pallas's recent activity
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Comment on UN votes to adopt new world map to reflect Africa's true size in ~humanities
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Comment on UN votes to adopt new world map to reflect Africa's true size in ~humanities
pallas (edited )Link ParentWhat appears to be the major Equal Earth website, equal-earth.com, also has some sketchy, language-specific, pro-Russian choices, heavily implying Crimea is an undisputed part of Russia in their...Especially since the projection is still a compromise anyway, compared to looking at an actual globe it seems so stretch Africa vertically and still keep Russia stretched horizontally enough that it looks bigger than it is.
What appears to be the major Equal Earth website, equal-earth.com, also has some sketchy, language-specific, pro-Russian choices, heavily implying Crimea is an undisputed part of Russia in their Russian language map, while showing it in a color separate from both Ukraine and Russia in their English language one. Ukraine abstained from the resolution as a result, while the EU had to clarify that the resolution did not endorse equal-earth.com, despite it apparently being the website of the authors of the Equal Earth projection.
While Mercator has obvious problems for things other than navigation, it's not clear why this resolution needed to specifically endorse a seemingly new and niche projection (Equal Earth) rather than simply endorsing projections with more accurate representations of area, and why it seems to dismiss considerations other than area as being of primarily navigational interest, when even the authors of Equal Earth would point out that it has disadvantages around the shapes of landmasses.
Personally, I feel like the prioritization of straight latitude lines was an odd choice, and that had they abandoned that (like the Winkel triple) they probably could have made something with less distortion.
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Comment on 1Password wades into a right-wing mess after funding a Linux project in ~tech
pallas Link ParentFor that matter, if I recall correctly, the tweet was a frustrated comment on antitrust enforcement and establishment Democrats, suggesting that the Republicans might be more willing to fight big...For that matter, if I recall correctly, the tweet was a frustrated comment on antitrust enforcement and establishment Democrats, suggesting that the Republicans might be more willing to fight big tech monopolies, at a time where this was a perhaps naive comment from a foreign perspective, but was not entirely unreasonable.
It was the sort of comment I’d not be surprised to hear from parts of the left, especially Sanders supporters, and it was odd to see him lambasted as far right for making it. It did have the feeling of a smear campaign by neoliberal partisans.
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Comment on What made that wedding that you attended particularly memorable? in ~life
pallas (edited )LinkThe most memorable wedding I went to was for a couple in some social scenes around costuming and performance and with some film and theatre industry ties. It was a unique event in general, and...The most memorable wedding I went to was for a couple in some social scenes around costuming and performance and with some film and theatre industry ties. It was a unique event in general, and some parts would not be applicable to most weddings, but some might be:
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The (~300-400 guest) wedding itself was organized as a large evening cocktail party with a performance during it, rather than a traditional ceremony and separate reception. This allowed several choices that significantly reduced the per-guest cost for typical wedding expenses, with money instead being spent on making a better performance and party. It can be underappreciated how much some choices typical for weddings, like multi-course, sit-down dinners, transportation between multiple venues, etc, can enormously increase per-guest costs. I vaguely know how much the couple spent as I'm somewhat associated with the venue, and I have been to 100-200 guest weddings that spent more.
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Food was on the heavy side of cocktail party appetizers, of the sort where most guests would not have eaten another dinner, but where the food could be generally available for extended periods and handled with a significantly smaller staff than a sit-down dinner. It also meant that there was very little waiting for food service, and organizing them as appetizers with available tables but food chosen to be able to be mostly consumed standing meant that guests were much more able to socialize. Drinks were similarly arranged as for a cocktail party, led by a reliable bartender who I think was also a guest.
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The ceremony was intended as a performance, and was designed as one. It was short (~10 minutes if I recall correctly), and done essentially on a raised stage in front of a mostly standing audience. Since the guests were already there for the party, it meant there was very little waiting around for people to arrive for the ceremony; there was also no aisle to complicate things. It was, however, well-written and well-choreographed, and had significant work and expense put into parts of the performance that were impressive but too specific to describe here.
