MetaFilter. It's a very old school general interest indexer/forum. It's been around since 1999, has a lot of well known professionals on it, requires a small fee to make an account, they pay their moderation team a living wage because it is a job, and has recently transitioned to official non-profit organization status.
Quality links, quality discussion, (although discussions are chronological, not threaded or voted on, first post gets top spot) plus some goofy stuff and random quality art thrown in. Kind of general interest, but because of the format, some posts can have absolutely mind-bending numbers of links and in-depth information. Some users go all out in making insanely in depth posts that end up generating significant discussion. As I said, you have a lot of professionals on there, and unlike say, HackerNews, it's professionals of all stripes: scientists, programmers, lawyers, federal workers, economists, writers, musicians and so on.
Personally I would filter and only look at platforms that are open source and Fediverse/ActivityPub compatible. Otherwise it will suffer from similar issues as the other alternatives (centralization, lack of community/momentum, takeovers).
As long as the platform federates nicely then it really comes down to personal preference. The content and communities can grow independently :)
The platforms that come to mind for that are Lemmy, Kbin, Mbin, and Sublinks. I'm probably missing some other good ones
There are several closed group options or other closed source ones that aim to be just like Reddit in practice but not exactly it in theory. Ironically the Reddit alternatives sub on Reddit is probably the best place to get such a list 😜.
I enjoyed Squabbles for a bit - it was described at the time as toxically non-toxic as in very much anti-hate speech, though I don't know how it's fared recently. At the end of the day though it's just one guy's project, and while he's no Huffman, still the entire thing turns around him, very unlike the Fediverse that can become anything we want it to be.
If you do remain on Lemmy, learn which things to block bc that will improve your experience substantially. Just blocking lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net improved mine 95%, and ironically some people (not me) also block Lemmy.ml. You will come to find what works for you, I am just saying that the experience varies enormously depending on that one factor!
Well *I* don't, thus keep in mind that I may be summarizing here the reasons that others do incorrectly &/or unfairly, but from what I understand people are saying:
(1) often when people get extremely argumentative (aka bat shit insane crazy trolling) it is from there. Who wants to talk to someone who is rude, condescending, and doesn't listen in the slightest to your POV before loudly proclaiming how very wrong you are, even while using logical fallacies (such as strawman) as they do so?:-P Counterpoint: that can happen on any sufficiently large instance e.g. lemmy.world too? Though it does seem to happen more often on lemmy.ml for whatever reason.
(2) it may be relevant (tbh I'm not entirely sure how though?) that it leans fairly hardcore to what many people e.g. in the USA would consider an extreme leftist viewpoint, as in so far to the left that it may even become uncomfortable to someone living in a society that leans more rightwards even if the person in it considers themselves an "extreme leftist" in relation to that center point. Along these lines, are "memes" merely political propaganda that happens to be drawn in a cartoonish form? (Though this is an argument pertaining to merely a community, not an entire instance.)
Oh interesting. I picked it from a list as it appeared to be a more privacy-focused instance and blocked all the annoying pseudo political communities. That said, having to pick a random line from the communist manifesto during sign up as a spam account filter should have been my clue. Chalked it up as a quirk of the developers…
Meh, to be fair, communism gave us all the likes of Mastodon and Lemmy, whereas capitalism gave us all Twitter/X and Reddit so... it's not like I'm knocking the politics even, so much as the extremely annoying manner in which those thoughts are handled, sometimes.
Imagine a Karen who regardless of actual right vs. wrong, thinks they are right, but more importantly just enjoys slamming it into people's faces. Like, if you really think that you are correct, why work so hard to convince people of that "fact" - you catch more flies with honey than vinegar - and who exactly are you trying to convince bully even?
Likewise even a factually correct endpoint can be made into part of an incorrect statement if arrived at via a false chain of logical deduction - i.e., even a stopped watch is right twice a day, but that doesn't mean that you should trust the watch from then on!? A statement that includes a logical fallacy, even if deployed in order to defend a true statement, is still false,
even if the underlying fact also happened to be true.
And if there is anything I am learning from the internet, it is that trolling exists, yet not everyone is a troll, and it improves my mental sanity >95% to block such. I used to be proud of never blocking anyone, ever. I grew up though, in seeing how others refuse to grow.:-D
You might try an experiment and make an account somewhere, and see how different some posts and their complement of comments look, in terms of which instances you may choose to block, and also which individuals may have blocked your instance in return...
For 1) That's funny because other people have said that about lemmy.world. Lemmy.world and sh.itjustwor.ks were defederated from Beehaw during the Reddit exodus for that very reason.
Oh I did not know that. Sometimes the answer to "where would you go, if you were a troll" may just happen to be the same answer as "where would you go, if you were not a troll":-).
Is that the most toxic instance? I got blocked or banned or whatever from hexbear for simply posting a slightly different opinion from whatever the current orthodoxy was there. Do curated echochamber communities really provide any value?
I mean, that's how they want to be, so whatever, they can enjoy it.
But that's not how *I* want to be - and I resented having it thrust upon me without consent, in the form of being able to make an informed choice. They do not clearly state how they are, yet they are that way, hence the disconnect.
Like any authoritarian regime, they have drunk their own cool-aid and they seem to both not acknowledge it whilst simultaneously also flaunting it proudly - i.e. how they are looks to be by design, not ignorance or whatever.
And ofc the obligatory caveat that not all people on those servers are that way - e.g. you were there, until you weren't anymore:-P. But it does form a trend. And I for one would rather that people be able to make an informed choice. Like someone go there if they want, but don't you come here and tell me how to be.
