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2y ago

mastodon.art defederating calckey firefish social. Cites behavior of lead project dev

This is an announcement and information post for members of mastodon.art. mastodon.art has limited firefish.social and moving to suspend...

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/6853479

mastodon.art has decided to suspend firefish.social from their instance due to issues with its administrator. The administrator of firefish.social was found to be boosting posts from a known harasser on another instance. mastodon.art takes a firm stance against racism and suspending full instances in these situations is part of their policy as a safe space. The known harasser has a history of using slurs, harassment, and editing screenshots to spread misinformation. However, the administrator of firefish.social has now forged a screenshot to paint mastodon.art in a negative light.

Fediverse @kbin.social

trashhalo @beehaw.org

2y ago

mastodon.art defederating calckey firefish social. Cites behavior of lead project dev

dotart.blog /dotart-blog/suspending-firefish-social

7 6

Fediverse @lemmy.ml

trashhalo @beehaw.org

2y ago

mastodon.art defederating calckey firefish social. Cites behavior of lead project dev

dotart.blog /dotart-blog/suspending-firefish-social

75 39

95 comments

I spent way more time than was warranted digging into this completely petty drama.
Eris seems to have been widely blocked and defederated for using the word 'based' and for thinking ubuntu.buzz was about linux. I'm not sure what kind of perspective makes that a priority, but it certainly doesn't seem to be one based in compassion or world experience. Half the people I've met who use the word 'based' have nothing to do with 4chan, they're just young. The first time I heard it was in reference to Mark Bunker during the Scientology protests in 08. Which, while certainly connected to 4chan, I don't think can really be cast in the same light as all the Gamergate crap and everything that came after.
Defederation is an important feature, and people should be able to defederate from whoever they want. What isn't okay, though, is people going out of their way to propagate pettiness as much as humanly possible. Eris seems a little rough around the edges, but I also get the impression that the folks interacting with her in all the overly dramatic nonsense I just read are not acting in remotely good faith. They resemble a twitter mob looking for somebody to hate on, taking zero interest in understanding or nuance. No thanks.
- I thought the whole based/cringe thing was just zoomer slang?
  
  Based started on 4chan. People stole memes from 4chan, where it spread and became Zoomer slang.
  Cringe I think has a similar but slightly different etymology; I don't know if it necessarily came from 4chan or if it came from Reddit.
- Half the people I’ve met who use the word ‘based’ have nothing to do with 4chan, they’re just young. The first time I heard it was in reference to Mark Bunker during the Scientology protests in 08. Which, while certainly connected to 4chan, I don’t think can really be cast in the same light as all the Gamergate crap and everything that came after.
  Also probably important to note that even being connected to 4chan isn't always a bad thing. The web (particularly youtubers) have made 4chan as a whole to be some boogeyman website full of hackers and nazis, but it's a loosely connected web of forums (known as boards), many of which don't have anything to do with another apart from being anonymous. It's kind of like lemmy in that regard. I've browsed it in my time, and while it is definitely quite a toxic site, most if not all the toxicity originates from a select dozen-or-so boards, and only 3 or 4 of them are even popular (b, pol, r9k, x). Hell, if you go right now to /a/, you'll probably just see a bunch of weebs discussing anime like any other forum.
  note: this isn't to say 4chan is safe like beehaw. The whole culture of the site is very archaic and a lot of people on there are still there saying slurs and being generally offensive, but when you stay away from hellholes like /b/ or /pol/, I've seen worse on reddit.
  If some stranger on the street told me they used 4chan, without specifying what board, I mean I might be suspicious of which boards they're using (depending on context clues) but it's not a buzzword that translates to "white supremacist"
  
  I agree. Not all these forums are about the same content nor do they all involve the nazi stuff.
  
  /vp/ used to be really good at good Pokemon info back in the Black/White days.
  That said - I haven't been back in quite a while, but even back then you did occasionally see folks who obviously were from /b/ or /pol/ posting. I'm sure it's probably gotten worse over the years, as people start growing out of 4chan...
- I almost thought I had written your comment and completely forgot about it. No, I just almost made the exact comment and want that hour of my life back.
  If there was some over the top racist rant, I sure didn't see it. And the admin pushing for the defederation sounds so bizarre. Bizarre is the best word I could come up with because "petty" makes me think it was like high school politics. This is closer to a grade school sandbox argument.
  The worst I saw was "defedfags" and it was used in a way that was meant to highlight how they never said anything offensive. Like saying, "If you thought what I said before was offensive, let's see how you respond to something intended to be negative."
  The crazy thing is that the decision is being made because the admin just liked a post. It's not even because of the post content - which has nothing controversial and appeared maybe 8 times in my Lemmy/kbin feed yesterday.
  Editing to add that this is the article: https://kbin.social/search?q=wakeup+call
  
  I don't even see who posted an article in my feed unless I open up three post and look for it. I upvotes things all the time without knowing who posted them. I'm all about aggressively defending safe places and I don't think they were out of line to defed, but I agree that this whole thing seems awfully overblown from what I've seen. The users deserve an explanation of the defed and why and the story should've ended there.
  
  Why is this article a problem? Seems like a good thing to keep in mind - federation and using open source software doesn't mean you're private.
- Something I haven't seen mentioned is that ubuntubuzz.com is about the Linux distro, and it's the first hit for "Ubuntu buzz". I'd definitely interpret ubuntu.buzz to be about Linux, at least if I didn't check the about page.

