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Im counting the days for a Piefed app so i can switch over and be able to forget about ml drama and weirdness

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/26211900

[Transphobia Warning] Nutomic’s Stance on Transgender People

FediLore + Fedidrama @lemmy.ca

Nutomic’s Stance on Transgender People

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136 comments
  • I know that I shouldn't, but...


    \ On-topic: I think that the "forums side of the Fediverse" (nowadays mostly Lemmy and Kbin/Mbin) would benefit immensely from additional platforms; that's why I'm excited for projects like PieFed and SubLinks. I am grateful for the Lemmy software but I can't help but see the people in charge of the project as a liability.

    And they would still be a liability even if they had any skill building a healthy community (they don't, they suck at it). Relying on a single platform is like putting all your eggs within the same basket, once that basket goes down everything breaks.

    • It’s also worth noting that the bourgeoisie doesn’t just compete for power with the other two classes (proletariat and petit-bourgeoisie) - it also competes internally. And for that, different factions within the class will seek external support from different groups, and align their discourses to those.

      And if someone were to ignore that and view them as a single-minded monolith it can easily be explained as divide & conquer tactics.

      • This too - even monolithic agents can play both sides, or do lip service for one side while supporting the other from the shadows.

    • And they would still be a liability even if they had any skill building a healthy community (they don’t, they suck at it).

      I agree with you here (and generally the whole post, glad to have found it here). While I think they do suck at community building (and might even admit to as much or defend the need for it) I would add that from my perspective the amount of reflexive dog-piling and harsh criticism hurled their way just for or triggered by their being communists/tankies has probably made it pretty difficult. And unfortunately and problematically so I'd say. Now such may just be the way things are and it had to be navigated if they were ever to build a better community ... sure. And being open communists may then as just a matter of practical reality hinder their community building capacities. But I feel like it's worth acknowledging.

      Also, their position of opposing a somewhat consumeristic culture of having a demanding relationship with open source developers is also worth recognising. I wasn't receptive to those arguments in the past, but have since come around to it TBH.

      And, the way they've approached federation and presenting their own instance has enabled the lemmy-verse to not have a single monolithic community or culture. They chose before the migration to not push their instance as the flagship and never seemed to want that. They always promoted other instances, and have always federated their own instance fairly widely. So in a way, they've ensured that they didn't have to be the primary community builders for the lemmy space, and I think that has paid off rather well given the relatively small user size here (apart from lemmy . world being too big).

      • I don't rule out that a lot of the complains are motivated by red scare, instead of saner stuff. And I'm also genuinely grateful for not making ml the flagship instance, it would've made any problem worse.

        However I think that, to be a good open source developer, you need to be at least decent at community building. Because a good part of that development is to gather support so other people can submit you code.

    • This is the best stated argument I've seen by far for alts for Lemmy. Still, I don't see anything wrong with the statements made being neutral. Not everyone is going to be an ally, but that does not make them an enemy. This post smells like someone trying very poorly thought out psyops instead of simply making their own thing. Lemmy is written in the benchmark of coding languages. The alts appear to target the least secure convenient high level languages. Based on what I've seen, I would be quite hesitant to run my own instance on one versus the other. I've seen a ton of whining here and there, but I haven't seen anyone that has an answer to why they have not submitted pull requests for Lemmy. I find that most concerning. There appears to be a desire to steal Lemmy. I find that deeply disturbing. I left for awhile once before because of similar nonsense. If some one can do better, great, go prove it on your own. If your confidence in your abilities does not exceed envy of what already exists, I already feel completely uninterested in the alternative. There is a lot of nonsense about politics that ultimately have nothing to do with the platform. It feels like deeply destabilizing drama that makes this place toxic.

      There is still thinly plausible deniability about the psyops nature of this post, but it is too strong of a pattern for me to ignore as chance. The original message chain was not posted. One side of a conversation proves nothing whatsoever and making conclusions about intent without full context is a fool's folly. The consistent jump to Lemmy alts in comments shows a decided intent and bias.

      • For context, here's the original message chain. The discourse conveyed there isn't just neutral, it's dismissive - in that chain Nutomic does play down the trans issues and needs.

        While we could argue that the original user is jumping at the gun to some extent (and falling into the same idiotic false dichotomy as Nutomic himself), it's hard to claim that she's psy ops, after a quick glance of her profile. She simply sounds vocal about the issues that she cares about. I think that it's the same deal with the OP of this thread, it doesn't look like psy ops for me.

        I ain't no programmer, so take what I say with a grain of salt: while performance is important I don't think that it's the whole deal. One of the benefits of Python is that a lot of people know it, can read its code for issues, and can contribute with the project. (This is not a dichotomy, though - I think that an alternative coded mostly in Python, with Rust on critical parts [to address performance and security] would be the best of all worlds.)

        But even another codebase in Rust would do great in my book. Besides the whole deal of relying too much onto a a single basket, every new alternative would bring on new ideas, and try to tackle the same problems in different ways. Kbin for example tried to mix microblogging in. And oddly enough it would be a great way to shut up all those "waah devz r commiez!" complains ("ah, you don't use software made for commies? Use [alternative] then."), while still allowing them to reap the benefits through federation and open source.

  • Honest question: Why does it matter if he's a transphobe when choosing which Fediverse software to use? The software is FOSS and anyone can make their own instance. I don't understand why his social views outside of sharing the software and protecting it from becoming proprietary matters when deciding what Fediverse software to use.