Yes an echo chamber provides value to them in terms of an emotional reinforcement, though it's dangerous b/c what gets reinforced becomes thereby divorced from logic. i.e., "might makes right", which works so long as you ignore the alternative that "the pen (Reason) is mightier than the sword (Might)" - i.e. the value is purely local amongst themselves, who choose to refuse to see outside.
Even so, the code for the Fediverse came from the guy who started lemmygrad.ml iirc, and it was freely offered to the world not in spite of but b/c of that belief in communistic philosophical principles. In contrast, Reddit and most other alternatives started here in the USA - like squabbles to name one (looks to now be renamed to squabblr or something?) - did not offer their sourcecode freely, and instead tried to monetize their user base, and this too not in spite of but b/c of their own beliefs in capitalistic principles.
As long as they are honest about it though, I'm fine with them. The problem is that they are not, nor are they respectful to others... so I ban them and move on with my life. I am not kidding: if I could not have banned them, I would have left the Fediverse entirely - they are that annoying. So being able to easily improve my Fediverse experience by 95% with 1-2 instance blocks (lemmygrad.ml is often blocked by default, and many others though seemingly fewer likewise also block hexbear.net) is wonderful!:-)
I don’t mind as much when supporting equitable efforts but it always bugs me when anyone claims something wouldn’t exist without X like nobody else contributed and/or advancements wouldn’t have been made without a specific individual and I feel like their are more constructive ways to communicate the significant value of women without the absurd claim that the web wouldn’t exist without the specific contributions from a very small subset of individual women in a field with many brilliant minds.
I agree. The section on web browsers mentioned that Nicola Pellow joined a team of 19 developers at CERN. It doesn't say that she was the only woman on the team, but since she was singled out that is the way I interpreted it.
It's a bit hard to say that web browsers would not have existed if one out of 20 team members was not there.
I don’t mind as much when supporting equitable efforts but it always bugs me when anyone claims something wouldn’t exist without X like nobody else contributed and/or advancements wouldn’t have been made without a specific individual
Well, you know. Few months ago I read an interview with a classical music performer.This woman wanted to perform some music by Alma Mahler. The organizing concert hall directors replied with : "Why don't play some music of her husband ?" (??????). When reading some more about the Mahler couple I read that the later famous Gustav Mahler demanded that his wife (Alma) would give up all musical aspirations. In that time that was not such an unusual thing but it did break her mentally. Still Alma Mahler has imho composed some beautiful music. My point is that it can be tempting in a male dominated world to be silent and hold back and "normalize" the male domination. Have a look at classical music and see the famous names : Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Bach, Ravell, Satie, and the list can go on and on. Think of a famous female in classical music ? Clara Wieck-Schumann is the only name I can think of right now, and when listening to music streams on the Internet or the radio, Clara's music will not be heard very often. There's stereotypes playing a role, even in our "modern" times. Someone wrote "How come that harp players are always women ?" If you search on YouTube it is obvious that not many men play the harp. A bit similar is with electric guitars. Decades ago a female playing guitar was pretty uncommon. What does that have to do with women and technology. For example, the TCP protocol is from ages ago. I can imagine that women were not encouraged or even stopped from being in the spotlight when it comes to technology. Male domination should be acknowledged, especially in history. After all, history is still taught at school, isn't it ? (This is my "rambling" to all readers, not just a reply to the previous comment)
This is needlessly divisive. Just because men share characteristics with a subset of people who opress and live life in easy mode does not mean they can't be disenfranchised.
I do not disagree with you on any of your points and it’s why I said that it doesn’t bother me as much when done to support misrepresented groups.
Elon Musk isn’t a genius engineer that revolutionized anything. The brilliant minds at Tesla, women included did. The QB didn’t win the football game, the team did. The professor that has his or her name published and stuff named after him didn’t do all the work but it will usually be a white man unfortunately getting the credit which is garbage. Women and really anyone that isn’t a white male gets the short end of the stick.
I was saying that their are more honest ways of presenting these women’s accomplishments rather than saying the web wouldn’t exist.
I was saying that their are more honest ways of presenting these women’s accomplishments rather than saying the web wouldn’t exist.
Yes, I see your point. But despite me being a non native English speaker I figure (And I could be totally wrong) the "No web without women" can be interpreted in more than one way. It could also mean that in computer history women deserve to have their place be known to the public rather than forgotten or completely ignored or downplayed.
I appreciate you sharing your interpretation and I agree. The sciences are even worse. If we hire a service we have my wife handle the first conversation while I stay in another room to ensure we don’t hire anyone that is openly misogynistic. I couldn’t even begin to count how many people we’ve turned away due to some variation of “can I talk to your husband”.
I'm so tired of this freepressjournal trash, it's always some clickbait article that looks like it was written by a child for a middle school book report. Can we stop posting throwaway sources like this and use real sources instead?
I'll save y'all from having to read about this villain. He's not referring to actual ethnicity. He wants an "ethnic" cleansing of liberals from San Francisco, he wants to start a new gang called The Greys, and he wants the city controlled by corporate gangs who can do whatever they want. He wants to bribe police officers to do his bidding, and equip them with special uniforms to demonstrate their loyalty. He wants to reintroduce segregation, but for political alignment, and ban liberals (who he calls The Blues) from access to good parts of the city. He's dangerous because he has resources and a captive audience. I'm sure he is on several government watchlists already, as he should be.
the industry claims that the lack of change in that period indicates that federal rules are unnecessary and fear they will impede investments in innovation.
Lol what innovation could an ISP make that is good? We want them to be dumb and simple. Their job is to route our traffic at the limits of the speed of light.
Technology
Hot
This magazine is not receiving updates (last activity 53 day(s) ago).