Is it just me or is mastodon.art the source of almost all of the drama on the fediverse?
- I think it's the admin of mastodon.art the source of almost all the drama. Even the admin of the server where I am had issues with that admin and blocked her.
- @donuts I recently had a short conversation with someone from mastodon.art. They denied the GIMP devs an account on their server, because GIMP is a slur word. And they made a public announcement of this fact. Looks like the moderation/administration people are assholes, if they act and communicate like that. This community is new to me and all I know is about this GIMP announcement and this new drama.
  
  For those who don't know: GNU Image Manipulation Program.

There's an amazing amount of conversation about how this person is supposedly a racist with no evidence to support it. Am I missing something?
- I got around 5 links deep for each of the links in the admin's post, and fuck if I know. There was an argumentative user, but they were articulate and thoughtful. Not dropping slurs or wasting space nonsense, but still bordering on "edgy". The person pushing the defederation appeared to be bullying them and on a power trip.
  It was embarrassing. That's all I took away. (My opinion can change if someone digs through the shitpiles of nothingness to pull up some actual naughty posts, but that's not going to be me.)
- Irrational people behaving irrationally.

The admin of mastodon.art is terrible and a huge, huge troll - just ignore them and move on lol

Thread where calckey dev responds. https://firefish.social/notes/9hp49vhkce098zn8
- what was wrong in boosting that post? was that article bad or something?
  
  article was fine, mastodon.art's mod didn't like the person who originally posted it

What other art focused Masto instances do people recommend? .art seems to get involved in a lot of drama and I'm getting tired of it.
- I would also like to know.
  
  I'm trying out socel.net if you're still looking? They say it's animation focused but all visual art is welcomed. I only just joined so idk a whole lot about it though, or if it's any better in terms of drama.
- I'm willing to go out on a limb and include furry instances provided there's enough of a sfw community since a lot of my art could be considered that, but I'd prefer a decently active general art community if possible.

Wow - bit overblown all in all. While it sounds like the quinoa guy is kinda a jerk, I'm not seeing any proof of racism on his part. He just boosted a legitimate news article (the Fediverse servers being seized that popped up yesterday) posted by this Eris character, who had been flagged as a racist troll in the past. This isn't confirmed or denied in the various posts aside from a profile link on thebadplace.com - which has no information aside from a few racist tags on that profile (can't tell who the profile is for).
This sounds more like the admins got snippy at each other in off-site discord drama and decided to take their toys and go home. Interesting for the /popcorn, but hey, if mastodon.art doesn't wanna play with firefish, that's their decision, regardless of the reasoning, end of story.
- This is why I prefer using my own instance- I don't want these federation choices made for me by people like this.
  
  Same!

I don't get it why tge commenters are upsetti of the way .art admin cleans their house.
If they smell anything fishy, it's their duty to protect their instance's users. It's what is promised for joining .art.
There's a reson it's such a humongous instance. Because the admin is doing a stelar job.
It's not to my taste, that's why I'm on another instance. But my lord, leave people be.
If the admin is doing such a poor job, the instance will collapse, and people will simply migrate.
To me it looks like fragile egos are all around, and somehow get "offended" when defederation happens.
Also, GIMP is both a slur and a shitty graphics software. I'd personally block it as well.
- To me it looks like fragile egos are all around, and somehow get “offended” when defederation happens.
  i would imagine most people's issue here is this seems to be more "extremely petty schoolhouse drama" than "actual thing worth defederating over", especially when mastodon has better and more granular defederation tools at its disposal than lemmy or calckey
  
  The way I see it (especially since regsitrations are "pls let me in") .art is admin's house.
  If they ask you not to wear shoes inside, you either abide or leave. Petty or not, that's the rule.
  If they catch you or your friends with shoes inside, you and your friends are getting kicked out, since everybody else is barefoot/eating off the floor.
  There's really nothing weird, petty or childish. You get a warning (suspension?) if you don't fix the problem, you get defederated.
  "bUt mUh frEey speyCh" doesn't work in a super-protective, highly moderated "safe space".
- How are people starting drama over a FOSS program that has been around for 25 years? Gimp is free, open-source, and good software. People starting drama over that are looking for trouble.
  
  Why is everyone calling it drama. How difficult it is to understand a dumb rule that says "no slurs"?
  "Gimp" is literally a slur. The makers were aware of it and did for the lulz. Now they're denied an account in an incredibly moderated instance because the name is a slur and everyone's "why the drama11??11"

Defederation is one of the big issues fediverse social media will face, now is getting more population and will be more in the future
- Defederation is an important tool to protect communities. It helps prevent the Fediverse from being overrun with bad actors.
- Defederation is a feature, not an issue. Bigots, racists, etc can be confined to servers that allow that behaviour without polluting friendly servers with their content.
  
  Too true, but there's less evidence that this is confining bigots and more that the mastodon.art admin was looking for an excuse, no matter how tenuous.
- I do think defederation is an important tool for the many pedophile, harassment or extremism oriented instances there are because of the fediverse’s decentralized nature. But it is an extreme action, and I don’t see it as a good immediate recourse when there’s issues with an admin or some users.
- How is it an issue to be faced? It's an advantage of how the fediverse is built.
  
  It can force those who disagree with defederating to find a new instance that has access to all the communities they want. It also makes onboarding new people significantly more complicated, as their choice of instance will drastically influence their feed.
  To be clear, I'm not arguing against defederation, just pointing out that it causes issues that need dealt with.
- This is what kept me off fediverse for a while. Reading about another incident like this.
  If your admins are adults about things and don't overreact to every little thing, then that's great. But sadly not everyone is mature like that.

Mastodon.art has 29k users, so it's not nothing, I suppose

95 comments