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Top-level
 It's also important to recognize that like any large change to a social space, and like other such migrations before, this is making many of us old-timers here somewhat anxious. Plenty of fedi people had quit :birdsite: to find respite from the toxicity. So, a social contract of sorts emerged here. It includes things that might be unfamiliar to the new arrivals — like broad use of Content Warnings ("CW" under the edit box) and expectation that images have alt text for the visually impaired. 26 comments
To help #NewHere folk find their way around here, over the last few days I was boosting people liberally. I will now be a bit more picky. I will look for posts with a Content Warning when that's appropriate. I will avoid boosting posts with images but without an alt-text or image description in the post. Again, it's nothing personal. I had to go through this myself: learn when to use CW, get used to writing alt-text. I am still not perfect in this, nobody is. But we need to get a bit better. Just to be clear, CWs and alt-text *are* extra work. And we all run out of spoons sometimes. That's okay. Don't feel bad if you genuinely cannot find the energy for them. Also, different people will have different expectations what should and should not be CW'd. That's also okay, as long as it's a conscious choice. What's not okay is deciding you just can't be bothered with any of this. Fedi is a communal garden, we're all gardeners. Let's keep it cozy and blooming. :purple_sparkling_heart: @rysiek In appreciation of your thread I am posting an image of my actual garden, where I‘m busy right now :)  @EricFielding @EricFielding @rysiek "CW" stands for "Content Warning". You're offering a quick headline of the topic of the post, so people can decide whether they may want to avoid based on personal triggers. @rysiek is there any good practice guide on CW? I know that this topic is not black and white, but maybe sharing some kind of list with basic rules would be a good idea @to3k @rysiek @elilla wrote a great intro that covers exactly this: https://wordsmith.social/elilla/a-futuristic-mastodon-introduction-for-2021 @rysiek Thank you for this thread (is that what they are called here?) And is there a hashtag for the #FediEtiquette ? So that tjos of us who are #NewHere can learn how to behave? @rysiek really helpful thread, thank you! As part of the big recent influx I'm mindful that it must be really weird for the folks who were already here. I hope we don't trample your garden! 🌷 Also thank you for that last point, I always try to add alt text, warnings etc and if I don't then it's definitely due to fatigue / short term memory problems. It's encouraging to see that is understood here too! @moragperkins it is very well understood here. Plenty of people on fedi are acutely, personally familiar with the "spoons" concept, and recognize the importance of it. You won't trample the garden, you are a part of it now. :blobuwu: @biglinter well, it makes sense in some cases. I *want* public institutions to be present here. I could even see some value of brands being here, if done right. But especially brands need to understand this is not :birdsite: . Any attempt at heavy marketing here will backfire. @rysiek @8thorpe give it a moment, it takes a few seconds for changes to propagate. @rysiek I saw a few posts about ALT so figured it out luckily before my first image upload. I was able to figure out how, but would be great if there's a quick tutorial for others on how to do that? I presume it's different depending on how accessing here? Also for CW, I saw that and went searching for what it was, but I think newer people won't know - as I didn't. Maybe a post about how that works and how to use it that could be shared? (Newbie here of course / Refugee from that bird site) @nomdeb I expanded the "CW" acronym in one of the posts in that thread. As for tutorial posts, there are a bunch, I saw at least a few fly through my timeline. |
Gregory's Server
But even though they might seem unfamiliar or perhaps a bit peculiar, these social norms are important. They helped make the Fediverse the cozy, blooming garden in the first place.
I think, and I hope you agree, that it's worth keeping it that way.
So please, don't take it the bad way when someone asks you to put a CW on something, or add an alt-text to an image. These are small asks. And with the post (hah!) edit function you can even fix it afterwards.
Let's be excellent to each other. 💜