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Suggestion: BS from MS about Al helping a pharmacist filling Rx

Totally agree with you. I feel bad for the young people that didn’t get to experience the Internet before business started to take it seriously. The Fediverse is a nice taste of those days though!

I’m not sure what to make of your “helped me get through feeling much like OP”.

I’ve talked extensively with Blaze and others on the Fedigrow community about pretty much your exact set of bullet points over the past few months and the shine started to wear off Lemmy for a bit. You’re far from alone in feeling how you described in your post, as can be seen in most of the replies here.

I think it’s just taking a step back and being able to appreciate what we do have. We haven’t turned into some complete right/left hellhole, the top posts everyday add up to thousands of comments, we have some quality content providers, and some really fun commenters. I certainly wouldn’t be ashamed to show someone my Lemmy feed.

It’s good that you still have the drive to want to keep improving things around here in the ways you feel comfortable contributing to. Many initial hurdles to getting on Lemmy feel resolved, and so many in apps are equal to the Reddit apps for most use cases. Many initial accounts were probably from people trying to figure things out. I know I had like 5 accounts and only really use 1 now.

I think we’ve just hit a plateau for now. My personal feeling is working on the culture is our best way forward to be different than Reddit and to pick up more people looking to escape the toxicity. The time to set our tolerance levels for certain behaviors is now before we get too big to reign it in. We’re a pretty good group now, and I hope it stays this way or gets a little better like last summer.

I’m glad when I see people speak up like this though. It makes us all reflect on the guys and bad we see here and to think about where we stand ourselves in all of it.

You and the Fedigrow crew helped me get through feeling much like OP a while back. I think that was a really good idea, because it is tough and emotional at times doing what we do. It can be easy to feel alone when you put yourself out there every day and feel like nobody is around or like you’re doing something wrong and people are falling off.

I never set out to be anybody here, but I was done with Reddit, and wanted to keep something that made me smile continue on, so I just sucked it up and did what needed to be done. You guys make it worth it, and as long as the people that do show up are having a good time, I’ll do my part to keep the party going. I get old, pre commercialized web vibes from Lemmy, so I’m gonna stick it out here as long as I can, because this is the kind of thing you don’t just get anywhere anymore.

Appreciate the shout out as always! We have a great set of people here, and we should all be happy with this place we’ve built together, even if it’s still a humble, cozy place. I feel we have organic growth, and it will come in waves as Lemmy builds and improves. Just keep doing what we’re doing and we’ll be good!

I feel it is pretty stable here. I post every day, and it’s been a tad slower lately, much like I believe Blaze said, feels due to people going away for trips. Weekends are a decent bit slower, where usually they have been busy. That’s where I notice it the most. My subs are lower than at the start of the year, but they’re still going up slow but steady. Interactions are still steady, which is my main concern. As you’ve mentioned, people want to see that interaction. I don’t want to say my content is useless, because people don’t need owl pics and animal rescue facts every day, but I typically get 100+ likes per post, and a handful of comments.

The key I feel though, is I have the same people coming in regularly every day, or every other day, and they are also participating. They make the place look alive more than me just throwing things out there. But that is a specific thing I work on, as much as the post content itself. When people come and make comments, I give them my full attention. I talk back to them, I laugh at their jokes and puns, I take time to answer their questions, I pay attention to what content they like or don’t like, how I post links. I treat them like they were clients. And now in return, they see that the community is a fun place to hang, and they come back regularly, even though I’m not giving them anything they couldn’t find, but I am adding value to their days. I make them smile, I make them feel like their effort commenting matters, I make them feel like they motivate me to keep posting (because they do!), and I teach them about things they never expected to care about.

But it’s a lot of hard work! I try not to think about the time I put into this just for fun. Many of us have been here before the API exodus or before and have put in hours posting to nobody or a dozen people until we’ve built up momentum. Most people won’t even upvote, let alone comment or post, so it’s going to come in waves building up this place. You’re still in the wilderness here. We’re still pretty much the first wave of Fediverse settlers. We’re here while it is rough, setting the foundations of what will hopefully come, keeping us from fading to nothing. I don’t think new people appreciate that point. It’s not like 25% of Reddit broke off and came here with all the posters and the audience, we’re starting from scratch. I think what we have is amazing for a bunch of nobodies with no corporate cash. We’re all volunteers, building the social media we want to have. We should be proud of it, no matter what stage it’s at.

