#you can make it easier for new users without algorithms!

[johnlacena]

@staff comments from an engineer in the tags.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[ungrateful-cyborg-moved]

Social media comparison

Alright. I've tried different new/alternative platforms lately in hope to find something I really liked, and there are very promising ones. I didn't try everything, of course, but this is a kind of overview of my journey so far? Or just my thoughts on the matter.

I've tried Pillowfort, Bluesky, Mastodon (didn't last long enough to have much of an opinion, it simply didn't click), Dreamwidth and Cohost (as of today, can't post there yet).

My comparison under the cut:

► I appreciate that they're algorithm free, whether it's because they truly believe in an Internet rid of the most invasive of them or because it's too expensive to implement on a brand new platform or some other reason. Only the future can tell, but for now it's nice.

► Pillowfort: beside the post formatting that I find extremely comfortable, my favourite thing is probably communities. I feel like this is the strongest "pro" in favor of Pillowfort because this is where they truly distinguish themselves from other social media.

Communities, in a way, remind me of forums. They're however easier to take in hand since you don't have to deal with as many options and choices. In my opinion, communities on Pillowfort are a bit lacking in functionalities though. I think more tools to easily organize them would help, like a widget or something to link stuff so you can create and animate events within said communities.

(I also feel like Pillowfort would gain from not being dark blue. We have more than enough dark blue websites, and it doesn't go well with the warmth invoked by its name in my opinion, but that's a minor detail and just a matter of taste.)

► Bluesky: basically Twitter but better. No algorithm, for a start. The curated feeds are nice. They're a bit like communities on Pillowfort since they can be moderated but from a non-mod user, it's even easier to post in them: you just have to use the right keyword for your post to appear there. Well, if the mod left it open to all rather than chose to vet who can or cannot post in it. Lots of flexibility and control over your timeline overall.

I don't like the 300 characters limit, however. Never liked it with Twitter either. It's not really conductive to conversations, and the general design tends to make the website feel rather impersonal. It's really more like parallel talking than community building.

Overall I think it's a good tool to promote your (visual) art or website, etc. but not great for hosting conversations past commenting briefly what others are doing. I mean, you can make threads but it'll never be as good as Pillowfort or Tumblr for this.

► Dreamwidth: I'll start with saying that Dreamwidth isn't a social media, it's a journaling platform and I haven't used it much yet. Had in plan to post my headcanons about my muses there and stuff like that so I did spend some time trying to figure out how it works.

First, there is a lot of options to let you have complete control over who can see what. Like, a lot.

You can entirely personalize what your journal will look like. It's a bit easier than having your own website—since I reblogged a post about that yesterday—because you don't start from 0, so it might be a good option if you don't feel comfortable jumping into Notepad++ to start coding. You can just change a thing here and there, or nothing at all, or almost everything. It's pretty old school though, so for those completely unfamiliar with early/pre-web 2.0, it might not look very appealing at first. However, I'd say don't let that stop you! If anything, it's a good opportunity to learn a bit of code without pressure.

You can also create communities, which as you might have guessed is very important to me. When creating one, you can set up whether everyone can join, everyone can ask to join but has to be approved by a community admin or to limit the access to those you have personally invited. Like for your own journal, communities are completely customizable, and Dreamwidth allows adult content.

I'm not sure you can top DW communities in terms of functionalities—aside from making a forum—but it's not as intuitive as Pillowfort (though in exchange you get more customization). You're also more limited regarding image hosting (see here). That said, hosting services exist, many are free, and that's without mentioning that you can post on Twitter and the like and use the picture link in your DW posts. I don't think many will only use Dreamwidth anyway.

► Cohost: I was expecting nothing when I registered earlier today, but this is an overall good surprise: it's Tumblr, but better.

More control of what you see. More user-friendly UI. It's not fucking blue. Adult content allowed. You can change your main blog page and make it private.

The only two downsides I'd mention here would be that you can't customize your blog page appearance and you have to wait for one or two days before being able to post. Although if it means less bots, I'd rather wait.

And this ends my rather non-exhaustive tour of the social media/blogging/journaling platforms. If you catch any mistakes let me know. I didn't dive deep, this was just me sharing my thoughts.

(As far as I know, they all allow adult content and give you tools to not see it if you don't want to.)

[wip]

Heya!

Sent this another place, but I wonder if there’s been much thought put into making it easier for people to find blogs they want to follow?

It seems like tumblr works better when users are able to find content themselves rather than be served it by an algorithm. And since they are following for the blog, not an individual post, it would make a lot of sense to offer better blog searching tools.

Something like blog categories/tags, and specific ones for artists who take commissions etc, could be a good start. Then blogs with a specific function could categorize themselves in a number of ways and get a little more visibility.

