And now in public

I'm retracting my support for the Yesterweb as a community (though not as a concept).

As the community has grown, the mods haven't really been able to keep pace or think pre-emptively about what a safe community looks & sounds like; and consequently, the tone is now constantly reactionary, meme-y and odd. it doesn't feel like a community that is warm and welcoming, or is a community in the real sense of the word; the mod team are no longer interested in collectively building a space, won't act on safety red flags (including when people from well-known harassment communities show up). This is a problem because core to the concept is resisting fast social media and moving towards a kinder and more interpersonal online society. That means not avoiding difficult conversations in the hope they go away or work themselves out; letting nastiness dominate the space because it's easier than doing something about it; or requiring your users to be constantly calling out trouble and imagining this is 'better discourse norms' and not a route to exhausting and alienating anyone who tries.

Communities are a watery push-and-pull that develop their own persona over time, based on who they attract in and who they repel. It's on mods to do the nudgeing and sculpting to coax the environment into a good one; and it is not an easy task. Right now, the vibe is extremely bad. This is sad, because it was not always like this.

Do get off the mainstream web and get politically engaged and personally excited about what an alternative internet might look like. Don't hang out round there unless someone gets on it, or draw attention to yourself/your creations in an environment where the dynamic is dodgy.

Winter Fear by Kat Ryan

Is it just winter
or is this worse.
Is this the year
when outer damp
obscures a deeper curse
that spring can't fix,
when gears that
turn the earth
won't shift the view,
when clouds won't lift
though all the skies
go blue.