Kirk

I think it feels alive AND like an Opera. So good.

Yeah, The Old Place literally is beginning to feel like Facebook. A bot reposts some rage bait and a million oblivious commentors eat it up.

Yeah I agree with you. I do think the only kind of instance administrators that don't eventually burn out are the kind with an absolute rock solid understanding of what it is they're trying to create and what kind of people they're trying to attract.

I hear you, but I also believe that the balance you describe is size-independent. If the fediverse consisted of only three people, and one was an asshole, what's to gain from allowing that asshole to run rampant on your platform if you're trying to attract non-assholes to your anti-asshole platform? There is no scenario where that doesn't lead to burnout.

Beehaw.org is a good example of an instance that defederated basically every other large instance and their users seem very happy about it.

And if someone actually wanted to doomscroll and look at shitposts (I don't get it but they do exist)... they'll eventually just go to reddit or twitter where that experience will always be superior.

I agree with your point, but disagree that the fediverse is too small to block all Tankies or that an instance "dies" when it owner enforces minimum standards of quality.

I think we all would have been better off if instead of burning out, the Lemmings.world admins banned everything except a single post per day if that post was an absolute banger.

If an instance admin wants to attract like-minded users to their instance, that instance needs to show people what their mind is like.

"For a hot minute it was honestly great but eventually all that remained was tankies propaganda and depressing news. And probably a few non-political communities that sadly don’t really offset it for me."

I'll never understand why someone would go through the trouble of starting an instance and then tolerate nonsense on the instance that they (again) literally own.

The entire point of the fediverse is decentralizing power. So why are you making it worse for yourself abiding by someone else's rules? Did it occur to him that maybe his users don't want tankies and depressing news either?

I get that keeping the engines running is thankless work a lot of the time but damn, don't make it harder on yourself because someone else (who is not you) wants to use your thing that you pay for and maintain to force their propaganda onto your users.

Thank you Internet for ruining everything I've ever enjoyed

They were called that for most of their history until Jack Dorsey wanted to change the name to hype some crypto.

Yes, Square is a product that Block sells. Block was actually called "Square" until relatively recently and Jack Dorsey became obsessed with Blockchain.

They own Square which is a card processing service typically used by small vendors. If you've ever gone to a festival or concert merch table or farmers market and they accepted credit card, it was probably Square.

That's only a small part, they own Square.

They own Square which you've almost certainly used if you ever paid a small vendor via a payment card (as opposed to cash).