Just feels like a lot of focus has been put on making things easier to find, and increasing reach, but a lot of that is focused on posts and not the blogs doing the posting. Embracing the idea that people on tumblr are empowered to find the creators they want to follow could allow new users to find what they need and old users to keep using tumblr the way they enjoy - without having to deal with invasive suggestions. Just a thought! Hope y’all have a great day!

Answer: Hey there, @bulletsandbracelets!

So we can say here that this is a great line of thought, and we think about the same thing frequently. But let us reiterate that this is why it’s important to use tags in posts—we use tag usage to try to elevate blogs in search results and recommendations!

As for blog categories and topics, it is unlikely we’d ever go that far. But we are currently working on one or two things that will have categories and topics—and maybe help people find blogs to follow. What this space, here.

Finally, we will add that there are a couple of places where you can find top blogs by tag:

Search

2. Your tags

And, finally, the For You feed is a great place to find blogs worth following!

Thanks for your question, and good luck!

[aidoubackster]

Twitter's ToS update summary

It's a bit of a long post, but there's also spacing and it's divided in sections. There's a TL;DR at the end. Recently (around the 17th of October of 2024) Twitter has changed its Terms of Service (ToS) and announced a change in how the blocking feature will work now. Updating and changing a platform's ToS is normal; the problem comes from what changed, specially for users from outside the European Union, in regards of how the content they upload on Twitter can be used. By using the platform you agree that your content can be used to train Twitter's AI and there's no way of opting out. For now, any Twitter's users in Europe are safe of their content automatically being used as data training for AI due to data protection laws. This article explains the situation better and links to Twitter's current and coming ToS: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/x-formerly-twitter-updates-terms-service/730223/

But there's also another update, about the blocking feature. "Soon we’ll be launching a change to how the block function works. If your posts are set to public, accounts you have blocked will be able to view them, but they will not be able to engage (like, reply, repost, etc.)." From here: https://x.com/XEng/status/1846605254864888180 or see it from a Twitter front-end like Nitter to see the full thread and replies without having a Twitter account: https://nitter.poast.org/XEng/status/1846605254864888180 This makes it easier to stalk someone, it makes impossible for NSFW accounts to block minors and it raises questions about what use has now blocking. If I block a user does that mean that the algorithm will show me their posts too?

If these changes are not something you want, you might be considering changing platforms. But there are some things to consider or plan before doing it:

An alternative to Twitter (in the format sense) can be Bluesky or Mastodon. There are more but these two seem to be the most popular ones so they will have more users to interact with.

If you plan to migrate, it's better to not abandon and delete your Twitter account immediately or even delete it at all. Instead, announce your decision and give a chance to your followers to follow you again on the new platform.

Also pin a post on Twitter saying why you left. By declaring why are you leaving there's record of why the platform is losing traffic and engagement (losing money for the business and investors), so it's something that it might be noted in future and get reversed.

Before leaving, due to the new changes on the blocking feature, you can report the app on the Google Store and possibly the Apple Store. This user explains how to do it on the Google Store: https://nitter.poast.org/RepinWolf/status/1846802988318224876

You can always use a RSS feed to check accounts on Twitter or other social media without making an account to subscribe or follow the user. Feeder is a good RSS feed aggregator app for mobile

Consider what you want to delete. Maybe key content or maybe mostly everything (besides the statement and "Where can you find me" posts).

There are scripts and apps that help you mass delete tweets, replies and remove likes. Note: I am linking two of each that seem good and are free, but I haven't been able to confirm if they are 100% trustworthy. Proceed at your own risk and investigate further before trying them: Scripts to delete Tweets and more:

https://github.com/lucahammer/tweetXer

https://github.com/Lyfhael/DeleteTweets Apps that delete Tweets with a free plan available (with limitations!)

CircleBloom: https://circleboom.com/twitter-management-tool/plans-and-pricing

Redact: https://redact.dev/pricing

TL;DR: There are two main changes in Twitter as of the 17th of October of 2024. By using the platform you agree that your content can be used to train Twitter's AI and there's no way of opting out, except for European users. The blocking feature will change. Users that you block will still be able to see your content. If you want to leave Twitter, there are alternatives like Mastodon or Bluesky. It's also good to not do it right away; instead, let your followers know that you are leaving, make a pined post saying why you left and other places to find you. Also consider what you want to delete (so the AI doesn't have training material). There are scripts and apps that can mass delete your account's content for free. This post is a summary from another post, (that can be found here), without the screenshot and extra information. The wonderful star dividers are done by @enchanthings

[mariacallous]

It no longer makes sense to speak of free speech in traditional terms. The internet has so transformed the nature of the speaker that the definition of speech itself has changed.