Moderation is an area I feel could be stronger. Most threads are pretty good, but some could use a bit more reigning in. Part of the problem I see with that though, is the vocal part of the community is already hating on “heavy handed mods”, and you missed all the trashing of Beehaw for doing what I considered to be appropriate moderation. The Fed is full of a pretty diverse group of people. I talk to people from multiple countries, and the amount of LGBT I’ve gotten to get insight from has been amazing. It’s really helped me grow in my understanding of some things just being around all these people. But we need to ensure everyone is treated equally and respectfully, and there are many that want to bring Reddit behavior over here, and it’s up to the mods and commenters to decide if that’s what we want or not. I don’t want it, but many see no issue. I’m glad when people comment on it, because if people just accept it without speaking up, no one will know.

There is a lot of good here, and even with 50k users, there’s going to be much more mid and crap than gold, but it’s here. Your comments look good, and you seem to stick to things you enjoy and avoid some that drag you down, and it’s important to notice your own behavior if you click stuff that is going to annoy you. I hit delete on a lot of comments when I wade into some of these topics. Some stuff I just don’t want to get involved in, especially as someone that is at least somewhat “known” around here now and is too lazy to make an alt. But I remind myself I’m here to have fun, and if I want news without the potential drama, I’ll leave here and go to AP or whatever. I’d hope posters would make stuff to help you have a good time, but it’s our job to cultivate our own experience ultimately.

I could go on forever talking about this stuff, but I’ll stop for now. Just give it time and explore more, and since you seem to comment, keep doing that. It’s the best thing for this place. Post, comment, give feedback, repeat.

Summit kicks so much butt! I’ve tried about a dozen apps, but this is the only one I use, though Connect was good too.

The dev is great, and I’ve gotten lots of help and same or next day fixes whenever I’ve reported issues.

It’s beautiful, versatile, and powerful, with a great person backing it up.

Southwest Airlines plans to start assigning seats, breaking with a 50-year tradition

I never thought I’d say this, but can we channel a little Andrew Jackson energy in regard to the courts?

You are truly a person with great taste! 😁

I’ll have to check out Even More News.

I checked out BtB due to constant weird if mouth on Reddit and immediately enjoyed Robert’s personality. There were also a lot of Cody and Paul F. Tompkins episodes at the time, and I was also already a fan of them, so that helped as well.

I so want to like Some More News, but it feels to doomy to me and Cody’s stage persona is a bit much for me, so I enjoy him better as regular Cody on BtB more.

I also feel the more before I was born stuff that BtB usually focuses on us easier for me to deal with as most of the people are long dead and gone, so it feels more like entertainment. For more current things, I try to stick to “legitimate news” instead of things designed more for entertainment. ICHH is an exception because it covers a lot mainstream news wouldn’t touch, and it does it pretty calmly and treats it with seriousness moreso than trying to make it into some kind of bit. Plus they often mention ways to participate or to at least try and help with some of the things. I feel the topics are things important to know, and aren’t just things that make me depressed about the whole world.

Hood Politics with Prop is probably the next one I may allow myself to get into.

Same! I originally just tried to limit myself to BtB, but then I listened to ICHH to learn about the Unicorn Ranch, and I ended up learning about so many other topics. Then I kept seeing interesting CPWDCS, so now I listen to some of those.

They turn out so much great content every week, and ICHH has really helped me to better understand more people and issues than I ever would have been able to on my own.

Reminds me of this short sci fi story I just recently listened to on a podcast.

The Plastic People

That’s the story in text. If you want to hear it read to you, it’s CZM Book Club: The Plastic People by Tobias Buckell out on 23 Dec 2023.

Did some more digging to get us some more helpful info here. I assembled quotes from 3 articles to make you guys a more cohesive story. Take that AI, I’m coming for your jobs! 😆

First quote is from OP’s PBS article. The rest is assembled from this BBC article, and this other article that the BBC referred to for their info.

Deaths from illegally brewed alcohol are common in India, where the poor cannot afford licensed brands from government-run shops. The illicit liquor, which is often spiked with chemicals such as pesticides to increase potency, has also become a hugely profitable industry as bootleggers pay no taxes and sell enormous quantities of their product to the poor at a cheap rate.

