Pumpfen Spice Latte

Hey all, just getting the word out since our instance was a target - there is a critical security and feature update for Writefreely that was released two days ago - the big one is that previously even with registrations disabled or set to invite-only on multi-user instances, the registration page could still be accessed and used to create accounts. The zoner instance had some 1800 bot accounts registered and posting spam before I shut it down. We've since updated and I've rolled back to before the accounts were created, but I wanted to get the awareness out since wf updates otherwise are very infrequent and even the best of admins may not be looking at their site regularly. Link to release page: https://github.com/writefreely/writefreely/releases/tag/v0.17.0

I just love (read: hate) the juxtaposition of Alito basically saying societal change has been sufficient to eradicate racism in recent decades therefore the provision in the voting rights act no longer has a place (the same argument the executive used for ending DEI programs, by-the-by) and then immediately the next day states rushing to redraw their maps to carve secure seats out of minority districts, even going so far as to postpone primary elections to do it, in the case of Louisiana.

@miawgogo@fedi.miawgogo.me oh absolutely.

in this case we'd still very much only been in the place of "this law was in the progress of working" but even if you take the position that eventually these provisions should be repealed once equity has been reached, the premise that these inclusions are now unnecessary is absolutely bunk and completely premature, because we haven't ended racism by any stretch in America. not even close. the racial inequity and inequality is absolutely bonkers.

and the whole foundation of the suit was "black folks make up 1/3 of the state of Louisiana's population, but its bad that they should get 1/3 of the representation" and unless i am lacking in my understanding, that reads to me like that's the bare minimum to have equal representation.

and forcing this through so close to an election is going to be a logistical nightmare for anyone in the areas that the districts are changing. They'll have to get new voter ID cards sent, they may need to go to different voting locations than they're expecting, and that's already on to of any local, ridiculous, discriminatory voter registration or ID laws that may have been recently passed. and now the state is actively working to make someone else's voice heard over theirs

it's just

1. obvious racism and
2. obvious election interference

and i just don't understand how anyone can think these are the good guys and what they're doing is worthwhile and righteous jesus h fucking christ

@Andy@zoner.work can you get my comal too while you're at it, it's in need of some love

So I saw the back and forth about "just host it yourself" and that being inadequate for most people, and i have thoughts about that where I agree with the statement but feel it stops short, and so I'm breaking this out into my own post because i don't really want to be in anyone's replies specifically and give them the feeling they have to craft a response, but it's something I feel I want to say nevertheless. I would agree that "just host it yourself" is not an appropriate blanket response to everyone. Only a handful of us sickos have the drive or wherewithal to support those kinds of services or networks. Fedi, email, password manager, chat, workspace, whatever whatever whatever. But this also skips over the part where there's those of us who do and can, and critically are more than happy to share our knowledge and resources and services and work with those who are in need. Narrowing to an example of social media: "Wow this corporation that runs this really doesn't have my best interest at heart" is a common realization we're having collectively over the past decade and that pace seems to be accelerating. But so often the follow-up thought is "I wish there was a platform being run by a group of people who didn't have profiteering off ethnic cleansing as their business strategy? Wouldn't it be nice if there was an entity that hosted a social media service that wasn't aiming to extract value from its users and didn't do things to support and platform fascist cultural supremacists? Of course! And as it happens we're talking over it! And most of you reading this don't host your own fedi instance, you're freely using a service provided by a passionate individual or small team. And there's options anywhere from someone running a service off their rooted phone in their bedroom to someone on hosted infra with strong backups and staff redundancy and a well-defined data policy. Broadening this out, you could throw a stone and probably hit half a dozen people who already host the thing you're looking to piggyback off of and would be happy to share. I used fedi as an example here because we're really close to that as you read this right now, but that's true also for video sharing, for streaming, for blogging, for personal storage, and so on. There's tons of community built on existing nodes. You don't have to do it all yourself, and where you can then contribute to the strength of the community is in offer back of whatever skills, services, time, perspective, presence, anything that you can offer to further diversify and support the network. Sure, you might not be prepared to be a sysadmin, but I'm not prepared to be an artist or musician. I'm a community provider, but I'm not a community organizer. I have a finite amount of time on my hands and as such, a finite skillset. Being able to provide this community space and the services I do has put me in contact and connection and community with so many amazing people who are good at the things i'm not, who are passionate about the things i can't fit into my singular self, and they make me better. And the space I support has been able to bring other other people who benefit from the same connections or new ones. So while i agree that "just host it" isn't the answer, stopping there in hopes of finding a winning substitution puts too much burden on the service and individual to also be the endpoint, where truly you have to broaden your perspective. It's the connections we form here with real people and the community that we exist in that provides us with the robustness to fill those gaps. From each according to ability, to each according to needs.

okay but maybe, though?