The new speech is governed by the allocation of virality. People cannot simply speak for themselves, for there is always a mysterious algorithm in the room that has independently set the volume of the speaker’s voice. If one is to be heard, one must speak in part to one’s human audience, in part to the algorithm. It is as if the US Constitution had required citizens to speak through actors or lawyers who answered to the Dutch East India Company, or some other large remote entity. What power should these intermediaries have? When the very logic of speech must shift in order for people to be heard, is that still free speech? This was not a problem foreseen in the law.

The time may be right for a legal and policy reset. US lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are questioning Section 230, the liability shield that enshrined the ad-driven internet. The self-reinforcing ramifications of a mere 26 words—“no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider”—has produced a social media ecosystem that is widely held to have had deleterious effects on both democracy and mental health.

Abraham Lincoln is credited with the famous quip about how you cannot fool all the people all the time. Perhaps you cannot, but perhaps the internet can. Imperfect speech has always existed, but the means and scale of amplification have not. The old situation cannot be the guide for the new.

Section 230 was created during a period when policy was being designed to unleash internet innovation, thereby maintaining America’s competitive edge in cyberspace. The early internet was supported by a variety of friendly policies, not just Section 230. For instance, sales arranged over the internet were often not taxed in early years. Furthermore, the internet was knowingly inaugurated in an incomplete state, lacking personal accounts, authentication mechanisms, commercial transaction standards, and many other needed elements. The thinking was not only that it was easier to get a minimal design started when computing power was still nascent, but also that the missing elements would be addressed by entrepreneurs. In effect, we were giving trillion-dollar gifts to parties unknown who would be the inevitable network-effect winners.

Section 230 was enacted as part of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, a larger legislative effort within the umbrella 1996 Telecommunications Act. Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity for online services regarding user-generated content, ensuring the companies hosting content are not treated as publishers of this information. Section 230(c)(2) offers Good Samaritan protection from civil liability when the companies—or platforms, as we call them today—in good faith remove or moderate objectionable content.

After President Bill Clinton signed the 1996 Telecommunications Act into law, it was unclear how the courts might interpret it. When the dust cleared, Section 230 emerged as something of a double-edged sword. It could be used to justify censorship, and at the same time be deployed as a corporate liability shield. Most importantly, it provided the runway for the takeoff of Google, Twitter, and Facebook. (And now TikTok—which, being a Chinese company, proves that Section 230 no longer serves American interests.)

The impact on the public sphere has been, to say the least, substantial. In removing so much liability, Section 230 forced a certain sort of business plan into prominence, one based not on uniquely available information from a given service, but on the paid arbitration of access and influence. Thus, we ended up with the deceptively named “advertising” business model—and a whole society thrust into a 24/7 competition for attention. A polarized social media ecosystem. Recommender algorithms that mediate content and optimize for engagement. We have learned that humans are most engaged, at least from an algorithm’s point of view, by rapid-fire emotions related to fight-or-flight responses and other high-stakes interactions. In enabling the privatization of the public square, Section 230 has inadvertently rendered impossible deliberation between citizens who are supposed to be equal before the law. Perverse incentives promote cranky speech, which effectively suppresses thoughtful speech.

And then there is the economic imbalance. Internet platforms that rely on Section 230 tend to harvest personal data for their business goals without appropriate compensation. Even when data ought to be protected or prohibited by copyright or some other method, Section 230 often effectively places the onus on the violated party through the requirement of takedown notices. That switch in the order of events related to liability is comparable to the difference between opt-in and opt-out in privacy. It might seem like a technicality, but it is actually a massive difference that produces substantial harms. For example, workers in information-related industries such as local news have seen stark declines in economic success and prestige. Section 230 makes a world of data dignity functionally impossible.

To date, content moderation has too often been beholden to the quest for attention and engagement, regularly disregarding the stated corporate terms of service. Rules are often bent to maximize engagement through inflammation, which can mean doing harm to personal and societal well-being. The excuse is that this is not censorship, but is it really not? Arbitrary rules, doxing practices, and cancel culture have led to something hard to distinguish from censorship for the sober and well-meaning. At the same time, the amplification of incendiary free speech for bad actors encourages mob rule. All of this takes place under Section 230’s liability shield, which effectively gives tech companies carte blanche for a short-sighted version of self-serving behavior. Disdain for these companies—which found a way to be more than carriers, and yet not publishers—is the only thing everyone in America seems to agree on now.

Trading a known for an unknown is always terrifying, especially for those with the most to lose. Since at least some of Section 230’s network effects were anticipated at its inception, it should have had a sunset clause. It did not. Rather than focusing exclusively on the disruption that axing 26 words would spawn, it is useful to consider potential positive effects. When we imagine a post-230 world, we discover something surprising: a world of hope and renewal worth inhabiting.

