It's tricky with guppe though, as it allows spammers a vector into instances they have no business being federated with. The #mastodonforharris hashtag has been taken over by users abusing the mutual aid group, and whenever there are apam attacks on mastodon this is how they reach the entire network rather than individual servers.
So it does confront a fundamental problem with how Mastodon works. But as long as they're there, I guess it makes sense to use them for legitimate uses as well.
I'm not sure what to make of compatibility between Mastodon groups and Lemmy communities. On the one hand, it would obviously be a good thing if the technology would talk as much as possible. On the other, the microblog format does not look so good in Lemmy unless the author is knowingly making and effort to create a thread rather than a post, starting with a title and all that.
Compatibility between the two by default could end up flooding both services with content that looks out of place, and lowering the user experience rather than improving it. It would also subject one service to the technical constraints/decisions of the other.
I think it might make more sense to keep them somehow separate, and leave it to the different fediverse software to implement it however it would like. The priority of the Mastodon developers, in my opinion, should be to create something that works as well as possible in their ecosystem.
Then again, I could absolutely be wrong.
I wasn't aware of this - good to know.
What's great about using it (while it lasts) is that it boosts content to a lot of instances across the fediverse, so you don't need to be incredibly well connected in order to have reach. Otherwise, if you post microblog posts from Mbin, you risk yelling into a very tiny void.
It'll be interesting to see how native group support in Mastodon is going to play out.
I think it's likely we will see big platforms (newspapers etc) want to federate their content directly using activitypub. It sounds like a messy task, but if you can specialize in offering clutter-free activitypub support for existing platforms I'm sure there's money to be made.
Steps are being taken in the right direction. The US has also been making progress, which I'm sure will continue if America doesn't give up on itself next month.
That said, it's not nearly enough. As long as the focus is on innovation and growth rather than sustainability, and consumers don't really give a fuck, it's going to be difficult to see any change.
But I'm very happy with my Fairphone, and my next laptop will no doubt be a framework. Baby steps.
One good option is to look for relevant groups in a.gup.pe - such as !technology@a.gup.pe. These groups are geared towards Microblog content, and give good reach on sites like Mastodon.
You can add pretty much anything before a.gup.pe, but some groups have many followers on Mastodon and some have none.
Lemmy and Mbin treat Microblog content very differently. Mbin is more similar to Mastodon in this regard, Lemmy tries to force-fit everything into the thread format. It's not very intuitive for new users - sorry about that! :)
And you keep herr/frau, so technically it would be Frau Professorin Doctor Jones.
Generally when opening an email you condense it, and simply refer to the person as "Sehr geehrte Frau Professorin Jones" - Very honoured ms. professor Jones. They're very humble.
I get that this is surprising to many, but it's possible to have news stories covering women without instinctively turning it into a discussion about their appearances.
I find it weird that nobody mentioned this. If you don't have back problems and you're tired of shoe horns breaking, in addition to reconsidering your technique, get a short metal one.
Sounds like you've had too much internet.
Either that, or you have a fascination for human suffering. Which you might want to see a therapist about if you can afford it.
In either case, signing off and doing something you enjoy offline might be a good idea. I'd take to the mountains, but that's just me.
Ah, yeah, that's messed up.
I'm really happy Mastodon takes their time todevelop new features instead of rushing into things. Makes me hopeful they'll get it right.