@b0rk that's interesting. I wonder if it's less a Twitter-Mastodon thing than just that you are writing about tech and there are tons of tech people here. Writing about Latin America or NYC politics, I find almost no pushback or scolding here because all the people who care about those topics and have strong feelings are all elsewhere. There was much much more scolding on Twitter.

@b0rk I find the way you manage this problem really interesting. I'm sorry you have to do it.

@b0rk Odd.. I've found the opposite. I can speak my mind here.. on twitter if you say anything remotely controversial trolls will jump on you like rabid dogs.

Blocking is easier, too..

@b0rk funny, my experience is quite the opposite. Here i can have good conversations with a respectfull tone. Twitter was all witchhunt, hate and trolling. that´s why i had to leave

@b0rk I wonder if that is the result of Twitter only allow accounts you follow to respond being common for a lot of public accounts meant people saw tweets more as something you consumed rather than commented on.

I will say some of your git posts were horrifying in terms of how many people seemed to not understand your level of aptitude with git. So agreed its definitely a real problem.

@b0rk

Bye

@b0rk I don't know why that is, but I know what you mean.

Generally I think people reply to each other a lot more on here, and I like that.
But the results are mixed and I think a lot of people should read their posts before hitting Reply. (And assume OP knows things)

@b0rk I wonder if it's a function of "users with lots of followers" being treated by the platform as uniquely valuable (anecdotally, lots of noise gets hidden for big accounts on Twitter) vs one-size-fits-all of mastodon and friends.

I wonder if a "downvote" mechanic that just built up to hide replies under a threshold would work?

@b0rk You're sadly not the first person I've heard say this.

@b0rk replies on mastodon can be quite pedantic, I think mostly due to 3 things:

- we are all nerdy about something, and that quite often translate to harshness, it’s something we should actively reflect on and apologize for.

- many are here for fediverse’s unique community and that often translate to gatekeeping attitude, many of these attitudes are not warranted.

- I believe fediverse has a huge age gap for some reasons, each demographics do have pretty different interactions on here.

@b0rk Yep.. you say something trivial and you’ve got a good natured but long and exhausting debate with half a dozen people on your hands.. mostly about something only obliquely relevant, e.g “New research on EV batteries” -> use a bike! stop being duped by the EV mafia! What about the parking!? Cities for people not cars! Hydrogen! Nuclear! Not nuclear! Coal plants! Mining! 😮‍💨

@b0rk do like youtubers: post content and never ever look for comments: you see our worst nature.

@b0rk that sucks, stuff like this makes me wanna post less here

@b0rk you're really careful about every single thing you post here? Oh man, I really am bad at this.

@b0rk Even with all other things being equal, larger parties will have more people who like to piss off other people. Disease spreads faster than health.

@b0rk @ramsey Fuck it. Shake this nuthouse up a bit.

@b0rk I have an honest question about the difference…which one is the right one? The careful…or the unguarded?
Is it a loss of openness or a relearning of restraint?
I understand the freedom of saying whatever into the void, but it’s essentially the same as shouting it out to the world on a street corner (or tech conference). Anything can come back. Being open with your friends is wonderful. But we are strangers here…and not your friends.
Respect maybe, but not artificial friendship.

@b0rk I wonder... does it have anything to do with randomness of those encounters? I mean, like different people randomly popping up while not being too familiar about your intents and earlier posts?

@b0rk

Biggest lightbulb that smashed into my head a few years ago was I can only control what and how I say. I can’t control how others choose to process my words.

I have a preferred style of writing influenced by my derad work. I write with kindness, sincerity, accuracy, but I also play with words.

Someone reads my kind words as cruel, or my sincerity as manipulation, or that my ideas are naive, that’s a them problem.

.. though i like being the naïf. easier to learn that way. ;)

@b0rk You know, I'm not in tech at all, but your post makes me realize that I do the same. Depending on topic, I save a portion of my character count to include a disclaimer that YES I am aware of x and NO I am not referring to y or please note I'm just talking about z. The silver lining is that I, much more frequently than on Twitter, type out posts and then reconsider and don't post. Which is fine when I just don't feel the need to speak. Not great when I'm just trying to avoid a pile-on.

@b0rk Nah you're OK. If one tries to rewrite a source doc it can look/sound illiterate. If you post it, as yours, in its original form you instantly prove yourself a liar. I think a "Joe Blow said", followed by a summary of the source doc is ok. The original source doc followed by a disclaimer is longer, more accurate but verifies your chops as a commenter.

This and $5 may get you a latte at Starbucks. Hmm, depending on where you live it's prolly somewhere between $5 and $10.

@b0rk

I think many who come to this weirdo website have been burned by other social media, and many of us who don't fit within a standard deviation of 'normal' love how accepting it is.

The other side of it is that those who found a home here now want to protect it, and the only way that seems to have traction is make sure all who come into their sights adhere to their purity tests. This need not be a bad thing - I now automatically put alt text on my images - but it can be aggressive.

@b0rk eh, just use the block and mute buttons for the reply guys and you don't need to be careful at all!

@b0rk not my experience?

@b0rk Huh – that damn sucks – I'm sorry.

It's especially useful to know because it surprises me and "contradicts my prior". So I will keep it in mind as a data point! Thank you for sharing.

@b0rk i feel the same but opposite. I often avoid commenting because too often it is misunderstood leading to well meant but pointless debate.

I guess it has to do with culture. It takes time to develop. And the culture on mastodon is still.... unclear...

@b0rk we need to get better at this, it's turned many great people away from fedi.

Thanks for putting up with it while we all figure out how to put an end to it. Fedi would be far worse off without you.

@b0rk What you do is awesome, please keep doing it.

the replies to this are pretty bad, a lot of

- "well it's not a problem for ME”
- "just don't read the comments"
- "have you ever considered that on social media in general you need to be careful about what you say because folks don't have much context”
- "tech people are just all assholes”
- "no julia, the dozens of people trying to explain to you what a git branch is are just trying to HELP, you should be grateful”

@b0rk FWIW I like reading your posts. At the moment, I really need reading about tech stuff from the perspectives of people who *aren't* total assholes.

For myself I gave up on writing anything substantial online for many reasons, one of which is that I don't have the psychological constitution for potential large audiences (and hence, maintaining a "real" social media presence). I wish it wasn't like this, and I hope doing what you do doesn't burn you out.

@b0rk I feel you. Try to ignore this stuff if you can. You're doing important work here 🙏

@b0rk This has been my experience as well. And I’m a middle-aged white dude. I imagine it’s even worse for people in other demographics