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Dear lord... I feel the need to sit people down and do a Copyright 101 class...

I just saw someone call Creative Commons a "type" of copyright...

Only half joking, if people would actually listen I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Jason Kautz :warriors: reshared this.

in reply to Shiri Bailem

All the AI stuff, regardless of your stance on it, has really shown me how little artists understand copyright. What rights they have and what rights they do not have, and in general how any of it works.
in reply to Shiri Bailem

  • I will not mock people for not knowing any better, we don't teach this well and there are so many myths circling


New landing page text on my server, would love some feedback (this is the text shown at foggyminds.com when not logged in):

Welcome To Foggyminds!

We have open registration!

We are a leftist instance aiming to just be a nice space to occupy on the fediverse. We welcome temporary exploratory accounts and small businesses.

We try to listen to minority voices. The admin is Disabled Jewish LGBTQIA, but tries to recognize that they still have white privilege. Please report any instances of bigotry, hate, or trolling, even if subtle, to our admin at shiri (at) foggyminds (dot) com. Especially if perpetrated by our admin.

You can view our public feed here and our blocklist as well as enabled addons are provided here. While we do not permit subtle bigotry on our instance we do not block other servers aggressively for it. We are more inclined to block problem accounts specifically unless it is endemic to the instance as we understand most users on that instance are likely blind to this. If this is unacceptable, we're more than happy to be a temporary place to help you find a safer instance.



Nazi's didn't just kill the Jews, we were just the biggest target. The other targets continued to get persecuted afterwards (LGBTQ people in concentration camps were taken straight to prisons after the war!)

But by god I will use Jewish-Privilege on the topic to break down misuse of Nazi threats (ie. misapplying the Nazi/Table quote).



Reminded deeply today of the subtle insidious racism of leftists and liberals.

So many in our communities are prone to believe that they've gotten rid of their racism, and instead fuel it by demanding ideological purity and by ignoring inconvenient truths.

When a minority group says something you're doing is racist, take a minute to stop and ask yourself what you might not be seeing. And if you really can't find anything, ask for more information (but try to figure it out for yourself first, it's both polite and good exercise).

#racism #leftism #liberals

reshared this

in reply to Shiri Bailem

The case in question here was people calling out anyone still using Twitter as a Nazi.

Take it from this Jew: Twitter is not the same thing as the table quote. It's a massive international platform with shitloads of social inertia. There are many many people who can't leave the platform without personal harm.

And many who did try to leave and come here? They got drove out by demands that they conform to the ideologies and culture here, subtle racism in the form of demanding that they abandon their cultural norms otherwise they'll be harassed until they leave.

So don't condemn someone for just using and being present on Twitter.

reshared this

in reply to Shiri Bailem

It must be really important reasons for people to continue supporting a site that encourages racism and hate. I know it must bother those folks to be forced to support them.
in reply to Runyan50

@Runyan50 it sounds like you're saying this tongue and cheek, but it's pretty much nail on the head. Most of them that I've seen are pissed that we've taken this long to notice (Twitter has always been pretty bad).

As I understand it, it's a lot of community organizing efforts kind of stuff. And that sounds small, but we're talking things ranging from abortion care to political revolutions.

And these all need the people to work. Over here we have a lot of people who are opposed to platform growth and are hell bent on their cultural view of this space, so when they try to move those efforts here... they're too often met with intense hostility.

in reply to Shiri Bailem

Sorry to hear that. I am trying to understand. I have heard it is difficult or impossible for people to leave, & they seem truthful. Hostility here would be a good reason for not switching. However, I was on Twitter for 2 years & it was the most hostile site I ever experienced. I follow a few folks of differing philosophies here and I don’t read the kind of hostility here that bombarded me on Twitter. I am not dismissing their viewpoint, I just can’t verify it.
in reply to Runyan50

@Runyan50 I unfortunately can only say in vague terms because I'm not a member of any of those communities.

I can say social inertia is a thing, it's the reason I'm still on facebook for instance. I would have never joined in the first place if it weren't for the social weight of the platform, and I hate it every single day for it.

in reply to Shiri Bailem

@Shiri Bailem Self-reflection and facing cognitive dissonance is hard. Its easier to dismiss the person calling you out as too unenlightened like myself to see the bigger class struggle picture.


Oops


Made a performance tweak that shouldn't have had an impact and resulted in a non-error being flagged as an error (I was getting 302 which really just means "look at this other address").

Fixed the tweak, otherwise should be a tiny bit better. I've got it recognizing a lot of the potential errors and better skipping between servers if one of them acts up.



@Friendica Admins I'm curious for feedback about other admin's setups. I know the default choice is apache, but how many are like me running nginx + php-fpm?

