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tech? no! man, see...

one thing I think that might be lost on newcomers is the fact that this past week has been BANANAS for everyone who's been on the site for years, and if you feel like people are being snippy or pushy about social norms, that's probably why.

on a normal week when people talk about "hey please CW that" or "please don't spam your tweets here with a crossposter" or whatever they're more likely to do so patiently and explain the reasoning behind why we do things that way but on a day like today things are more likely to get a little snippy or terse.

don't take it personally! the old timers are trying to maintain social norms in the face of a flood of change, and they're worn out. keep that in mind if you think to yourself "hm; this place doesn't seem that friendly". give it some time to get back to normal before you bounce.

26 comments
tech? no! man, see...

@MrsMouse

first of all many of them just don't work very well; often they will port over one half of a conversation or try to bring over a feature like QTs that just don't exist here.

secondly social norms are just different on fedi; stuff that comes from twitter won't have CWs or good image descriptions or sensitive images marked as such.

third is that they give off Bot Vibes; you can tell an account isn't really a person, the person is somewhere else. usually this makes it feel like they're not actually interested in having a conversation, which is what the rest of us are here for.

overall it's just awkward and jarring.

(note that crossposting in the other direction is fine and encouraged)

@MrsMouse

first of all many of them just don't work very well; often they will port over one half of a conversation or try to bring over a feature like QTs that just don't exist here.

secondly social norms are just different on fedi; stuff that comes from twitter won't have CWs or good image descriptions or sensitive images marked as such.

Liz Ellis She/Her🌳

@technomancy @MrsMouse Oh cripes, I set one up last night as a way to keep a presence on twitter for mostly professional reasons. That said I obviously did it wrong because my toots aren't showing up on twitter and my tweets aren't showing up here.

Dave Warnock

@technomancy given the growth I think it is amazing how welcoming people have been to newbies like myself.
Much appreciated!

John Casey

@technomancy this place has a long way to fall before it has the kind of bad ambient feelings from the old place.

I think I started out on the old path of wishing i could kind of stitch the new place onto the place where I'm already established.

I'm still very new here in terms of hours spent, but I think something basic changed when I stopped thinking the old place was the foundation to build on.

Nedrasol

@technomancy Sorry to ask but what does CW mean? It is early morning here. It might dawn on me later but right now I can't think very well. :)

Doмιnιc OE7DRT

@nedrasol @technomancy it means content warning. If someone doesn't want to read the answer, don't show the content. If you want to read along, click it away and go on reading. I'm quite new here too, but that's what I already found out :)

Nedrasol

@oe7drt @technomancy Ah! Now I see it, beneath the post "box". Thank you!

random_regret

@nedrasol @technomancy
of a content warning (CW)
;)

Christmas display name

@nedrasol @technomancy
They work like this. We use them quite liberally here, not just for things that will definitely trigger other people but to help other people curate what they want to see. For eg you'll often see CWs on posts that are really long, sometimes people will CW shitposts etc

Anna 🖖🏼

@nedrasol Content Warning. It's a way to label things that are potential triggers for people, or are NSFW, or not appropriate for children, or spoilers, so people can choose what they expose themselves to. @technomancy

Minmurmur

@nedrasol I was just about to ask this so thank you!

Snowgaze ❄️

@nedrasol @technomancy content warning, it looks like a speech bubble on tusky, and just the letters CW if you use the web interface when tooting. Takes a little bit of trying and testing to figure it out, but it's not too hard.

Slobber Baron

@technomancy I keep thinking that fedi people might look back on this as our Eternal September--a time when the rapid influx of new users overwhelmed acculturation processes.

Which, I dunno, may be a welcome change in some ways--fedi culture is this weird mix of anarchic "a cool crime is to blow up a corporate headquarters" with hyperconservative "human faces are too stressful to see and should have a content warning on them". Some more Normal People (TM) might do us good?

Sven Slootweg

@aphyr @technomancy I really don't see how that's a "weird mix" at all. The difference is that this place much more strongly centers around queer, neurodiverse, disabled etc. folks than Twitter does - and that's where that culture comes from. I don't see any reason why that would need to be "balanced out" (ie. demarginalized).

Slobber Baron

@joepie91 Speaking as like... an ADHD gay boy with chronic fatigue who's been here since 2017: it's weird! It's extremely weird here! I generally like it, but there is a yawning chasm between how people on fedi act and, like, basically any real-world conversation *in our marginal groups*.

Just this morning a queer pal looked into joining fedi and noped out because he saw people insisting that a line drawing of a person not making eye contact should be CW: eye contact. We look *nuts* sometimes.

Sven Slootweg

@aphyr I'm sure that some people have some incompatible expectations at times, but that's really nothing different from any interpersonal disagreements in any community - and I've absolutely been in IRL spaces that were culturally not far removed from what I see here on fedi.

I certainly don't see "actively bring in more of the culture that consistently and sometimes violently suppresses atypical identities" as the solution to that; if anything, I would expect it to make it *worse*, because it does not tolerate weirdness.

And it's very odd to me to call eye-contact CWs a "hyper-conservative" thing - it's the exact opposite, it's about being mindful of other people's comforts and not just your own. That is not what conservatism does.

If there's a disagreement over community rules, fine. Discuss it, figure it out, resolve the conflict into something that everybody involved can live with. But don't blame it on the weirdness. Baby, bathwater, etc.

@aphyr I'm sure that some people have some incompatible expectations at times, but that's really nothing different from any interpersonal disagreements in any community - and I've absolutely been in IRL spaces that were culturally not far removed from what I see here on fedi.

I certainly don't see "actively bring in more of the culture that consistently and sometimes violently suppresses atypical identities" as the solution to that; if anything, I would expect it to make it *worse*, because it does...

Whreq Jnnyobre

@technomancy I'm one of the new people here, but apparently my bubble is different from what you describe: I haven't seen such snippiness. All I've seen is lots of friendly people who are careful to phrase instructions and requests about social norms as "tips" and "advice".

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