Huge book nerd, chemist, data analytics developer

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • Yeah, I think this attitude that you can’t dislike dogs is actively harmful, both as an unnecessary social stigma and to dogs themselves. Like, this cultural idea that you should just have and enjoy having dogs contributes to bad dog ownership, because people end up owning dogs that they don’t properly care for because they think it’s what they’re supposed to do, or that it’ll all be sunshine and roses.

    Dogs are needy pets (especially puppies, lord help me)! They need physical, mental, and social stimulation to be happy, if in varying amounts by breed/individual, and not to mention training. You gotta be prepared to (and ideally enjoy) provide these things.

    I’m about as far away on the dog opinion spectrum from you as it gets - I love em big, goofy, and slobbery, and if I was independently wealthy I’d be some weirdo that lived in a mansion with an entire pack. That said, it is okay not to like dogs.



  • As a dog owner that’s absolutely fair.

    We do bring our dog places, but they have to be 1) explicitly dog friendly (and still not just randomly in stores, even if they allow dogs, and definitely not restaurants? breweries with outdoor spaces though, sure) and 2) we do things like go for big hikes or doggie play dates beforehand, so our dog is happy to just sit underneath our table or right beside us and people watch. If he ever starts getting disruptive (barking/crying, won’t stay still) then we pack it up and go - that means he’s not having a good time (and we’re not either if he’s not just chilling) and there’s no reason others should have to deal with that too. Fortunately this is rare, but this is how the dog owner social contract should go I think.

    And absolutely he can’t just approach people and is never off leash outside of his specific home spaces (our home, specific family homes). Are people just bringing their dogs to your home and setting them loose or something? Like that’s wild and outrageously rude, our dog never goes to someone else’s private space without 110% knowledge that they’re good with it, and even then he gets tons of stuff to ensure a successful visit (again, lots of activity beforehand + things like his gates, crate, toys, etc. to keep him occupied and safely away from things that could just potentially be issues).

    If you’re someone who just really doesn’t like dogs, the only time and place our dog should ever occupy your attention at all is if you’re physically in our house. Which like, he’s very social and friendly, but still very much a dog, and while we’d do everything we could to make you comfortable, we’d probably just not meet you in our house most of the time.


  • Absolutely. I don’t think it’s really sunk in generally that the Fediverse is intended to operate fundamentally differently from a centralized system. An instance selectively (de)federating is how it’s supposed to work.

    If the platform running as intended kills it, then there are big problems. I don’t think it will, but the user culture does have to change and incorporate knowledge of how the system works. We need to not have threads saying the Fediverse, a platform built on decentralization, needs to centralize as much as possible to survive.





  • I certainly agree it’s less than ideal, although I think a large part of that has to do with Lemmy not being fully mature as a software yet. In some future where development has progressed and some features ~ the ability to move instances as a user without creating a new account, for example ~ are available I think this would be easier to smooth out. The whole situation with one instance de-federating the other but not vice versa is also rather confusing (ultimately comprehensible, but still weird) and probably could use some more thought.

    That said I don’t think this is otherwise a fundamentally different occurrence than if the same thing happened in the future with two other relatively large communities. It’s a little flashier and (maybe, dependent on how the Fediverse develops) more central because of the newness, but otherwise… yeah. I think the Fediverse just needs to have the culture and tools to handle this kind of split, otherwise its design philosophy just doesn’t work.

    Lastly I would argue that this does not indicate fragility quite as much as you might suppose. The beehaw team could also have decided they didn’t have the resources to handle membership in the Fediverse and withdrawn entirely. This is a little more bend than break, from that perspective - from my section of the Fediverse I can currently still fully interact with beehaw.



  • I don’t know whether or not this was the right decision for beehaw, although I certainly sympathize with them having staffing and mod tool issues. Modding any forum is a thankless and tiring job, and I’m sure in it’s super early state Lemmy doesn’t exactly have a mature suite of tools to work with.

    I am very interested in the community reaction here though. There seems to be a shared assumption that instance creation in the Fediverse means an open exchange of users and content (outside of bad actor or extreme instances), and most instances should only be distributing technical burden and otherwise be almost just an aesthetic in the larger Fediverse.

    This despite the user philosophy in the Fediverse being ‘go where you want, interact with who your want’, and federation tools meaning that philosophy applies to instances as well. And if you want meaningful differences between communities and instances, this has to be so - there has to be a strong ability to self-regulate, up to and including the ability to defederate from incompatible instances.

    I think it’ll be very interesting to see how the Fediverse develops. A wider Fediverse composed of sets of federated instances which aren’t federated with other sets is possible. A largely open Fediverse with limited walled off instances is also possible. I know right now the latter is probably preferred to encourage growth, but in the long run? (these are not the only conceivable arrangements either, but this post is long enough already)