it’s actually not the point of the article, anyway. I suppose I originally should have said: I, too, have experienced a lot of the same displeasing behaviour that the article’s author adduces anecdotally. None of this has anything to do with the software programmers of the network.

we should approach the ills of the social network from a materialist basis: what underlying structures are causing people to do the following?

• start big arguments based on gossip, linguistic tone and posturing?

• show a complete lack of charity for other people’s attitudes and well-being?

• use vague, insulting, immature and informal language when dealing with serious political topics that affect everyone?

• cheapen the cause of social liberation by turning struggle into a popularity contest?

I’d say a lot of it has to do with the nature of the structure of social media. I have some suggestions about how to improve our current structure:

• Include, optionally, and at the user’s discretion, the ability to display an archive of posts by month or week or some other period of time, in order to make posts easier to find

• longer character limits, like in pleroma

• more customisable user interfaces, even if this breaks federation or the aesthetic experience of the fedi

• have a more open and inclusive discussion about the preponderance of mastodon’s influence over the ActivityPub protocol

• more interfaces to ActivityPub through different protocols like email, IRC, etc (bouncers, forwarding, posting from email, bridges, etc)

Just a thought.