@grimalkina that’s awful :/

I’ve only experienced this a few times, and I’m likely “lucky” for exactly the privilege you mention.

FWIW, I really appreciate you being here.

@grimalkina Sucks 😒 Hope people get better and you can stick around!

@grimalkina That’s awful for you to have to deal with this.

Speaking for myself: I wouldn’t have come across your work at all if not for the happy accident of seeing one of your posts, and have learned a great deal from your writing.

It would be mastodon’s great loss if you were to leave, and I’m deeply sorry you’re forced to consider choosing between your own health and being part of this community.

@grimalkina These came up back to back in my feed, and I feel the echoes across time.

@grimalkina

Oh no! That's terrible! I hope you don't go. Your insights are very keen and I have been personally helped by reading your words here. But I do understand if that's the way things go. 😥

@grimalkina
I do appreciate your writing here a lot. Just wanted to let you know. I understand your frustration.

@grimalkina
I'm following you now and I promise not to be an asshat.

At least, not on purpose.

@grimalkina I'm sorry to hear this.😢

Just want to let you know that I really enjoy your writing and insights.✨

@grimalkina@mastodon.social ​:bear_hugs:​

i hear you. i see you.

please don't leave. there are a ton more welcoming spaces on the fedi. we want you around.

@grimalkina Sadly, your assessment matches my experience but I hope you're able to escape their attention and stay.

In my opinion, it's much better here overall—taking everything into consideration—than any other available social media platform, but there are maddening aspects, as you've noted, that we're still having to deal with to make it better for everyone.

@grimalkina Yeah, it definitely is an issue here within the #Mastodon community (I am not sure why). I know #Misskey & #Pixelfed are friendlier & seems more celebratory while Mastodon is more…political…I guess that would be the correct word.

@grimalkina I'm very sorry to hear that you are on the receiving end of such crappy behavior.

Your feed looks really interesting and I've just followed you. As it happens I was struck just yesterday with your comment about the problem of motivating yourself by being hard on yourself. As someone who teaches self-compassion I thought you expressed that particularly clearly — better than I could have!

I'm looking forward to reading more of your insights.

@grimalkina Yes. That's why I stopped being active here. It's truly awful.

@grimalkina I hope that you see at least some people besides you calling out the reply guys. I try to do it when I see it. Of course when you're the OP you see every single reply, whereas others only see a subset, so it hits you harder. 😒 Sorry.

@grimalkina

I can only fix myself.

@grimalkina I'm sorry. This just...definitely a lot of mixed feelings. Mostly anger.

Men, we need to do better!

@grimalkina yes it does and it's getting worse. Gave you a follow in case you are able to stick around but I totally get your feelings about leaving.

@grimalkina I’m sorry to see this.

@grimalkina@mastodon.social I’m sorry that this has been your experience. It’s situations like these why I get so annoyed at the daily testimonials about how much better Mastodon is than every other platform. There’s some serious flaws.
As long as people are people there will be issues. I do hope you can go somewhere your work is admired and you are protected.

@grimalkina
I really hope you stay. And if you choose to move instances to one that does moderation stuff to keep people Like That out of your replies, I hope you find a great new home quickly.

@grimalkina get a live

@grimalkina@mastodon.social Before you leave, consider giving a smaller server a chance. Or a server on Firefish. You can bring over your posts and followers, and you will still be federated..This might give you a better mix of content while limiting the reply guys you get on mastodon.social.

I like fedia.social or infosec.town (which is thriving). And your recommended timeline will have content from mastodon.social and other large servers.

@grimalkina That super sucks. I've seen some of this, but fortunately (for me) haven't been the target.

Do what's necessary to look after yourself. I hope it gets better.

@grimalkina

So grim sorry you're having to put up with it.

@grimalkina I really want to apologize for my part in that discussion that took place over in another thread, though I do hope I did nothing to directly contribute to the problem at least. The post was meant to add a bit of levity to things, but it went a very wrong it seems.

@grimalkina Sorry to hear you're experiencing this. The world is full of men waiting mansplain things to women or have the last word. It's exhausting. You might have a better experience on a smaller instance. I run my own instance connectop.us if you interested in making a switch let me know.

@grimalkina it does get better after you block them all, I promise 🤗

@grimalkina wow sorry this happened! What instance did this happen on? I've heard of the existence of bad moderation on certain instances, but in all the years I've been here I've never had that experience. I literally left Twitter and Facebook because of precisely what you are talking about, and I've never seen that here.

This is something I feel like learning more about. Do you have any info about this?

@grimalkina 😞

I want you here, and know we need your research, and the perspective you bring.

But I get that that isn't necessarily enough.

@grimalkina When in doubt, unlimber the ban hammer! Block, defederate, repeat.

@grimalkina I went digging in some of your threads. Yuck. No wonder you're feeling frustrated.

I feel like we need a social norm or hashtag to mark people as unable to contribute productively when the grownups are talking. #thinkorhush followed by the user. Follow the hashtag, review the comments of the person targeted, and add to your block list as needed.

@grimalkina been on mastodon since inception and don't take it personally but Twitter people seem to bring their own traumas here which is a different network for people on bleeding edge of things that might communicate differently.

I've been muting and blocking and saying goodbye to people with whom I don't feel like I'd have productive communication with and it takes some time to get used to but imo it works really well!

@grimalkina My white female and white male coworkers frequently told me that I didn't know my place. Lawyers, friends, coworkers tell me I was too sensitive and should not have complained. It's extremely toxic and narcissistic to support people who lack leadership skills and compassion. on top of that gaslight a struggling minority woman who is singing like a canary, telling on people. It'll be too late by the time the mine blows up.

@grimalkina , replying over here to just say. We are so much better as a Dev shop thanks to all research and learning you share on the social mediums.

I am also a week into this place. So, hoping your replies get better over here as well.

@grimalkina Having years of experience with setting up community websites for clients, I can tell you that people's behavior online is for the most part far from civilized. The first thing we did after going live with our instance was using days, blocking lots of individual accounts on other instances. In some cases blocking whole instances. We also tell our users that they can expect having to mute and block a lot of accounts themselves in the start in order to end up with a usable social feed.

@grimalkina

I think that without active, and perhaps Draconian, moderation then any public forum can find itself afflicted by a variety of unpleasant creatures , such as are plaguing you .

When Mastodon was small, we could depend on site owners to moderate, though not all did. As it has grown moderation has become less effective.

The fault lies not in the platform, but in humans. Some of us are not very nice.

I hope you find a way forward.

@grimalkina And the following is going to make some people angry, but move to a smaller instance or an instance that is for people sharing similar interests. You'll be able to share some posts for viewing on that instance only so people across the fediverse that would react toxic have less chance demonstrating their lack of social skills. Smaller instances are easier to maintain and if handpicked by you, more friendly.

@grimalkina

( ... sigh ... )

I just found you.

Edit: I've nothing to compare to. People keep telling me this place is much better than Twitter, Threads, etc ... but that Bluesky is also much better than here.

I saw a wonderful analysis by @kissane a week ago, on why people leave here for Bluesky ... and my biggest takeaway was that all the top problems here, have been problems here since before I joined, 5+ years ago.

In 5+ years, we've fixed nothing here.

@grimalkina sorry you're experiencing this. Good luck out there.

@grimalkina it's almost certainly related to being on mastodon.social. I was on there for years and moderation got worse as it grew bigger. It federates with some of the worst instances. Finding a home that works for you is a chore and only you can decide if that's worthwhile on fedi or jumping to something else. Whatever happens I hope you find your fit.