If the mastodon ~community wants to be more welcoming to more people, someone is going to have to do bystander training for dealing with people like this dude. (And the other guys who told her to just block.) He responded to a Black woman’s post about it feeling super white here and went on for like seven posts telling her how to speak and how he was helping her be better.

By not making this guy’s replies visible to most people bc of federation weirdness, the software plays a role, too.

@damon I've felt a little neutral about QTs because the same dynamics that make them work for this use also make them worth for racist, misogynist troll kings—but if you axed those people right away with good moderation, that wouldn't be an issue. Feels like a system with interconnected parts that all have to work together.

I meant to be finishing a post about books I'm reading but I got distracted and wrote ~2500 words about Mastodon and Bluesky and the related things (welcoming design, insular culture) I've been stewing on for a few months

And also about vegetarian meat substitutes in the 1980s, which were *really something*

https://erinkissane.com/blue-skies-over-mastodon