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Expenses were also not spared for the musicians, which specifically fit both the couple and the guests. Most of the guests likely knew of the main band. I think a specific soloist for the ceremony was flown in. There were meaningful guest performances, but they were kept from being too much or too long. My understanding is that all of this cost substantially less than what a typical wedding of that size would have spent on a sit-down dinner.
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There were no wedding photographers, only event/performance photographers, operating under expectations for that type of photography, making them much less obtrusive for guests. They did not use any flashes during the ceremony, could not have any remote flashes at all, and for the ceremony, needed to stay behind or to the side of the audience, so they were never overly visible. This was a particular choice of the couple, in full understanding of what the resulting photos would be like, but they wanted to prioritize the performance over photographs of the performance. (This may not, in general, be possible except through pre-existing relationships with photographers, because couples will often want non-wedding-photographers to do weddings for cost reasons, and then be upset with the results. I also don't quite know the details of the arrangements; I think some of the photographers were there at their own request rather than having been hired, and allowed to photograph it in exchange for a license to the photos and some control over how they used/sold them.)
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Comment on Why do I see every service nowadays use a squiggly line for their loading/progress bars? in ~design
pallas Link ParentThere is the frustrating problem that, while there are instances where capturing the user's attention would legitimately be helpful to the user, if developers are given that option, many will...There is the frustrating problem that, while there are instances where capturing the user's attention would legitimately be helpful to the user, if developers are given that option, many will enable it because it feels helpful to them to capture the user's attention.
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Comment on Meta agrees to heavy restrictions on teen users in major lawsuit settlement in ~tech
pallas (edited )Link ParentKnowing the way companies like these tend to implement these sorts of concessions, I also wouldn't be that surprised if they choose to interpret "personalized feed" as including displaying posts...Knowing the way companies like these tend to implement these sorts of concessions, I also wouldn't be that surprised if they choose to interpret "personalized feed" as including displaying posts based on your friends list or who you want to follow, making the option completely useless.
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Comment on X corp is taking down Nitter instances and demands takedown of project repository in ~tech
pallas (edited )Link ParentFor many of us, it isn't a matter of following people producing content we enjoy reading, it's a matter of accessing information we need from public institutions that have simply decided to use...Convince people you're following to add another way of reading their content, in some better place.
For many of us, it isn't a matter of following people producing content we enjoy reading, it's a matter of accessing information we need from public institutions that have simply decided to use Twitter as their only means of disseminating it, especially for public transport. Many of us are also not in circumstances where those institutions would care what we think, at all.
If I do not check official Twitter accounts, I cannot reliably know whether a train route is actually in service or not. That is simply the choice that is given to me. There is no alternative way of getting the information.
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Comment on X corp is taking down Nitter instances and demands takedown of project repository in ~tech
pallas Link ParentMy guess would be that Twitter plans to first intimidate the developers behind these projects into stopping, potentially succeed in removing the main repositories to split the conversation and...My guess would be that Twitter plans to first intimidate the developers behind these projects into stopping, potentially succeed in removing the main repositories to split the conversation and development, then change their API to break the existing code. Everyone might have their clones of the repositories, in that case, but they won't work without more development.
Whether this strategy will be effective in an era of LLM coding is not as clear. Vibecoding the whole project is very different than vibecoding updates to respond to what will likely be vibecoded API changes.
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Comment on X corp is taking down Nitter instances and demands takedown of project repository in ~tech
pallas (edited )LinkWhile Twitter is problematic, it might be worth pointing out that, unless my understanding of their features is outdated, both Nitter and XCancel are for read-only, account-free viewing of...While Twitter is problematic, it might be worth pointing out that, unless my understanding of their features is outdated, both Nitter and XCancel are for read-only, account-free viewing of threads, users, and searches. They don't allow posts, or even feeds.
Yes, some people have the privilege of being able to entirely avoid content on Twitter. Others don't. Unfortunately, numerous public institutions, and public officials, have decided that Twitter should be a major, or even the only, means of communication they use for some information. Sometimes this is unofficial, but often it is official. I regularly take trains, for example, where the (public, European) train system often only posts updates about service interruptions on Twitter, officially. If I want to know whether a train I need to take has been cancelled or delayed, I can check Twitter directly, or I can go to their website, and be confronted with an embedded Twitter feed. I am the wrong ethnicity, amongst other things, for the train system to care in the slightest about my views on Twitter.
