Taking my server offline in 20 minutes. Will attempt a server migration. Outage will likely last at least a few hours... We'll see đ
@samuel
I use my Ghost blogs (self-hosted) as the newsletter platform as well. So each newsletter is a blog post that is also sent out as a newsletter.
(Not every post is a newsletter)
https://axbom.com/tag/newsletter/
Today I had the first introduction to the remote course I'm attending this semester at UmeÄ university. The topic is Media, Communication and Sustainability.
The first assignment is due on Friday and I'm almost done. Obviously excited about going back to school.
Wanted to share: I was very heart-warmed by the fact that the logo on all slides is complemented with the university name written in a SĂĄmi language.
So instead of UmeÄ universitet (Swedish) the written part of the logo reads Ubmejen UniversitiÀhta (Ume Såmi).
If you are unaware, the SĂĄmi are indigenous to large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Murmansk Oblast, Russia.
This university is located in the north-east of Sweden and I was glad to see their recognition of the SĂĄmi in a prominent position on every single slide.
I have about 50 links I want to include in my newsletter. Which is too much. So I've been postponing my newsletter while I figure out how to prioritise.
Meanwhile the number of links keep increasing...
@aral I've always heard this was a design critique specifically directed at hostile architecture but now I feel more unsure.
@Catweazle @stooovie
This appears to be the best clue Iâve found:
âArtist Fabian Brunsing tackled similar themes with a piece which criticizes the privatization of our public spaces.â
@dinkompismia Har lÀst ikapp. Usch vilken obehaglig hÀndelse. Hoppas du fÄtt/fÄr tid och ro för ÄterhÀmtning och bearbetning.
@LeoR1010 VÀldigt tacksam att du Àr hÀr Leo. SvÄrt att komma pÄ nÄgon som Àr mer jordnÀra och reflekterande. Du uppmuntrar till mer eftertanke hos mig.
@m
Very good points. I really need to do a writeup on all these insights!
@joeldebruijn
@joeldebruijn In the end I had no problem moving across followers from Mastodon to Akkoma. (works the same way as Mastodon to Mastodon instance migration and you have to redirect your old account). I did lose thousands of followers but as Iâve written about I believe those to be abandoned accounts. Which means it was probably a good thing :)
Follows works with exporting and importing a csv file.
https://axbom.me/notice/ARb5w5wAjbb9PcCoVM
@deltatux Ah, interesting. Thanks!
Don't mind me. Just adding some posts that can be pinned to my profile, as one does. đ
(Noticing that Mastodon doesn't seem to do a good job of interpreting bullet lists in Markdown nor HTML).
One way of getting to know me is my writing and my talks.
Here is a selection of posts within the areas of Digital Ethics, Human Rights, Usability, Accessibility and more â all with a leaning towards design and communication theory.
- The Elements of Digital Ethics
- AI and Human Rights - video and transcript
- The Trouble Diamond
- Design for Universal Wellbeing
- The world map that reboots your brain
- The slavery supported by that device in your pocket
- Tech addiction: Why it matters
- Digital Compassion: A Human Act
- Fairy tale experiences talk at UXLx - my first talk on design ethics in front of an international audience
- 25 years of online resilience - a newsletter about #indieweb
- Digital abuse is hard to leave â by design
I teach, consult and write about these issues. If you want to know more, donât hesitate to contact me.
@Mabande @dinkompismia Sicken serendipity! Nu har jag lagt till den dĂ€r boken pĂ„ lĂ€slistan ocksĂ„. đ
@dudleytribune Iâm not sure if you have misunderstood something. Twitter is not involved in this at all. Iâm moving from a self-hosted Mastodon instance to a self-hosted Akkoma instance.
I agree about followers not being a useful metric, but the assumption here is that if someone follows me in the Fediverse they donât want to just suddenly lose contact when an account moves to another instance.
@joho I fully agree. If people donât feel comfortable moving around we are back to being dependent on centralisation.
@jerome Haha, amazing. Yes, it feels like it will take a few days for all this to get sorted. The follow request essentially means that that the re-follow has been queued. I donât have approval of follows, activated, so itâs really just waiting for all those follow requests to get sorted one-by-one.
Status update. I initiated the migration from my previous account to this one almost 23 hours ago â a migration from Mastodon to Akkoma (a fork of Pleroma).
