Usability is really hard, it takes a lot of effort, and I think the kind of work it takes is uniquely hard for hobbyists to pull off.
One person programming in mom's basement can create functionality and maybe even write unit tests, but they are going to be hard pressed to bring in 100s of users and sit them down for strictly administered in-person usability testing sessions.
Horizontal "free" structure of development means that there are no "KPIs" and "engagement metrics" ruling everyone's existence, no marching orders... I think it boils down to, usability and accessibility work isn't fun to most people, so it rarely gets done. Instead, nerds bicker over nerd stuff and build nerd software for nerds only.
Communities route around bad UIs, the only people in the user community are people who WANT to be there, or they have no other choice, whatever the reason, they have _motivation_ to get the software to work, even if they have to put up with bad UI along the way.
I like to joke that "the user interface of **insert free open program here** is located on StackOverflow". Blender, SSH, ffmpeg, you name it. I think this effect has even started to bleed into money-backed corporate products as well. Experienced users with good search-fu and community connections are becoming almost immune to bad UIs, like some kind of pop-under-resistant strain of bacteria.
It's a different world from the early 90s and 2000s when no one would've had the patience for computers at all if it weren't for the buckets of cash Apple, Microsoft, Google, and others poured into meticulously researching and testing UI affordances.
re: beer
RUM HAMMS :dannydevito:
@nolan thank you for your amazing work over the years, pinafore is truly a success ❤️ best of luck in your future projects!
Story about a problem we had with the cyberia.club matrix server and how I went.... just a *little* bit overboard on solving it :
https://sequentialread.com/matrix-synapse-out-of-disk-space-state_groups_state/
@firewally this reminded me of the famous "bowl cut maintenance episode" ❤️ 🤙 ( different author )
@f0x I've no idea honestly I've never used ruby
@f0x I blame non-blocking io vs thread pool with blocking threads ❤️
🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷
@joshuatopolsky It’s not just links to Mastodon. It happened to me just using the word mastodon in another context. My link was actually to a story about mastodon DNA being sequenced at the MIT Technology Review
re: meta, inherent power imbalance associated with technology
This power imbalance used to exist with the written word. There was a scribal class who worked for the king / oligarchs / church and no one else could read and write. I see the programmers of today as a sort of modern-day scribal class.
But in the past, we did eventually reach mass literacy. It didn't mean that everyone became a linguist or studied calligraphy, but it did change the world dramatically. A lot of stuff had to change for that to happen. There was a sort of "meeting in the middle:"
On one hand, the written languages were dramatically simplified so they were easier to teach, easier & cheaper writing tools were developed,.
On the other hand, a lot of effort was put into education so young people would be trained enough to achieve a passable/legible fluency.
I don't know if the same thing can exactly happen with software, considering how much more complex computers are compared to written language, but I believe that something similar *can* happen, and just like with the history of mass literacy, it's going to require work on both sides: both education and simplification.
And like you mentioned, a good architecture for trust/transparency is going to help a ton when trying to apply this idea to computers and software.
@ariadne@treehouse.systems
> why bother with this network?
Because the pattern of allowing folks to participate without operating their own server is what has made fedi/matrix/etc an actual viable alternative to the twitters/discords/facebooks of the world. At least that's my take. It reduced the friction to the point where folks were actually willing to participate & as a result, real network effects were kick-started.
I wish software could fix systemic racism but I don't think any network software really can, it's up to the people using that network to make the most of it.
If I boost a post from treehouse.systems, can someone from whitefragility.net see my boost? Maybe I could change the software so that the boost button simply copy-pastes the post and posts it under my account with a "this is a boost of someone elses post" header and a link back to the original? That would allow important content, if not accounts themselves, to at least slightly "route around" things like this.
But folks usually see "route around" type of features as ban evasion / abuse vector? IDK.
This situation sucks, but I hope that it's not a representative sample of the whole picture. At least on my small little corner of the fediverse I see tons of people who are committed to platforming marginalized voices and more and more "mainstream" people, like those who recently came from twitter, who are beginning to listen or at least become aware that there's something they are missing. At least for me, that's slightly encouraging and I'm hopeful for the future. But also, I'm not an instance admin / I'm just white reply guy #759845. 🤷
Tate came up with this one
Cracking open a boy with The Cold Ones
I am a web technologist who is interested in supporting and building enjoyable ways for individuals, organizations, and communities to set up and maintain their own server infrastructure, including the hardware part.
I am currently working full time as an SRE 😫, but I am also heavily involved with Cyberia Computer Club and Layer Zero