Nitter and XCancel at least allowed direct access to sources like these without an account, allowing some level of reduced harm to both the user and others.
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Comment on Router recommendations? in ~comp
pallas LinkI've used Mikrotik, Ubiquiti, Gl.Inet, and various OpenWrt-flashed devices. Mikrotik can work reasonably well from a feature, configuration, and reliability standpoint, but I've had performance...I've used Mikrotik, Ubiquiti, Gl.Inet, and various OpenWrt-flashed devices.
Mikrotik can work reasonably well from a feature, configuration, and reliability standpoint, but I've had performance problems with them. You need to be careful with the specs of what you're buying; in my case I needed SFP, and that works fine, but I didn't realize how poor the wifi reception and performance on the device would be.
Unless they've changed significantly, Ubiquiti makes unfortunate choices with their management software being arranged around needing a constant, and often very heavy, management service, arguably to sell cloud services and extra devices, and at times just abandons classes of devices (eg, the EdgeRouter X I have). I've had reasonable success recently reflashing them with OpenWrt (eg, some Unifi APs), but I'm not sure this is always feasible.
Gl.Inet actually make some quite good devices overall, often with combinations of hardware features that aren't available elsewhere. I've been happy with the GL-X3000 I have from them, and will probably end up buying more. However, from a software side, they are not usually running anything near standard OpenWrt: they use their own much more limited and wonky management UI, use very outdated kernel and firmware versions that they unconvincingly argue they keep secure, and while they give access to the standard LuCi, they have so many wonky, hard-coded scripts all over the place that many features break if you aren't using them they way they expect. Reading carefully can also be important, as they'll sometimes make claims that 'aren't technically false', eg, saying that a device 'supports eSIMs' with fine print noting that it does not actually support eSIMs directly, but can use a physical SIM adapter you can buy from them. I feel like they unofficially target, especially on their cellular routers, the market of remote workers trying to hide their location, and sometimes their configuration is too tailored to that market. With all that said, I just replaced the firmware with standard OpenWrt, and have had no problems since. They also seem rather accommodating and friendly compared to other companies, and seem to be fine with people using standard OpenWrt.
There is the point that otherwise constrained consumer hardware from major brands that happens to have good OpenWrt support can sometimes have better performance for the same cost. But there's perhaps a question of whether you want to support those companies.
Despite being nominally a firmware intended for normal home router-with-ap devices, I've actually had mostly good experiences with OpenWrt. My setup is far outside a normal home setup (multiple locations, multiple connections, assigned IP space, complicated split-horizon DNS, ansible-managed). The one major problem I have with it is its really mediocre upgrade mechanisms.
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Comment on AI text watermarking is free and good in ~comp
pallas LinkI wonder if one reason why people might seem angry with Anthropic's watermarking specifically is that Claude's specific writing style is so idiosyncratic and grating, to the point of being like a...I wonder if one reason why people might seem angry with Anthropic's watermarking specifically is that Claude's specific writing style is so idiosyncratic and grating, to the point of being like a human-discernible watermark, and is so difficult to reliably change, that they assume, perhaps even unconsciously, the watermarking must have something to do with it.
What does make me angry is that, the last time I checked, Google's "public detector" for their watermarking is not a public detector, it's a private detector that their public LLM is allowed to use. You are forced to use their LLM chat, hope that their LLM decides to run the detector given your prompt, and then interpret its answer, along with whatever Google-perspective moralizing it added.
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Comment on Webcomic of the author's experience in an abusive school that was a part of the Troubled Teens Industry in ~life
pallas (edited )Link ParentI think there's the distinction that it is not easy. The suggestion of the Stanford prison experiment was that, simply placed in certain broad conditions, people would quickly and in some sense...And then there are places like elan which, while unscientific, are real as hell, that perhaps the Stanford experiment proved you can in fact very easily convince humans to be this cruel to others especially if it's coordinated with someone in power.
I think there's the distinction that it is not easy. The suggestion of the Stanford prison experiment was that, simply placed in certain broad conditions, people would quickly and in some sense naturally develop particular behaviors.
