overview for EnglishMobster

Looks like federation is working again! in c/kbinMeta@kbin.social

[–] EnglishMobster@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (3 children)

For Lemmy -> Kbin, type @streetfighter@lemmy.world in the search at the top.

Sharp decline in appetite for news in recent years, Reuters Institute says in c/news@beehaw.org

[–] EnglishMobster@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

I'd argue that the population isn't politically disengaged - Millennials and especially Gen Z are showing high rates of political participation relative to historic trends.

People have simply shifted to different sources. And this isn't just true for those on TikTok either - look at how many grandparents get their news from questionable Facebook groups.

The issue is that the internet - while making everything more accessible - has also proliferated sources that are confident, but incorrect (whether out of malice or not).

What Happened To Google Search? in c/videos@lemmy.world

[–] EnglishMobster@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Hot take: The old way of searching is outdated.

Bing Chat is rough, but it's the future. You ask it a question - it uses a modified ChatGPT to generate an answer and cites its sources.

About 60% of the time, it's right. About 40% of the time it's wrong. But either way, it cites its sources using links that it found during that search. You can click those sources and see responses from humans, who generally have the correct answer.

I rarely use Google now. Bing Chat is always my first stop for any kind of question or general knowledge query. Give it 5 years - 10 at most - and that'll be the only way to use a search engine. The tech isn't going anywhere, and it's only getting better.

Looks like federation is working again! in c/kbinMeta@kbin.social

[–] EnglishMobster@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Figured it out - you have to put the entire URL into the Lemmy search bar. For example, to find @modeltrains, you need to search Lemmy for https://kbin.social/m/modeltrains.

Once one person subscribes, then the community will show up in searches for "modeltrains".

Looks like federation is working again! in c/kbinMeta@kbin.social

[–] EnglishMobster@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago (7 children)

I'm still not able to subscribe to magazines on here from Lemmy, which is interesting. Maybe federation needs some time to catch up.

Ripples Through Reddit as Advertisers Weather Moderators Strike in c/RedditMigration@kbin.social

[–] EnglishMobster@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

1k subs thus far have committed to staying dark indefinitely. Hopefully this news spurs more to join on.

According to Reddark, 6.6k subreddits (out of over 8k) are still dark. We'll have to see what the numbers look like in 16 hours or so once America wakes up and gets off work.

Question about reputation in c/kbinMeta@kbin.social

[–] EnglishMobster@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (5 children)

So until... Friday, I think? Thursday? There was a difference between Kbin and Lemmy. Kbin used "boosts" for upvotes and "reduces" for downvotes, but Lemmy used "Favorites" for upvotes instead.

Kbin literally flipped the switch right before Reddit started coming over here en masse to follow Lemmy's lead and have it be favorites/reduces instead.

The issue is that the reputation code doesn't seem to have been updated (probably because... y'know, the website exploded). So the reputation displayed on your profile counts "boosts" as upvotes still. IIRC sorting algorithms like "Hot" still use boosts instead of favorites too.

So I'm giving you a boost right now - which should give a +1 to your reputation.

This is just a visual bug for now, though, so it'll probably be fixed when things die down. This site has only been live for a month or so, so there's still bugs here and there.

Endless Scrolling in c/fediverse@kbin.social

[–] EnglishMobster@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

There already is an option to turn endless scroll on/off - it's in the settings menu on the side of the screen (hit the little gear icon).

Meta will release an ActivityPub-enabled Twitter clone/competitor this summer. Will you join in or defederate? in c/fediverse@kbin.social

[–] EnglishMobster@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Bear in mind that there are already large ActivityPub platforms that are run by bad actors. Most of the users of those platforms don't even know they're on the Fediverse.

The one that comes to mind is Trump's Truth Social. Internally, it's built on Mastodon. It can technically federate with anywhere else.

Most places defederate with Truth Social because they don't want to be associated with it - but it's still Fediverse and still technically can interop with everyone else.

[–] EnglishMobster@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

A list of subreddits remaining dark indefinitely is being made.

There's a few hundred of them, including big ones like /r/aww and /r/videos. There's also popular ones like /r/perfectlycutscremes, /r/lotrmemes, /r/murderedbywords, /r/Nintendo, /r/Hearthstone, etc. There will be a full list soon.

Many other subs are watching to see what the majority opinion is before making a move.

One subreddit has been taken out of the protest, /r/AdviceAnimals. The head mod got removed by Reddit admins and the remaining mods re-opened the sub, deleting all the protest posts. It's unclear what prompted this, and whether it was something Reddit admins did at the request of the other mods or not.

[–] EnglishMobster@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Up top, if you hit "Magazines" it gives you a list of magazines on Kbin, sorted by subscriber count. You can find recreations of common Reddit communities here. There's also a search function to look for a particular magazine. These are the ones you mentioned:

@unexpected (mobile link) - doesn't appear to have a Kbin equivalent yet. Note that because federation is currently off it's not showing all the posts
@guitar (mobile link) - not learnguitar, but close
@damnthatsinteresting (mobile link)
@historymemes (mobile link) - another one without a Kbin equivalent ATM

As for other suggestions, I'm a bit biased. I moderated /r/Disneyland on Reddit, and I've recreated it here on Kbin alongside some of the original mod team: @Disneyland (mobile link). I didn't moderate /r/modeltrains... but I saw there wasn't any model train communities on here, so I decided to create @modeltrains (mobile link).

As far as things I don't moderate, here's a bunch of cool communities I've found here on Kbin. Note that Kbin magazines are case-sensitive (something I'd wish they'd change):

If you see something in here you like but there's no content in it - content comes from users like you!

Be the change you wish to see. Contribute something - anything - to get the community going. If everyone pitches in soon enough communities will start thriving.

Thread on the two Lemmy developers at Lemmy.ml is removing content criticizing the chinese government for being 'orientalist', meaning racist in c/RedditMigration@kbin.social

[–] EnglishMobster@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

You still can go to an instance like Lemmy.world (linked in the OP, actually). Those aren't controlled by Lemmy's devs.

The link is just a little confusing because it's a Lemmy.world link looking at a discussion on Lemmy.ml, but it's not something on Lemmy.world itself.

Lemmy.world is run by the Mastodon.world guys, who are on the level. Lemmy.world is a separate instance with no ties to the maintainers of Lemmy proper. If the Lemmy devs ever do anything off-the-rails, then Lemmy itself can be forked into its own project.

A great example - you know Truth Social, yeah? It's actually part of Mastodon. They took Mastodon's code, forked it, and put a new skin on top of it. Obviously Truth Social and Mastodon despise each other, but because it's all open-source there's nothing Mastodon can do about Truth Social existing.

(But yes, those associations is one reason why I'm here on Kbin and not on Lemmy.)