I'm curious what tips and tricks people have figured out? Has anyone settled on a good stable caching config? (Last time I set up caching I tried to limit it to just static files and images, but it somehow cached some of the regular pages it seems wondering if maybe one of those css or javascript files is actually dynamic?)

As it stands my setup is two nginx webservers behind an nginx load balancer, both running php-fpm, a shared nfs media storage directory, memcached on the database server for php sessions.

Friendica Admins reshared this.

in reply to Shiri Bailem

Single-user instance, but mine's just MariaDB, Nginx and (chroot'ed) PHP-FPM, all behind an haproxy front-end. It's been responsive enough I haven't felt the need to do anything extra about caching (yet!)

Friendica Admins reshared this.

in reply to Pippin

@Pippin You probably never will with a single instance. I may never reach the point of it being a problem, I was just having some performance issues early on, mostly due to available memory for the database.

Friendica Admins reshared this.

in reply to Shiri Bailem

@Shiri Bailem I'm another single-user instance, but it's pretty responsive and snappy with Nginx/FPM. To be honest, I haven't configured PHP on Apache in quite some time, and I expect it would be net slower just because of how Apache functions.

It was much slower before I dealt with the activitypub-troll.cf issue (they were murdering my db), it runs quite well for my needs. Might do caching and/or db replication, more as a best practice than because I think anyone will ever sign up on my instance...

I've got a cron running a version of something @Hank G ☑️ suggested in an older thread, and a few instance blocks, that also improved response times by a noticeable margin.

I'm living dangerously on develop, though I haven't pulled in a few days since it's performing much better now.

Friendica Admins reshared this.



Been seeing the "Nazi Bar" analogy in regards to Twitter lately.

To recap: it's the suggestion that people remaining on Twitter are fascists or tolerating fascism for remaining much like those who visit a Nazi bar.

This is a privileged take and not a clean analogy. The bar is a non-vital space with plenty of competition, you don't have to drink, you don't have to go to that bar.

Twitter may not be as huge as Facebook and a little easier to move away from, but no place has really solidified itself as the place to go instead (despite what many think about Mastodon/Activity-Pub), and the communities still take time and effort to move.

On top of that, these places (yes FB included) have always been fascist leaning. It's just you finally hearing all the dog-whistles. So many of these communities were hearing the dog-whistles from the start but didn't have anywhere else to go, so they had to fight to establish themselves in what spaces they had.

Don't judge them for having difficulty moving and re-establishing in a new space when every space is a huge effort to claim. The fediverse isn't immune to racism and fascism, there's absolutely whole new fights to be had here against bigotry, especially the privileged neo-liberal sort.

reshared this

in reply to odd_megan

leaving twitter and adopting other methods of organising is very much doable, and indded other platforms persisted and were still used by lots of communities during twitter. particularly as the tools to make your own spaces are now much more accessable than they were before twitter, i dont realy have any sympathy for the "its hard" argument. the "diaspora" argument dosnt realy work either, as these communties already existed off twitter. no new problem is being created.
in reply to odd_megan

additionally, even at the utter extreeme, say all of my friends and support were at the nazi pub, i would still stop going to the nazi pub. I have lived long streches of my life without support or friends, and its utterly doable. I would have a very hard time seeing any benefit i could derrive, even if it was my sole means of social contact and i couldnt do anything else like other websites or in person community, that would make it a good idea to stay in the nazi pub.
in reply to odd_megan

and to be clear, folks can use other websites or in person or other machanisms for community an social contact. alternatives exist, and even if they didnt, i think at this stage leaveing twitter would still be the best choice bar some extreeme i havent been able to think of even worse than loosing all social contact of any kind (which is almost definitly not going to happen to anyone due to the proliferation of alternatives)
in reply to odd_megan

@odd_megan that's not doable for everyone, and also in regards to other spaces it's mostly transitional.

This wave is still pretty new as far as broad culture goes, many are waiting and looking to see where the space will be. They're not necessarily idling, they're building those spaces elsewhere but because you can be in two places at once online, they're still over in the Twitter spaces because it's still "the space" and they need to be there to get the necessary support and also to see where people go when they leave it.

