dyedgrey @dyedgrey@social.cleverlibre.org

Two things that are really important on here:

♿ Add text descriptions to your images/videos/audio. Accessibility is fundamental. More info: https://fedi.tips/mastodon-and-fediverse-accessibility-tips/#HowDoIMakePostsMoreAccessibleToBlindPeople

⚠️ Use Content Warnings on anything that people may not want to read right now. It could be upsetting like violence or politics, mild like movie spoilers, but either way it shows empathy and consideration for strangers. More info: https://fedi.tips/staying-safe-on-mastodon/#UsingContentWarnings

These features are key to keeping this place friendly. Please use them. 🙏 ❤️

I must say, that even in the last few days since I joined Mastodon I’ve seen a culture shift - more #politics, more ‘hot takes’, less discussion, fewer #CWs, less #AltText. I hope it’s a blip and urge newbies like me not to unwittingly play out the #coloniser #stereotypes and ride roughshod over the existing culture. It’s a lovely, gentle, curious #community here, would be awful to ruin it because we’re conditioned to something worse.

As a user interface note on the continuing discussion of CW's

(1) Add CWs liberally to your posts, UKPol, MH, violence, war, eye-contact, food, alcohol, spoilers, etc.

(2) If you don't have any triggers or stressors around these subjects and find clicking to expand them tiresome go to Preferences -> Appearance -> "Always expand posts marked with content warnings"

Magically all the CW'd posts in your feed will be auto-expanded. Then *everybody* wins, the experience is good for all.

#FediTips

https://www.sciencealert.com/we-have-the-first-evidence-of-bumble-bees-playing-with-toys-and-its-utterly-adorable

Timeline cleanser: bumblebees play! H/t Doctor Kaboom

Part of what is going on right now is that the culture of #Mastodon has largely been shaped by neurodiverse, queer, and disabled people. This means it's designed to be as accessible to as many people as possible.

Many of the people coming in are cishet and/or white and/or able-bodied and/or neurotypical and/or male and struggling with the idea that their preferences are not centered.

What makes Mastodon weird also makes it accessible. It's worth keeping.

Seriously though, fedi was *built* by furries, trans and queer folk, disabled neurodivergent people.

This is *the reason* the culture here is what it is. Why CWs are a thing. Why image descriptions are a thing. Why privacy matters here. Why moderation tools not only exist, but are usable — and used.

If you had joined and asked yourself "wow, how come this place is so chill and kinda… nice?" — that's thanks to all the nice people from communities some people call "weird".

So #KeepFediWeird.

I don't know how old these kids are (to my elderly eyes they all look about 13) but their expert note-perfect recreation of this masterpiece is as if a bunch of primary-school kids grabbed paint brushes and mocked-up a serviceable Da Vinci. Just extraordinary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDrqTwkuLlg

7. Now there is a federal lawsuit by the @NAACP@twitter.com, @LWV@twitter.com and others requesting "declaratory and injunctive relief" to ensure "qualified Pennsylvania voters are not disenfranchised based on an immaterial paperwork error."

That case is pending.

https://popular.info/p/trashing-votes

Oooh, LGBA is trending again.

So please, here is your reminder The #LGBAlliance is an internationally recognised hate group.

They exist for the sole purpose of removing trans people from society. 😡

#TransRightsAreHumanRights

As an #atheist, people assume I want to end your #religion.

That's not true. I'll fight for you to practice your religion as long as:

1. You don't expect or force anyone to share your beliefs
2. You stand up for my right not to believe

🗳️ Vote with your great-grandchildren in mind…

Not knowing:

🤠 what they'll look like…

🗣️ what language they'll speak…

🛐 what religion they'll be…

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 who they may marry…

🌐 where they'll live & work…

🌍 And assume they'll need a habitable planet to live on.

To all the lovely humans starting Mastodon instances:

Please think about succession planning, resourcing, and rules of engagement (aka Code of Conduct) as a matter of priority for your instance.

When you create a community resource, you're making a commitment. If you're new to stewarding a community, ask for help. #AskACommunityManager

It'd be really sad if in 3, 6, 12 months we start losing a ton of instances and Fediverse community members with them.

#MastodonAdmin #FediTips #Admins

Your reminder that the fediverse does not tolerate transphobes, terves and other gender-critical nonsense.

Trans lives matter, trans people are welcome here, and trans people built this place. If you don’t agree, you do not belong here.

fedi is queer as fuck. let’s prove it

Tomorrow is the US #election so I want to share this:

I study Congress. Not by crunching numbers, but by sitting down with people who write legislation & make recommendations for how members should vote. Rs & Ds.

And despite what politics look like in our hyper-polarized, outrage-driven, sensationalized media environment (ie #Twitter), there are still so many smart good folks we never see working hard every day to make things better.

I’m hopeful for the future. Democracy depends on us. #Vote

Here's a link to one of the most important things I've ever written: a #lexicon of #disability terms
https://www.invisibledisabilityproject.org/words-matter

Just resist the urge. Because you're not going to think to check for robots.txt, but you ought to, that's how we communicate we don't want to be involved. You're probably not going to bother to read the various terms of service for the instances you touch, many of which explicitly ask you not to do any scraping or automated activity beyond normal use of the service. You're not going to know to respect people using the NoBot hashtag that was meant to prevent automated follows. You're certainly not going to parse user profiles and pinned posts to learn how people like to be approached, what will get you blocked, or even think to heavily throttle your activity because instances are falling over in response to load.

Whatever your thing is, make it 100% opt-in. Make it appropriate for a significantly more at-risk user than you are. Make sure it forgets things, purges info about servers it can't contact, can't operate in any sort of logged-in mode where consent is an issue.

We will straight up help advertise your cool thing if it respects users properly and takes the time to consider the safety and preferences of every person involved. There are a lot of fun, thoughtfully-designed toys! And there are a lot of people really tired of having to come and tell you off when you wanted to help, honestly. Help yourself and ask around before you flip on your cool new thing, let folks point out what you're missing.

If anyone here needs help and support, I run a site https://theintersection.app that provides help, guidance and support for people in the tech industry with their mental health. Do not suffer alone.

I’m also building a series of Voices where real people share, openly or anonymously, their stories. Your participation is welcome!

#mentalhealth #infosec