When T2 launched (which is truly a janky startup), they were doing it via scheduling a Zoom call with one of the founders, where you wave your ID in front of the camera (for like $5). And ppl were doing it! Then they switched to some 3rd-party verification service. I can get why, like, Paul Rudd wouldn't want to do that; but I would think a writer may prefer it, over having their verification tied to their current employer? Idk
― Girl (1956) (morrisp), Thursday, 2 November 2023 04:01 (ten months ago) link
By the way (so as not to end the night on a down note) – I've been using a custom feed which I built via blueskyfeeds.com. It's easy, and a nice way to pull together posts using your favorite keywords, if you're so inclined.
(The bummer is that you still see Bad Posts, and now they're Bad Posts using your favorite keywords, so... they may seem extra bad.)
― Girl (1956) (morrisp), Thursday, 2 November 2023 04:02 (ten months ago) link
yeah i think the "journalist that changes jobs" situation is not clear under this verification model. i'm not sure if you can change usernames yet.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, 2 November 2023 13:39 (ten months ago) link
I think people impersonating people who are known mostly for being posters is a bigger threat than people impersonating celebrities unless you’re counting scams. Anyone with a presence in media or something like a CEO is pretty easy to verify by going to their job’s website and seeing if the handle linked there matches the one on social media
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Thursday, 2 November 2023 16:06 (ten months ago) link
if you think lebron james wants you to enter your social security number and credit card number to send you bitcoin you probably have bigger issues
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Thursday, 2 November 2023 16:07 (ten months ago) link
what if he has 10 macbooks to sell
― lag∞n, Thursday, 2 November 2023 16:08 (ten months ago) link
that could be a deal
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Thursday, 2 November 2023 16:16 (ten months ago) link
It definitely makes sense for something like a brand, a gov’t agency, etc.
― Girl (1956) (morrisp), Thursday, 2 November 2023 16:17 (ten months ago) link
i really dislike the .bskysocial at the end of every handle. it’s one of the lamest ugliest and most “mastodon energy” things about the site. and i don’t want to register a domain to be at the end of my handle, i just want nothing. as long as they keep the invite-only system, if they just ban people for impersonating, shouldn’t be too much of a problem since it would be costly to get back in each time. so those two design features seem complementary
― flopson, Thursday, 2 November 2023 16:18 (ten months ago) link
it is exactly like mastodon because the intention is to allow posts to be federated and they’re hoping multiple providers pop up and join the network
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Thursday, 2 November 2023 16:22 (ten months ago) link
I do see accounts with other suffixes, so I guess ppl are setting up their own AT Protocol servers?
― Girl (1956) (morrisp), Thursday, 2 November 2023 16:46 (ten months ago) link
IIUC those are just people using custom domain names as handles. Federation is not turned on yet.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, 2 November 2023 17:22 (ten months ago) link
suspect that all this federation protocols etc is just gonna end up a largely pointless hassle, most people dont care they just wanna post, bluesky doesnt even have dms gdamn
― lag∞n, Thursday, 2 November 2023 17:34 (ten months ago) link
xp Ah, thanks... I wasn't sure what was happening there.
TBH, I'm not even totally clear of the value of federation in the ActivityPub "fediverse." From what I understood, getting two servers to talk to each other (whether they're running the same software or not – Mastodon or any of the others) is all dependent on whether the folks running the server you're on decide to flip the switch... and you could switch servers, but... It just feels highly speculative in terms of future benefit, for something that folks in that world are so focused on.
― Girl (1956) (morrisp), Thursday, 2 November 2023 18:10 (ten months ago) link
Yeah there’s a tension right now because bsky is pretty close to what people want, but their roadmap is to turn it into one part of a system that no one except tpot libertarians, blockchain people and other cranks want.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, 2 November 2023 18:16 (ten months ago) link
I do like how the AT Protocol allows you to bring your posts & followers with you if you switch servers; that def seems like an improvement over how ActivityPub works (not that I really understand why folks on Mastodon go around switching servers all the time...).
― Girl (1956) (morrisp), Thursday, 2 November 2023 18:20 (ten months ago) link
I think federation is overall good but no one has done it in a way that people like with twitter-like social media. That and the fact that people don’t really think of things as service providers, they think of them as platforms. I ostensibly have an email account that my internet service provider has given me, but I never use that. I use mostly gmail outside of work, because it’s convenient and I shrug off the monetization aspect. But I at least recognize that email is an open protocol and I could jump providers at any time. The pedant in me finally stopped cringing due to my associating things this way. “Do you have a facebook?” always bugged me because you have a facebook account or facebook page. Your entire presence there isn’t yours at all, and it’s not portable. If I have, say, a wordpress.com site I can export the entire thing and host it elsewhere with no one being the wiser as long as I’m not using a bunch of obvious proprietary junk. So you have a website. I know phone numbers are passé for nearly all messaging but even those are portable. I’m not asking someone for their Verizon. Sorry, felt like shouting into the void
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Thursday, 2 November 2023 22:04 (ten months ago) link
I've been "enjoying" (more or less) using three different platforms, for different purposes. When I post, I mostly post different stuff on each one, and in a different "voice" (not in a performative way; more in the sense that the vibe & features of each platform sort of mold how I post there). Occasionally I'll post the same thing to a few of them, just to see what happens. (Nothing much, in my case...)
