Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber?

@scottjenson @davidnjoku and the reply to that by @GavinChait in https://wandering.shop/@GavinChait/116359340305800688

> yeah, he never replies to anyone, and while he's sometimes interesting, he's also sometimes really wrong, but he drops posts and then ignores them. I don't think that really promotes the sort of engagement required in this here part of the social web.

@scottjenson In response to your "Why is asking for 'a bigger tent' seen as such a negative thing?" question @stefanie wrote:

> I don't think Mastodon is a tent. Twitter is a tent, bluesky is one. Mastodon is more like a campground full of many small tents. It is just fundamentally different.

You go on to repeat the "big tent" metaphor several times, but you never address this suggestion that it's fundamentally flawed vis a vis the Fediverse.

@scottjenson
One last thought. You opened the thread with text from Dare Obasanjo and while you didn't say it outright, you strongly implied he's the sort of journalist we'd like to see more of here.

Except he's not a journalist. He's the/a "Director of Product Management, Monetization" at Meta, and likely to have been directly involved in actions including lying to Congress, violating consumer protection laws, and enabling CSA (https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/jury-orders-meta-pay-375-million-new-mexico-lawsuit-child-sexual-explo-rcna265002).

There are better people to care about.

@scottjenson He'll block me again and therefore create his own echo chamber bubble where he'll never have access to my diverse viewpoint. Inclusivity win.

@scottjenson Inclusivity:

Include: people who like nazis or are okay with nazis so we can talk about it

Exclude: people who wanna interact with posts via accessibility features.

You're amazing.

@amiserabilist

thank you, the checker is actually because he was on a transparent background and I never coloured it in, but I will switch to this one.

Thank you again.

@amiserabilist @Thebratdragon Does that mean the Estarriol is forgiven for any past indiscretions?

@scottjenson

I also want to be more inclusive.

Except for people who want to destroy us and the world, or support those people and technologies that destroy us.

I would like for them to be excluded from the Fediverse, and—depending on their investment in our destruction—ideally from all of society.

PS: You might want to read up on the “paradox of tolerance”.

@Wen @amiserabilist

Hey, me and Muttley are proud of our checkered pasts, but time for a new leaf...

For maybe a day or two anyway....

@dzwiedziu You made a specific claim: That I was “conflating ‘AI’ boosters with ‘AI’ users”.

But this distinction is not observed by the posts up-thread thread. There is little or no consistent use of terminology at all.

I think probably you could see this if you were to re-read the thread above carefully, just as I took the time to do before suggesting it.

I’m not trying to be rude here, but you specifically asked for “precise”. Most people are not used to direct discussion and often interpret it as “condescending”.

@scottjenson @Helenisenough @progressivecat @CiaraNi about alt text specifically because I absolutely need it, when I see posts without alt text, I don't boost them whatsoever, for one because I don't know what that image says, and for another, because alt text, like content warnings and other things, is a way of showing people that you care about being inclusive and that your post is actually intended for them, whatever disabilities or barriers of access they might have, you're not just posting into the vacuum as fast as possible. I realize it's not always easy to post alt text, some people have disabilities which prevent them from doing so, according to some posts to that effect I found in my timeline over the years, and yes, that's an important issue as well, I also know the alt4me hashtag doesn't always work. However, the solution there isn't to just not say anything and boost the thing even if it doesn't have alt text, or to not say anything and not boost it, at which point the person doesn't know why people don't boost their posts. I'm not sure what the solution there would be, maybe a bot or client feature which reminds the person from time to time to edit the post and add alt text to images they uploaded in the past, so they can do it when they have more spoons?
But coming back to not policing people's posts, going in their mentions and being like here's how to post properly TM on the fediverse, I agree that can be over the top, especially for some things, but it troubles me that you're including alt text and stuff like that in there, punching down is never OK. I would generally not boost and move on, but especially if the person is relatively new to it, they might not know the culture even if they wouldn't have issues following it, at which point I would go in the thread and see what people replied to the post, then if nobody said anything about alt text and such, I would. I dk if mastodon has the feature that fetches all posts of a thread so we don't see thread gaps, but go to social does for example, so I can do that.
And before someone comes with the predictable opinion that we don't have a monoculture and therefore people don't have to post alt text, or put a content warning on triggerable posts, this isn't about a monoculture, a monoculture would be if it was forbidden across the whole fediverse to post cat pictures or whatever, so all posts end up looking the same and feeling the same, which is kinda what most social media is. I find a lot of awesome and diverse things in my timeline, from tech stuff, to nature stuff and gardening advice, activism against racism, queerphobia, fascism and stuff like that, anarchism too, a lot of awesome people posting awesome things, so no, that's no monoculture to me. Alt text, content warnings, other accessibility features like camel casing hashtags, that's a culture of empowerment and respecting people's disabilities, limitations and boundaries.

@scottjenson This reply feels ironic & disappointing given that the premise of your original toot was to champion good Mastodon culture. The only thing anyone said: we don’t boost posts without Alt Text. Your reply feels like strawman spin. You scold us for being, unlike yourself, self-righteous scolders, for doing things we never do & never mentioned. It feels like a bad-faith set-up, to be honest.

Ciara (@CiaraNi@mastodon.green)

@Helenisenough@masto.ai I appreciate Alt Text too (am not visually impaired). Nobody is required to provide it. But most of us in the Fediverse won't boost images without it. So the person who experiences 'least engagement' in the Fediverse and who also doesn't use Alt Text has themselves limited the likelihood of their toots being boosted.

Mastodon.green (mastodon.green)

@progressivecat @Helenisenough

@progressivecat I understand that Alt Text does take time and effort and also that nobody is required to include it. But without it, I won't boost a toot with a photo or video, I will just scroll by.

@Helenisenough

@Helenisenough

"I'm not sure why your response assumes anyone here is offering unwanted advice."

I am wondering this too. The only point any of us made was that we don't boost posts without Alt Text, which in the context of thread was pointing out that people who don't use Alt Text will get fewer boosts and therefore less 'engagement'.

@progressivecat

@scottjenson @pmdj @dalias@hachyderm.io

I'm with you Scott.
The Luddites are rude and hypocrites.
On one hand they talk about community.

On the other they are literally aggressively hostile pushing their Kool kids purity cults...
Gatekeeping Muppets.
...even as they feed techbro training datasets.

@scottjenson Anti-echo chamber activist Scott Jenson appears to have responded to this polite, detailed, and well-reasoned argument by curating his experience (blocking me).

You are not asking people on here to be more generally tolerant. You are asking them to entertain a specific viewpoint so as not to be stuck in echo chambers. Then, when they listen and tell you what they think, you ask for them to ignore you instead, i.e., you ASK to be put in an echo chamber.

That's goofy, man.

@scottjenson @dalias @pmdj

@jupiter @scottjenson Yeah, it was a whole thing when Threads came about, since a ton of people are here specifically because fuck Facebook/Meta. Tons of Mastodon instances defederated Threads preemptively. But, that doesn't make Threads any less Mastodon.

@scottjenson who's keeping anybody from joining? They're just not getting 'engagement' because they have no way of having their 'content' shoved down people's throat, so it has to compete on its merits, and they're not used to that

@evan Not sure if you are against food and water for humans or just think AI does good things for the environment?

"AI" as promoted by the big tech companies comes with a boost in energy usage for datacenters. They build new gas turbines...

One of the biggest tasks for the future of humanity is, to keep the planet in a livable condition... which means: Stop using fossil fuels. Reduce energy usage of unneccessary tech.