It's crucially important to not judge marginalized groups based on the standards and experiences of unmarginalized (or differently marginalized) identities.

in reply to Shiri Bailem

i duno, i think "dont support the nazis" is a fairly reasonable ask? i have family members who were tortured for sticking to that principal, and its one i would litterally die for.
in reply to odd_megan

@odd_megan I prefer Pikuach Nefesh, life is the highest commandment. If you have to deal with a Nazi business to survive and protect yourself, then you're permitted to do so... but only to the extent necessary.
in reply to Shiri Bailem

, i agree about judgeing folks in other groups, often we cant fully understand the circumstances due to distance and privilage etc. but i think humans have certain things is common, and as such somethings are kinda universal for humans, and i think supporting fash is as close as it gets to a universal absolute.
in reply to odd_megan

@odd_megan the argument is what qualifies as supporting fascism... I'd agree with you if it was people encouraging others to use Twitter, not seeking alternatives at all, etc. But not when it's "I need to use Twitter to access the support I need and there really isn't an adequate replacement yet"
in reply to Shiri Bailem

but merely having an account does help the site, as it subsists of add revenue. (i still know folks who have twitter blue, or whatever its called now, and justify it as being necessary for their buisness, which definitly counts as supporting the fash, directly, financially) even having an account, even not activly using it, still helps them pitch to advertisers.
in reply to Shiri Bailem

like most points of religious law, im sure theres a lot of discussion about exceptions, limits etc regarding that principal (i have no familiarity with it myself). its obvs a complex issue, even those who felt they had to collaborate with fash to save their own lives or the lives of others still had to undergo horrible stuff, and i wouldnt tell someone in that position they had failed moraly.
in reply to odd_megan

but at the same time, i think that someone who undergoes extreme harship, even death to avoid colaborating is doing a good thing. maybe there is some space between "non condemnable" and "good" that a person can occupy, though not particularly comfortable. i think there is an imperative to persue the good, and settling for the "not bad" is often just as bad as supporting it. I duno its tough, probably why humanity hasnt "solved" ethics yet
in reply to odd_megan

@odd_megan Pikuach Nefesh is the one law of Judaism with no exceptions, it is in fact the number one exception to all other laws.

"Life is the highest commandment" - All Jewish law cedes to the health and wellbeing of people.

If leaving Twitter would cause someone harm, then they are permitted to stay on Twitter but this does not relieve them of seeking alternatives to eventually reach a point where they can leave Twitter with little to no harm.

in reply to Shiri Bailem

from my cursory reading (very cursory, obs happy to defer to folks with more knowlage), it has to spesifically be preservation of an identifyable life, not just the avoidance of harm?
in reply to Shiri Bailem

also, Im sure the jewish community, out of all communities, has spent a lot of time thinking about fash, ones ethical obligations regarding protecting ones self and others from them, but im not familiar with it.

after thinking about it. i think this is a conversation i should back out of. I dont have sufficient knowlage expertice. its a tough question, and others have spent a lot more time on the issue than i have. sorry

in reply to odd_megan

@odd_megan It's okay, I get where you're coming from and it can be good to voice these discussions as it creates a space of learning, especially when you're willing to learn.

To clarify on Pikuach Nefesh what details are a little less obvious on a quick read:
* specific identifiable life is counter to arguments that some vague uncertain person might be harmed. Ie. it doesn't rule that you have to child proof a house that never expects to have children in it. It also doesn't cover vague potential life ("But if you do this you'd become infertile or could pass on genetic abnormalities to your future children!")
* life threatening isn't generally considered as "will cause death" but rather is interpreted typically as "lasting harm". For instance, losing a leg won't necessarily kill me... but if I would lose a leg following a commandment then Pikuach Nefesh kicks in. If giving food/money/shelter to those in need would risk my health and well being, then I can say no, but if it wouldn't then I must say yes.

In the topic of things like support networks in fascist spaces: if it would just be unpleasant to leave, then you're required to leave. But if it would cause you lasting harm to leave, then you are permitted to stay.

Also of note: Judaism still praises martyrs, we just discourage it. It's a great good (notably not a Mitzvah) to die to uphold justice and your faith... the real Mitzvah is surviving another day.



Got me a site icon now, taken with permission from my sibling's art!

I should nab a bunch of their artwork to share here, especially since they offer prints.

Original:
A picture of a drawing superimposed on a grey brick wall of a figure wearing vague black close, long brown hair, and a cloud covering the upper half of their head
Piece: Sad Girl (modified)
Artist: Devin Bailem (they/them)



Public Status Page


I finally went and set up a public facing status page for the site.

You can go to https://status.foggyminds.com to see the site uptime. This will tell you if the site is currently reporting up, as well as every time it's gone down.

I've had StatusCake set up for a while so it emails me whenever the site goes down, but I haven't had the public page set up.

I'll try to keep up on putting notes on any downtime, though I can't promise they'll always be helpful (the most recent 15 minute downtime has me stumped as it resolved right as I sat down at my computer to look it up, and the error logs were very uninformative as to what may have happened).