This story, by contrast, perhaps illustrates how hard it is to convince humans to be this cruel to others. The arrangements of the school were extensive: an entire, constructed way of life and organization, interwoven, abusive cultic rituals, an entire lexicon: a carefully considered system to abuse teenagers and refashion them into abusers. It was a system developed over decades, by experts in cruelty: as the author points out, at every point of resistance, he would be thwarted by the fact that they had thought of everything, and at every point of possible participation, there was looming threat of humiliation, violence, and abuse if he did not.
Even with all of that, for many of the people he describes, including himself, unlike the six days of the Stanford experiment, it took enormous amounts of abuse over comparatively long periods of time to draw them into the cycle of cruelty. It's telling that the arrangement always placed newcomers in a position of humiliation for months, with their only outlet the humiliation of others, before giving them any real agency in their cruelty. It also seems relevant that the school needed to hire so heavily from its former residents for the staff actually involved in the abuse, searching, I expect for the subset of people who had been conditioned for years to accept the abuse as right, even, perhaps, truly seeing it as beneficial, perhaps as a way of coping with what had been done to them.
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Comment on PBS station sues to regain access to seventy years of archival TV history in ~tv
pallas Link ParentThe situation seems complicated. The Ars Technica article has somewhat clearer information, but it's still confusing. Iron Mountain does offer data storage services that might make sense for...Great advertisement for Iron Mountain though. Anyone using their storage would surely be evaluating other options about now?
The situation seems complicated. The Ars Technica article has somewhat clearer information, but it's still confusing.
Iron Mountain does offer data storage services that might make sense for archival storage, but it appears that here OSS was using them for colocation. It's not clear what services OSS was actually offering, but they're being described as a 'cloud storage provider'. Hearings appear to have involved questions of encryption, finding former OSS employees who might be able to access the data, and protections for the data of other OSS clients.
With Iron Mountain and archival data being mentioned, I (and I expect others) assumed it meant tape that Iron Mountain was storing. To make matters more confusing, it appears that the person who temporarily claimed to own OSS' assets may have told the PBS affiliate that Iron Mountain was providing data storage. But reading more, especially given the relatively small amount of data, it seems like the actual situation might be that the data is actually on OSS's servers that are physically located in an Iron Mountain data center, with whatever setup OSS had, quite possibly encrypted, and potentially alongside other clients' data.
In that case, Iron Mountain's point that they need a court order in order to allow a company's client physical to access the company's servers without the company's permission, especially when other clients might be involved, seems like somewhat standard practice. But while seems like something that would need to be court-overseen, it's not clear why that couldn't have come from the lawsuit against OSS, and would need a lawsuit against Iron Mountain directly.
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Comment on What's happening in Kansas should alarm us all (gifted link) in ~lgbt
pallas (edited )Link ParentIt was not a disagreement, it was just an addition. "Actual woman" does not work in their comment, but "cis woman" doesn't necessarily work well either. I feel like what (giving the benefit of the...It was not a disagreement, it was just an addition. "Actual woman" does not work in their comment, but "cis woman" doesn't necessarily work well either. I feel like what (giving the benefit of the doubt, yes) they wanted to say was "someone the local jurisdiction legally defined as a woman", but without knowing the exact state, that also is unclear.
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Comment on What's happening in Kansas should alarm us all (gifted link) in ~lgbt
pallas (edited )Link ParentI feel like one of the difficulties here is that terms become frustrating, because it seems like one point of the laws is to create situations where legal, moral, and social expectations clash. I...I feel like one of the difficulties here is that terms become frustrating, because it seems like one point of the laws is to create situations where legal, moral, and social expectations clash. I used "Kansas-judged sex" elsewhere in this thread, but it isn't very satisfying of a term.
What people actually are, what the state defines them to be, and how different groups perceive them all matter in discussing these laws and their impacts. A trans woman whom social conservatives would perceive as a woman when seeing them faces different problems (eg, a choice between committing a legal crime with criminal consequences that is difficult to notice, and a social 'crime' that is very noticeable with potentially violent, or even legal process, consequences), than a trans woman whom they would interpret as a man (who perhaps can choose to 'just' face the same harassment as before the law), or a cis woman whom they would interpret as not feminine enough (who has one legally and socially usable bathroom, but is at risk using it), or even, for example, a cis butch woman who identifies as a woman but is often perceived as a man, who potentially ends up in a situation closer to the first trans case.
