I think going back to the corporate spyware exploitation messengers just because they're old is the wrong step. They're the precursors of what made the internet what it is now.
I personally use XMPP/Jabber via the free and open source Pidgin client, and occasionally IRC on libera.chat. All free and ethical.
I used to be a total Beatles child. For some reason I thought I'd seem more sophisticated and intelligent than "other people my age" if I didn't listen to pop but to "the classics." It fit in with my entire childhood, really.
Especially on a budget, I'd definitely recommend a GNU/Linux system, like Linux Mint, over using ancient Windows versions that are unsafe, outdated and expensive. It'd run better, too, and it would be up to date.
I am currently at a point where my website project (libre.town) has so many technical and design issues that I feel like I need to start over from scratch with it.
Now, I have been hesitant to rework the site, because I feel like it's throwing away a part of my history and substituting something new for it. In forms of art, writing or painting for example, people always stress that it is important to never scrap anything, for it might be worth something to you or someone else in the future, if only to look back at how far you've come. Websites do not have the luxury of being stashed away somewhere to read on demand; it's either online or not, and if they are online, there is still some expectation of the information on there being current or part of the author's view; for websites are information distributors first and foremost.
Are websites an inherently fleeting form of art because updating them is part of the idea? Should I start over, or preserve this in some way?
I finished the Stormblood expansion to the MMO Final Fantasy XIV recently and I am still blown away. This game is genuinely the best narrative I have ever seen in a video game, and I just love its world so much.
I am aware it's the most popular MMORPG on the market right now but I still feel like it deserves some love. Its community is the genuinely nicest I have ever seen; never in my 500 hours have I found a REALLY toxic player, and pretty much everyone says hi at the beginning of a dungeon, chats, hangs out; like old MMOs really! It has a large queer playerbase too and plenty of gender parity, if that's important to you.
I wish there was an alternate to Youtube (y'know, that people actually used), but I really don't have any other choice. Video essays and media analysis are some of my biggest passions and you can only seem to get stuff like that on Youtube. I also really like horror channels like Nexpo or Goose Boose and I wouldn't give that stuff up for the world.
I am currently working on bringing high quality content, for example video essays, to a Peertube instance of my choosing. I'll link it in the forum when something's done. The more people participate the more content there will be which draws in more people and so on.
I have to agree with that last point. The best communities are those that are generally focused around a specific topic or even a specific project. You will always have something in common with the others, you will generally meet people who are somewhat similar to you, and there will be plenty of things and tangents to talk about there.
Bad communities are usually those that are centered around nothing or only around the fact that they are a community. You will meet all kinds of people there that are very different from you, and that leads to clashes over ideology or lived experience, and so on. Meeting people different from you is generally a good thing, but communities with deep trenches can be toxic.
Oh, and of course, moderation that actually takes a clear side against bigotry. One of my favorite hobbies used to be GTA roleplaying (the old text based serious stuff on GTA San An, not the cheap voice chat based streamer knockoff for GTA V), but the community was made up almost entirely of conservative edgy young teenagers, often from countries where the general baseline is even more conservative than in the West. The moderators always hid behind the "let them have fun and take a joke, or are you triggered" thing, which made the entire community unsafe and full of bullying hiding away behind plausible deniability and "u mad bro". Was like that everywhere.
Iv never understood why people get so into My Little Pony
Honestly, I have nothing to do with the show or fandom anymore, but back when I was into it, I just enjoyed the simple mundane nature of things that was new to me. It was a surprisingly engaging show about friendship and slice-of-life, when every other cartoon on offer was about action and violence. I have never been a horse person, so that part did not appeal to me specifically, but I enjoyed the worldbuilding and the little details the show cared to establish. Something in my brain is tickled by sorting things into categories and generics, and the idea of having a natural tattoo that appeared when you find your inherent purpose just fulfilled that weird mental need for me, for example.
When it got darker and more action oriented with season 4 or whatever it was, I dropped it like hot coals and never looked back. And of course, the community was really creepy at times so that was another factor.
AMVs don't ring a bell, but in my... *sigh* in my brony phase when I was like 12, I used to listen to a guy called Ken Ashcorp make MLP-themed music videos.
That's crazy, with the exception of WDM I have used every single one of these projects you maintain! Qutebrowser is my go-to browser when on tiling or otherwise keyboard-driven systems, Lynx and Links I flip-flopped between when in the TUI, and with some of my retro builds I surely used the i586/i386 architectures' tools too. I put an up-to-date Devuan on an old Fujitsu Lifebook from 2001, for example, earlier this year. And I have a mechanical keyboard too (a Coolermaster)!
I always wonder whether it's surreal for people who have seen all this technology coming and going as it happened to see young people like us celebrate it as a 'revival'. I wonder what I'd think if some day, people will pull out their PS3s or Switch consoles, tower PCs, Windows 10, Xorg, Minecraft, Facebook, as 'retro revivals'.
Either way, glad to have you on board!
Oh, and... Proposal D for the Debian developers' vote please?
Posts: 99/24hrs 
Show Posts
I'll link it in the forum when something's done.
