Rather beer than 'hold my cup of a tepid substance that was optimistically referred to as tea, but that has the same colour and texture as greasy dish water and that cost £4 for a paper thimble full'. Safe travels for the rest of the slog.
I don't think we'll need to worry about that - the level of shock around this shows that most people are open to listening and helping, and don't assume ill intent. There may always be some who think people are overplaying small things or attention seeking, but they weren't about to help anyway.
Full credit to people who take statements about mental health at face value and help without judgement. It's just a tragedy when abusers use that goodwill as a way to distract from their actions and play the victim. He may well have had some or all of those issues, but that doesn't excuse anything.
I didn't know any of this until yesterday because I blocked him very soon after first hearing from him. He was mouthing off about a situation that's important to me and that he clearly knew fuck all about. There's no joy in finding out someone you thought was an arsehole is even worse than that.
Conversely, I heard the word 'frolleague' today, which is apparently a portmanteau of 'friend' and 'colleague' and that crashed like a runaway truck into the part of my brain that made me want to burn society to the ground. It took three teas before I started to calm down.
You had a brilliant balance of personal & group feeds merged in one place, with consistent editing/moderation/visibility controls and enough customisability to own the space without breaking the functionality. Everything else in the control panel (like the stats) felt like it served the user first.
Weirdly I find myself thinking back to how far ahead of the curve Livejournal was. It's uncanny how much it got right, and how long it took for other platforms to come close to catching up with the functionality. I think the key was that it could be what you wanted, but maintain a consistent feed.
Yeah, I think we'll see smaller communities like this persist based on reactions to Twitter dying, with demographics to match, but they may not dig in before the next shift. I almost feel like it's not 'steam engine time' for that yet; all the parts are definitely here, but not the direction.
I think something is bound to, but it won't look like anything we have now. The model Twitter had is still relevant to many people's lives, but the platform is gutted and the alternatives lacking in reach. There's a shift waiting to emerge, but I don't think society has pushed that way yet.
Just thinking it'll soon be 20 years since Jean Charles de Menezes was murdered in Stockwell tube station by special forces operatives working with the Met. One of the worst fuckups in UK policing history, largely gone from memory. Still fills me with absolute horror. www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7sY...
YouTube video by Chris Wood - Topic