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Comment on What's happening in Kansas should alarm us all (gifted link) in ~lgbt
pallas (edited )Link ParentI apologize that this is somewhat distracting from more severely and directly affected groups. And there is the sense in which it feels a primary object of these laws is to compel trans people to...I apologize that this is somewhat distracting from more severely and directly affected groups. And there is the sense in which it feels a primary object of these laws is to compel trans people to comply with legal expectations by breaking social expectations, that is, forcing them to choose between actually breaking laws, or creating the appearance to many observers of breaking laws. But on a more personal level, your point about gendered expectations of appearance reminded me of the perhaps secondary consequence, the broad cultural normativity enforced by these laws, and I wanted to thank you for that reminder. Despite my username and lack of particular preference about how people refer to me, I am cis, and think, at least within the cultures I am part of, that I am usually perceived as being my gender. I don't like gendered bathrooms, but I don't usually think I'm at risk using them.
But I also know that I don't quite fit gender norms in many cultures, and that strangers mistake my gender, if not often, on a not infrequent basis, especially when they only partially see me. I travel quite often as an academic. Do I need to worry about how people see me when I am in a gendered bathroom? When they just catch a glimpse of me? When, with a private right of action, they have a potential monetary prize to motivate them?
Your comment prompted me to check and it turns out I was just in a state where all this could have been a problem for me. Their law apparently does not apply to private buildings, and I only ever used my hotel room bathroom anyway, but it wasn't even something I had thought about mattering for me personally. I do have to wonder, now, if that was a quiet motivation of the conference organizers in unusually holding it at a hotel rather than a university campus.
And in some sense, it is a somewhat far-fetched worry for me, but isn't that somewhat the point? How much is enough to make it a risk? How far can you stray from the most narrow, repressive cultural views of the place? Is your hair too long or too short? Are you too muscular, or not muscular enough? Do you walk the wrong way? Are your clothes not sufficiently coded for one gender, in the particular area you're in? Are your clothes gendered, but gendered in what would be seen as too queer a way, in that particular region? Are you just driving through in a nice but small car with California plates? What departure from norms is too much? Isn't it safer to fit them exactly?
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Comment on What's happening in Kansas should alarm us all (gifted link) in ~lgbt
pallas LinkIt occurred to me recently how much of a mess these sorts of laws make across borders. Someone in my field, in Europe, pointed out that she wasn't going to a conference being held in the US this...It occurred to me recently how much of a mess these sorts of laws make across borders. Someone in my field, in Europe, pointed out that she wasn't going to a conference being held in the US this year because she is trans, and wasn't sure about travel. Would the US consider her passport valid for entry, given the restrictions now on US passports? Even if it officially said it would, would the border control agent actually consider it valid, if they somehow knew she was trans? If she really needed to go, would she need her country to give her some special second passport as I think sometimes has needed to be done in the past to enter petty oppressive countries for other reasons? And then considering her appearance, how would going through the border with a passport that had obviously wrong information (except in the US government view) on it actually work, beyond immediately outing her to the official as trans?
With the Kansas law, too, it would appear that bathroom use is based on Kansas' view of sex directly, while the identification part must be limited to identification issued by the state, so presumably identification from other states is still valid. That would appear to mean that someone with any combination of actual gender, gender as perceived by others, Kansas-judged sex, and sex or gender on their valid identification could commit the terrible crime of using the wrong bathroom. Or is Kansas also arguing that they can refuse to recognize some drivers' licenses from other states, in which case, is it actually not possible for some residents of more inclusive states to drive through Kansas legally?
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Comment on Waving goodbye, carrying my bundle on a stick in ~talk
pallas (edited )Link ParentI should note that I am not trying to defend some of the comments in the jars topic and similar situations, and people not respecting the community after a discussion about it is a different...I should note that I am not trying to defend some of the comments in the jars topic and similar situations, and people not respecting the community after a discussion about it is a different problem, as are comments that would really have been a problem anywhere on Tildes.