    I'm not arguing my stance. I really want to understand what I might be missing.

    • When people are successful, sometimes their ideas are too. They become a sort of standard, or justified. While I speak only for myself, I think some folks feel like if this guy's projects are successful he could use that success to oppres people. It happened to fluffy JK Rowling.

    • Honest question: Why does it matter if he's a transphobe when choosing which Fediverse software to use?

      1. Because some people have actually financially supported him. I'm not trans, but I would be devastated to know that my money went to feed someone who wants to destroy me.
      2. I already have trouble convincing transgender people in my social circle that Lemmy as a software is safe for them to use even with the variety of trans-inclusive servers like yours, and will be safe and inclusive in the future.

      A great example of (2) is the fate of PolyMC. Thankfully, the other developers forked it into Prism, but transphobia put that whole project in jeopardy for a bit.

      The software is FOSS and anyone can make their own instance.

      IMO that's why I'm not immediately dropping my account and running for the hills, but it's still not good. Most people don't have the technical skills or the interest in learning them to run their own instance.

      I really want to understand what I might be missing.

      IMO it's that even though he does not personally control how Lemmy instances are run, and even though we do have a good degree of robustness to transphobia because the software is FOSS, it is still both morally and technically ill-advised to have a transphobe at the helm of an open-source software project.

    • Because he's the developer. He can easily change a line of code to exploit users and servers across the fediverse. Sure, some may notice immediately, but others won't.

      • Because he's the developer. He can easily change a line of code to exploit users and servers across the fediverse.

        This can be done by anyone, and applies to any platform. It's not a problem unique to Lemmy.

        I also don't see how transphobia and backdooring everyone are at all related.

  • I thought you mistyped PixelFed lol. Good to see there's another Lemmy clone like sublinks.

  • I've said before that I could add piefed support to Interstellar (it already had Lemmy and mbin support). The only thing I need is an api.

  • The developer is expressing their opinion on their instance using their software. The beauty of federation and the software he has crrated is that you can build a community that you want.you never have to interact with or his instance.

    This post is drama for the sake of drama.

    • He receives thousands of dollars in donations to make the software. I’d rathe people start supporting software developers made by non bigots

      • It's a weird place to draw the line. You probably use all kinds of products with scumbag companies and owners yet you draw the line at a guy's Foss project which has nothing to do with his views and the project barely makes min wage yet serves tens of thousands of people.

        You don't need to withdraw your support because you already do nothing to support. Again I think you are creating drama for the sake of drama. The guy is an open Communist and you are shocked that he's transphobic.

  • what if they are turned out to be like this or hate other set of people? lemmy by design is defederated so even if the devs are like this, you can just simply call out them or leave their lemmy server lol. i am sure there are trans friendly lemmy servers out here.

    as long as lemmy by design is against any sorta people, you dont have to boycott it.

    • Yeah lets ignore the lead dev’s opinions on stuff its not like they have power over the project and a big number of users on their server.

      Its ironic you say this from the ani.social instance which was previously defederated from ml because the lead devs thinks all anime is degenerate or something like that and it ruined the anime community since ani.social was still too small

      • Like I said in my earlier comment, if the devs make changes in lemmy which by design discriminates any sorta people, yeah people should be leaving lemmy. Twitter just shoves and boosts hate and polically biased posts (favoring elon, the app's ceo). Lemmy devs are just extreme leftists (tankies in lemmy's language), but it doesn't push or shove their views onto me or anyone (in my knowledge).

        Its ironic you say this from the ani.social instance which was previously defederated from ml because the lead devs thinks all anime is degenerate or something like that and it ruined the anime community since ani.social was still too small

        lemmy.ml defederated with us, it was just one instance. it is unfair and not justified but again, I dont miss much because of that.

  • So, for context

    • this is one of admins of lemmy . ml.
    • that instance’s first rule is

    No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.

    • This person is also one of the core devs of lemmy

    Because, IMO, fedi drama is almost always overstated and overblown, especially when it comes to specific “incidents” … because we’ve gotten addicted to social media drama/rage …

    I’ll provide my own impression without any context, pretending I’m a relevant moderator

    • it seems they’re challenging the notion that the same culture can be both pro-trans and anti-trans at the same time.
    • which seems superficial unless it’s about a specific incident
    • they seem to think that the Olympic boxer that’s caused an incident is actually born biologically male but is a trans female, and cite as much as proof that the west is not wholly anti-trans
    • my own impression is that the boxer being biologically male is mostly rumour and accusation, but I’m not close to the story at all and can understand how someone not following the olympics would conclude that they’re trans
    • without context I’m not sure I could conclude whether this is transphobic, at all actually.
    • Probably misinformed, but I’m also not informed on that issue, which also seems to be a moving “story”.
    • The user’s perspective is also relevant here, where being a known communist, they’re likely to think anything the west does is flawed and always boils down to class issues.
    • so given that it’s a sensitive topic, I’d follow up the comment with an attempt to frame the sensitivity of the issue and ask the author to consider editing their comment or reconsidering their stance just to flag the potentially transphobic reading of the comment.

    Here’s the killer though … this seems like it’s a private message in response to a query … in which case I’m not sure there’s any moderation to be done and without more I’m not convinced this transphobic at all.

136 comments