― More skin on 'Love Boat' (morrisp), Thursday, 2 November 2023 22:16 (ten months ago) link
bsky-social-qzync-tysnp
― nashwan, Wednesday, 8 November 2023 14:24 (ten months ago) link
they are testing federation now for whatever reason and whatever good that will do
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Wednesday, 8 November 2023 16:03 (ten months ago) link
under the covers, the replication and distribution that sites like twitter do are basically internal federation. it's just transparent to the users and means that only one provider controls the entire network
bluesky itself could tank but users could shift to another provider in the federation network
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Wednesday, 8 November 2023 16:43 (ten months ago) link
I dislike fediverse structure because any server can just go away at any time, which is precisely what happened to me when I tried mastodon for a bit - luckily I hadnt invested any time/real posts but the server was shut down presumably by whoever ran it so my account just vanished without warning or notification.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Thursday, 9 November 2023 01:40 (nine months ago) link
It just makes me think of the old IRC server structure. I feel like the people I know who like this crap are the same ppl who wish Usenet would come back.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Thursday, 9 November 2023 01:41 (nine months ago) link
Don't tell FediTips (@fedit✧✧✧@ms✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧), who insists that being on a big server (specifically, mastodon.social – the one I'm on), is bad for Reasons ("it just recreates the centralized experience," or something); and the ethical thing when joining Mastodon is to be on a small, boutique server.
― Phair · Jagger/Richards · Carl Perkins (morrisp), Thursday, 9 November 2023 01:46 (nine months ago) link
(ha, weird, I didn't know those redactions would be triggered)
I had a different Mastodon account earlier in the year (before shutting it down and rejoining more recently) – that server would have an hour or two of downtime most nights, it was absurd.
― Phair · Jagger/Richards · Carl Perkins (morrisp), Thursday, 9 November 2023 01:48 (nine months ago) link
bsky-social-cy6at-52no4bsky-social-z5v4o-3daikbsky-social-j6no3-7ms4f
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 9 November 2023 01:59 (nine months ago) link
I won't let this slander pass - Usenet was distributed exactly to avoid anyone being able to close a part of it down by taking their ball and going home.
― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, 9 November 2023 02:04 (nine months ago) link
It also spawned ILX, for better or worse.
― nickn, Thursday, 9 November 2023 02:16 (nine months ago) link
Yeah tbh I liked Usenet as well. I was just shortcutting to "very oldschool user" trope.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Thursday, 9 November 2023 05:17 (nine months ago) link
Finally on: ephender.bsky.social
― Dwigt Rortugal (Eric H.), Thursday, 9 November 2023 17:05 (nine months ago) link
wait usenet spawned ilx?? i thought new york london paris munich / freaky trigger spawned ilx because wordpress comments didn’t work
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 9 November 2023 20:57 (nine months ago) link
Right, but a significant portion of the Freaky Trigger nucleus came from alt.music.alternative
― the new drip king (DJP), Thursday, 9 November 2023 20:58 (nine months ago) link
Ned was a mainstay of a.m.a in the early 90s
― deep wubs and tribral rhythms (Boring, Maryland), Thursday, 9 November 2023 21:02 (nine months ago) link
Even pre alt.music.alternative was rec.music.misc, which had some future ILXors (including me).
― nickn, Thursday, 9 November 2023 21:46 (nine months ago) link
Or maybe they were concurrent, but I remember us abandoning r.m.m for a.m.a when the former started to become more spam than content (which happened to a.m.a as well).
― nickn, Thursday, 9 November 2023 21:48 (nine months ago) link
yeah I was a Usenet head from about 1992 to 2007 or so - this is the only place which has a similar vibe.
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 9 November 2023 22:29 (nine months ago) link
My Usenet haunts back in the day was alt.techsupport.recovery and aus.gothic.
Years worth of inane dribble, lost to the ether. Well not completely lost - its all still there in Google Groups but the weird formatitng makes it impossible to follow really.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Friday, 10 November 2023 04:45 (nine months ago) link
sorry it was aus.culture.gothic. Confusing my Usenet and my IRC!
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Friday, 10 November 2023 04:46 (nine months ago) link
alt.music.pearl-jam babyee
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 10 November 2023 04:52 (nine months ago) link
bendy and i were on alt.music.chapel-hill
― mookieproof, Friday, 10 November 2023 16:12 (nine months ago) link
man rec.bicycles.racing got increasingly astonishingly hostile and weird and insider-y after i'd been around there for a couple years, like late 90s, it def made me unlikely to branch out or stay.
― digital chirping and whirring (Hunt3r), Friday, 10 November 2023 16:14 (nine months ago) link
this is true of literally every usenet group I ever saw tho
― stet, Friday, 10 November 2023 18:43 (nine months ago) link
bsky-social-qxllh-e2xbtbsky-social-pneey-yi5vabsky-social-d2s76-n5vpgbsky-social-xbqaa-icpvobsky-social-rjd7f-a27gi
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Saturday, 11 November 2023 23:05 (nine months ago) link
maybe those two groups are complete but google only archived a fraction of Usenet posts overall (another reason that following threads is often impossible)
― vashti funyuns (sic), Sunday, 12 November 2023 17:21 (nine months ago) link
Yeah sorry when I say its "all still there" it of course likely isnt, but I've certainly been able to find plenty of the 99-2002 era I was posting. And yeah a lot of threading's broken/mucked up.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Monday, 13 November 2023 05:08 (nine months ago) link
Unfortunately for years now it's all been a wasteland of spam and porn and porn spam.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Monday, 13 November 2023 05:10 (nine months ago) link
congrats to Ned on doing numbers
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, 15 November 2023 00:20 (nine months ago) link
― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Wednesday, 15 November 2023 02:35 (nine months ago) link
It has been a DAY.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 15 November 2023 03:52 (nine months ago) link