Yet I feel like there are people here who are telling something about their experience of Tildes' design, and rather than their experience being listened to, they are being corrected. I don't see the problem as one of getting hung up on 'technical specifications'. The design here doesn't work well for users who are not experienced with Tildes already and who are not regulars here. You are talking about people finding themselves in a group's topic: that assumes they understand that the post is in that group, that they know what a group is, that they realize that, as far as I can tell, they might have been added to a new group automatically, and that they realize that different groups might be different.
The practical problem is that the design is very unlikely to change at all. But perhaps the more direct acknowledgment of the frozen nature, even if that acknowledgement itself required readers to already understand the unspoken context around it, might allow the community to come up with ways to make the situation clearer.
There's the different but somewhat connected matter that, to me, Tildes feels like it has evolved from an attempt to build a more thoughtful large-scale online community to being a new design of a traditional online forum, with conversations having the context of known regulars and relationships, and understood and evolving social conventions. It can be rather confusing for those of us who aren't here as regularly.
I might point out that this post itself is a post that has gone out to everyone who hasn't removed themselves from ~talk, and a number of the top-level comments are people who have no idea what it is about. I still think there is probably quite a bit of the context here I don't know. It comes as a response to an official announcement to everyone on the site that, as far as I can tell, was in direct response to two specific conversations that it never mentioned. Comments involved in the discussions often seem to expect that readers will specifically know who the commenters are, and know some past context that I think many of us often don't know.
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Comment on Waving goodbye, carrying my bundle on a stick in ~talk
pallas Link ParentYou need to unsubscribe from most of them them, including, as far as I can tell, both lgbt and life.women, and perhaps more surprisingly, even niche groups like games.tabletop and...I mean, you don't need to subscribe to them.
You need to unsubscribe from most of them them, including, as far as I can tell, both lgbt and life.women, and perhaps more surprisingly, even niche groups like games.tabletop and creative.timasomo, which I certainly don't recall adding myself to. It feels like existing users get added to many new groups by default, as well, though it is hard for me to tell.
You need to understand that they are there, and which one a post is in, from a tiny link on equal footing with tags, the number of comments, and so on, and then, on the topic page, somewhat confusingly in separate text, away from the topic, at the top of the screen, much smaller than "Tildes".
You need to realize that, even though all default and user interface choices seem to suggest that they are on equal footing to tags and not really separate communities, even though the documentation explains that groups are not user-created or controlled, and their creation is motivated on a subject basis by commonly-used tags, even though there is officially nothing akin to reddit's idea of different standards and communities in different groups, a crowd of regulars in the comments of some groups see those groups as being specific communities, not just glorified tags.
In some sense, to me, it feels like a core conflict at the heart of tildes is that some, especially more casual users, and the design and the documentation, seem to interpret the groups as topics, while others, including many in-crowd users, interpret them as communities. That the site itself no longer evolves, and hasn't for some time, means that this conflict cannot be resolved.
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Comment on Waving goodbye, carrying my bundle on a stick in ~talk
pallas Link ParentThe admin post appears to have been a response to two posts asking for additional negative labels for comments, one asking for a “misinformation” label, the other asking for a “one-sided” label...The admin post appears to have been a response to two posts asking for additional negative labels for comments, one asking for a “misinformation” label, the other asking for a “one-sided” label that would additionally act to make the comment less visible. Those, in turn, seem to have been motivated by the posters’ experiences over several threads, but the ‘jar-opening’ thread seems to have been a frequently-cited example. The implication from some supporters of those ideas is that they would leave if something was not implemented. I expect others may want to leave simply because of the sense of increased hostility surrounding those discussions and the ones that motivated them.
The UN.org explanation is in turn a somewhat different description of the actual draft resolution. The actual text rather directly endorses Equal Earth specifically, and does not refer to "other so-called equal-area maps". The closest it comes to saying anything that could be interpreted as referring to other non-Mercator projections is
but that is one operative clause amongst others that endorse only Equal Earth, and endorse groups that specifically endorse Equal Earth.
But then, as you point out, the US's official reason for voting against it is quite something. I wouldn't be surprised if it increased support for the resolution by not wanting to be associated with it...