My follower count at time of move was 3,660. So far 986 of those followers have auto-followed the new account (meaning they support and accept the Move request). The old account indicates that 120 followers are still followers of that account. Likely they do not support the Move request.
What this does mean though is that 2,554 followers are right now in limbo. đ
My thinking is that the automation of re-follows is just queued and taking a while. But it is unclear for how long the re-follow requests will keep trying before they are canceled.
I also experienced plenty of hiccups during many hours after I started the migration, unable to see a lot of updates. The server has likely been extremely busy trying to sort out the move.
Anyway, itâs an interesting experiment and a good use-case for looking at what one can expect when migrating. Iâll follow up with any significant changes or developments.
My own follower list has just been uploaded and will start making requests as well.
Iâve been looking at this challenge with lost followers during migration. While it may at first seem concerning to someone that I âlostâ thousands of followers during a migration I donât think my migration should be used as an example of this.
My theory is that many of my followers were people who tried out Mastodon for a brief while and then abandoned the service because it wasnât a good fit for them. They read one of my guides and I just happened to be one of the first people they followed because of this.
As they never log in again the re-follow request is never activated. Which makes sense from a resource-perspective. If a server drops a follow that frees up resources. A re-follow only needs to be activated if that person actually requests to see their timeline.
Instead of being about âlostâ followers I think the real issue here may be about how many accounts should be visible indefinitely if the account owner never logs in again. Perhaps it shouldnât matter.
Of course, if someone puts emotional value in the number of followers it may be a demotivating to migrate knowing that this number will very likely go down. We should probably just let people enter their own follower numbers. Whatever makes someone feel good đ. In the end this can of course already be done depending on tech savviness.
Anyway, there are bigger issues to address here as well with the architecture when it comes to encouraging true decentralisation and independence, but that is for another day.
@clacke
Thanks. Migration is still underway. Experiencing some hiccups due to all the followers the process is trying to carry over. Good experiment though. :)
@uxpodcast
I got a link to download the new Arc web browser from The Browser Company and the first thing it does is ask me for account details.
So the messaging out of the box is that everything I do online can potentially be tied to an account with an email address.
It really doesnât matter if they say they donât collect data. Collecting name and email without even showing me the product is a special kind of inability to read the room.
I really, really donât want to have to create an account to use a web browser.
So thanks, but no thanks.
I'm a white dude who was born in Liberia. Almost 50 years ago. Though I have no national attachment to this West African country, my emotional attachment is significant.
I haven't been back since 1979, but I follow news. And I was weirdly proud when President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Yes, Liberia had a female president. The first elected female head of state in Africa.
And in 2018 Liberia had its first ever peaceful democratic transition of government from President Johnson Sirleaf to president George Weah.
Yes, thatâs also the football player who was the first and only player to win FIFA World Player of the Year AND the Ballon dâOr awards while representing an African country internationally. And the father of Tim Weah who plays for the United States.
What Iâve been following more recently though is the (un)affordability of Internet access.
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With a fiber optics cable active since 2013, the potential for low-cost Internet in Liberia is already apparent. Under president Weah, the cost of internet access has unfortunately increased.
The government has increasingly seen levies on mobile phone usage as an attractive source for tax collection. This was to address the huge shortfalls Liberia was experiencing because of the withdrawal of the huge United Nations Missions from the country.
Ironically the country now does not meet the UN Broadband Commissionâs affordability threshold.
It costs the lowest 20% of earners in Liberia almost 50% of their monthly income to pay for 1GB of data. That is 5 hours of Internet browsing, or 30 minutes of HD video streaming. Per month, for half your income. Total internet penetration in Liberia is around 20%.
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We call the Internet ubiquitous and global. Access is so often assumed. The internet as a democratising force is obvious, but everything that can be a force for positive change can also exclude. As always, those without a voice are not heard.
As Iâm reflecting on my work within the digital space, and the impact I hope to have, Iâm realising more and more I would love to make connections in Liberia and help out in some way with any digital struggles.
Thatâs as far as Iâve come in these thoughts. Hopefully to be continued.
If you live in Liberia or have connections to the country I would love to connect. Iâve also lived in Tanzania and I am truly interested in the whole continent. Give me a shout.
I regularly read The Continent and highly recommend it for an African perspective and outlook. You can subscribe to it using Signal.
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