The district police had arrested one person on Wednesday, June 19, identified as Kannukutty (49). He is accused of peddling the liquor. The police had also seized 200 litres of liquor from his possession. According to the police, Kannukutty had mixed methanol in the country liquor and had sold it in packets.

Family members of the deceased, however, told TNM that the police are complicit. “Illicit liquor is regularly sold in this area. The police know. If someone complains, they will stop for 10 days but resume again. If a person complains, the police will tip the peddler off on who raised the complaint and immediately, that person is threatened by the peddlers. That’s why people have refrained from complaining. The peddlers definitely pay a sum of money to the police to continue selling illicit liquor,” a family member of a victim said.

Another family member of the victim added that Karunapuram’s Dalit Colony has seen the most number of deaths. “The sale of illicit liquor is so rampant here that even 13 and 15-year-old boys are being sold packets by peddlers. These peddlers are now also selling Marijuana. Today, despite so many deaths, no one apart from the Tahsildar and a few police have come to this Dalit Colony. We want the officials to initiate strict action and put an end to the sale of drugs and illicit liquor,” she added.

A day earlier, Chief Minister MK Stalin expressed his shock over the tragic incident and announced actions against officials who failed to prevent it. In a post on X, MK Stalin said, “I was shocked and saddened to hear the news of the deaths of people who had consumed adulterated liquor in Kallakurichi. Those involved in the crime have been arrested in this matter. Action has also been taken against the officials who failed to prevent it.

Authorities have also suspended a senior police official and ten members of the state’s prohibition enforcement wing - which overseas the smuggling of illicit alcohol in the state - for negligence.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has announced a compensation of 1m rupees ($12,000; £9,425) to families of those who have died and 50,000 rupees each to those who are hospitalised.

It may be noted that earlier, in May 2023 as well, 22 persons lost their lives after consuming illicit liquor in Villupuram and Chengalpattu districts of Tamil Nadu. The Villupuram police had confirmed that the fatalities were due to the presence of methanol in the spurious alcohol consumed.

“The deaths caused by illicit liquor in the past two years under the DMK [Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam] regime have decelerated Tamil Nadu by four decades, taking us back to the 1980s,” said K Annamalai, the state chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He demanded that the minister in charge of overseeing the sale of alcohol should resign immediately.

Looks good! What finish did you use for keeping it outside? I’ve been thinking about doing something similar, but never made anything intended to be kept outside.

Coaster is cool too. It reminds me of a fancy laminated guitar neck.

I try to put a lot of emphasis on encouraging new posters and commenters. I don’t get why you’d come to the “wild west” of social media to just be solely a lurker. You should want to be an explorer and a settler, forging that new frontier. I won’t hate on the lurkers, they will always be the majority, but why deal with the quirk, less ease of use, and less content to not want to help shape what it becomes?

I came over intending to lurk, hence my crap username, but what I wanted wasn’t here, but I didnt want to crawl back to Reddit, so I started building, and it’s great. People are friendly, you have less competition for attention, and the userbase is largely supportive of whatever you do because you’re doing something.

But ultimately, as long as we arent on an extended downswing, we’re doing well. I’ll keep making posts and giving positive feedback, so hopefully it keeps catching new people with the bug to interact.

The increase in monthly is just mainly replacing users leaving as the active 6 month seems to be going down the same rate as active monthly is going up. Am I reading that correctly?

Total users doesn’t concern me too badly, as I’m more happy to see daily post and comment counts going up. I feel activity needs to be our focus rather than headcount. A packed stadium is kinda pointless if nobody is on stage putting on the show! 😁

Just have the Hussars bring buckets with them next time they come…

It will always be a challenge, but we’re also in an era where communication is available to us at the same capacity it is to the propagandists. We’ve got leakers and whistleblowers like never before. We also have crackpots who can do the same, but it’s much harder to isolate and silence those with positive agendas.

All we can do is keep trying to learn all we can and apply our critical thinking and share what we learn. I post a lot here and always try to show references, as itn no expert on anything, just someone with a love of learning.

We all get fed info from everywhere, it’s just our individual responsibility to filter through it and verify it. Nothing to feel guilty over, just post if the joy of the human experience. 🙃