewhere, iirc. My understanding is that the risk is less having a huge amount of content being generated on specific servers than it is having a lot of users concentrated on those servers. Restoring data from backup or migrating communities (from a content perspective, as in, rehosting) is a lot easier than having people locked out, or, worse, losing accounts altogether.

Depends on whether you are trying to reduce the likelihood of people tracking you across instances (for example, if one account is for porn). If you just want duplicate accounts on which you’ll do the same things, I don’t see why it would be a problem to use the same name.

I think part of the solution is to normalize the idea that you subscribe to all the communities on a topic you’re interested in, even if they’re small, so wherever something gets posted, you see it. Eventually some of those communities may be closed in favor of the more active ones, but as a subscriber, there’s no opportunity cost.

I agree that social interactions are good! I just learned forum etiquette at a time when the default state of any forum was everyone socializing all the time, and no topical discussion. Even communities with fewer than 20 people had to make rules about staying on-topic in topical threads, and the rules were made by and for the community, not by corporations or algorithms. Coming from that background, I feel like it’s rude to OP if I don’t stay on the topic they chose. I suppose it’s a different internet, now.

Very cool. I think you can see by my display name that I like showing pronouns, lol. I remember when putting pronouns on a name tag was like waving a trans flag. It wasn’t very long ago. And I also appreciate the heads-up on politics. I’m far left enough that I usually feel comfortable with the level of disagreement I have with communists and anarchists, but the feeling is not always mutual, so it depends on specifics. I will take a look at the communities when I have a little time to go in depth.

Anyway, I think we’re a bit off topic, except that issues with bigotry etc are part of why figuring out how to manage vote history is important.

Thanks for the tip, I’ll check it out! The issue isn’t my local instance, though, it’s that clearly marked safe spaces always attract people who want to make those spaces unsafe. It’s kind of a “Trolls? Must be Wednesday” kind of thing for me, after a lot of years online, but it never stops hurting. The only thing downvoting does to trolls is allow non-trolls to communicate to one another that the space is still supposed to be safe, which offers a little comfort, but it doesn’t actually make the space safe. Banning the trolls is much more effective.

I agree that a lot of information can be inferred from vote history, that’s not what I meant. I’m sorry if I came across as trying to minimize the risk there.

What I meant is that exponentially more information of the type you describe can be inferred from post history, particularly for those of us who use this space to connect with other members of marginalized groups we belong to. Voting history is a minor risk to me when just the fact that I have replied with “I have also had this experience” to a certain post or posted a meme in a certain group could cause serious trouble for me in my offline life. I don’t understand the use case where someone would become concerned about privacy because they found out their vote history could be accessed by unknown parties if they weren’t already concerned about privacy because their posts and comments are visible to anyone and everyone.

I guess the tl;dr is that I just don’t understand how the hyper focus on the risks associated with voting history is consistent with an assessment of personal risk in a broader sense. I am conscious of taking a huge risk by being on the fediverse, and I decided it was worth it. The stakes were high enough to begin with that I just assumed that the only source of privacy I had would come from anonymity, not the technology, which might be why I am confused by some of the responses I am seeing.

I agree with you about harassment issues, and the importance of controlling the transfer of admin-level data between instances, but for your last scenario, doesn’t blocking only apply to users who are logged in? Assuming your hypothetical tankies and Nazis were actually posting as well as blocking, it would be easy to find them just by logging out, and there are a lot of ways to get them banned or otherwise counteract their activities that don’t require someone to interact directly with them while logged in. The case you’re describing is not the kind of situation where the most important action is to argue with them. Arguing with extremists usually just validates their delusions, and encourages them to keep doing what they’re doing.

I’m too new to the fediverse to form an opinion about community differences in general, but I have definitely noticed that my own behavior is different without the downvote option. The biggest difference for me is that I am more likely to do things that decrease my interaction with content that upsets me, rather than reading hateful garbage just to get the dubious satisfaction of pushing the little down arrow button. The stuff I downvoted wasn’t usually something I could have discussed in a civil way, it was trolling, bigotry, or generally hateful comments. (I am part of frequently-targeted groups, and no platform is free of bigots and trolls). Now, when I see that kind of thing, I do what I should have been doing all along, which is some combination of blocking, reporting, and just skipping over things I recognize as not worth my time. I think you’re right that the voting system can replace moderation in unhelpful ways. Trolls should be removed, not just downvoted in situ.

As someone in an instance without downvotes, I can confirm that I don’t miss them. It didn’t take months, either, just a week or so.

I agree that it’s good to have some kind of deletion, even if it’s not really getting rid of the content. Nothing is ever really gone on the internet, but there is value in communicating to others that you meant to retract a comment.

Some instances don’t allow downvotes by people logged into that instance, which I think helps. (From both sides: I find that when I can’t downvote, I have a lot less motivation to read anything that makes me angry. I just keep scrolling).

Possibly relatedly, is this a good place to mention beans? I have not figured out where that meme actually came from, but apparently it’s a thing the cool kids are saying.

I think I personally give out more information in what I say than how I vote, and I think that’s going to be true for a lot of people here. I want to share, and that requires me to sacrifice some privacy.

No shade intended, but if you’re concerned about what your voting history will say about you, you might consider not interacting with posts at all, and if you’re really concerned, don’t curate a news feed, either. It’s totally fine to browse logged out if you really want to be safe. I think any level of concern about privacy is valid, but it’s useful to think about the whole picture when you evaluate your risk tolerance.

I find it’s possible to be logged into two instances on the same browser, so it doesn’t need to be more difficult than switching tabs. (That may change, I don’t know whether it’s technically desirable, but if it’s relevant to someone’s interests…)

When you go through self-check, you should really be tipping yourself.

I start by making a map. I am terrible at making maps. I try to improve my map by using a transparent quilting ruler, defining a scale, and carefully noting the measurements of all the rooms. I somehow manage to change my scale several times during this process, write down the wrong measurements, and get confused about which lines are which on my quilting ruler. Complicating matters, my quilting ruler is big and heavy, and slips around on the page. (Naturally, I don’t notice).

Since my dungeon has multiple levels, I am very careful to include staircases, which, since none of the floors are the same size and shape, don’t actually join up from level to level. I notice that everything looks a little sloppy, so I go over it in pen, and erase the pencil lines. This makes it look nicer. It also destroys any last traces of geometric plausibility.

When I’m finished, my Escher-esque monstrosity is so impossible to navigate that it doesn’t even need monsters. The entire party will just get sucked into the treacherous anti-grid of the map itself, and never be seen again. If the GM asks me to explain the map so they can extract the players, I will be unable to do so, since I have a terrible memory, and can’t read my own handwriting.

…if you did this to avoid doing your homework, you must turn this in. Your teacher needs a laugh, too.