In one sense, it’s already happening. Certain companies are taking steps on their own, right now, toward a post-230 future. YouTube, for instance, is diligently building alternative income streams to advertising, and top creators are getting more options for earning. Together, these voluntary moves suggest a different, more publisher-like self-concept. YouTube is ready for the post-230 era, it would seem. (On the other hand, a company like X, which leans hard into 230, has been destroying its value with astonishing velocity.) Plus, there have always been exceptions to Section 230. For instance, if someone enters private information, there are laws to protect it in some cases. That means dating websites, say, have the option of charging fees instead of relying on a 230-style business model. The existence of these exceptions suggests that more examples would appear in a post-230 world.

Let’s return to speech. One difference between speech before and after the internet was that the scale of the internet “weaponized” some instances of speech that would not have been as significant before. An individual yelling threats at someone in passing, for instance, is quite different from a million people yelling threats. This type of amplified, stochastic harassment has become a constant feature of our times—chilling speech—and it is possible that in a post-230 world, platforms would be compelled to prevent it. It is sometimes imagined that there are only two choices: a world of viral harassment or a world of top-down smothering of speech. But there is a third option: a world of speech in which viral harassment is tamped down but ideas are not. Defining this middle option will require some time to sort out, but it is doable without 230, just as it is possible to define the limits of viral financial transactions to make Ponzi schemes illegal.

With this accomplished, content moderation for companies would be a vastly simpler proposition. Companies need only uphold the First Amendment, and the courts would finally develop the precedents and tests to help them do that, rather than the onus of moderation being entirely on companies alone. The United States has more than 200 years of First Amendment jurisprudence that establishes categories of less protected speech—obscenity, defamation, incitement, fighting words—to build upon, and Section 230 has effectively impeded its development for online expression. The perverse result has been the elevation of algorithms over constitutional law, effectively ceding judicial power.

When the jurisprudential dust has cleared, the United States would be exporting the democracy-promoting First Amendment to other countries rather than Section 230’s authoritarian-friendly liability shield and the sewer of least-common-denominator content that holds human attention but does not bring out the best in us. In a functional democracy, after all, the virtual public square should belong to everyone, so it is important that its conversations are those in which all voices can be heard. This can only happen with dignity for all, not in a brawl.

Section 230 perpetuates an illusion that today’s social media companies are common carriers like the phone companies that preceded them, but they are not. Unlike Ma Bell, they curate the content they transmit to users. We need a robust public conversation about what we, the people, want this space to look like, and what practices and guardrails are likely to strengthen the ties that bind us in common purpose as a democracy. Virality might come to be understood as an enemy of reason and human values. We can have culture and conversations without a mad race for total attention.

While Section 230 might have been considered more a target for reform rather than repeal prior to the advent of generative AI, it can no longer be so. Social media could be a business success even if its content was nonsense. AI cannot.

There have been suggestions that AI needs Section 230 because large language models train on data and will be better if that data is freely usable with no liabilities or encumbrances. This notion is incorrect. People want more from AI than entertainment. It is widely considered an important tool for productivity and scientific progress. An AI model is only as good as the data it is trained on; indeed, general data improves specialist results. The best AI will come out of a society that prioritizes quality communication. By quality communication, we do not mean deepfakes. We mean open and honest dialog that fosters understanding rather than vitriol, collaboration rather than polarization, and the pursuit of knowledge and human excellence rather than a race to the bottom of the brain stem.

The attention-grooming model fostered by Section 230 leads to stupendous quantities of poor-quality data. While an AI model can tolerate a significant amount of poor-quality data, there is a limit. It is unrealistic to imagine a society mediated by mostly terrible communication where that same society enjoys unmolested, high-quality AI. A society must seek quality as a whole, as a shared cultural value, in order to maximize the benefits of AI. Now is the best time for the tech business to mature and develop business models based on quality.

All of this might sound daunting, but we’ve been here before. When the US government said the American public owned the airwaves so that television broadcasting could be regulated, it put in place regulations that supported the common good. The internet affects everyone, so we must devise measures to ensure that our digital-age public discourse is of high quality and includes everyone. In the television era, the fairness doctrine laid that groundwork. A similar lens needs to be developed for the internet age.

Without Section 230, recommender algorithms and the virality they spark would be less likely to distort speech. It is sadly ironic that the very statute that delivered unfathomable success is today serving the interests of our enemies by compromising America’s superpower: our multinational, immigrant-powered constitutional democracy. The time has come to unleash the power of the First Amendment to promote human free speech by giving Section 230 the respectful burial it deserves.

[aint-love-heavy]

The whole tendency of equity language is to blur the contours of hard, often unpleasant facts. This aversion to reality is its main appeal. Once you acquire the vocabulary, it’s actually easier to say people with limited financial resources than the poor. The first rolls off your tongue without interruption, leaves no aftertaste, arouses no emotion. The second is rudely blunt and bitter, and it might make someone angry or sad. Imprecise language is less likely to offend. Good writing—vivid imagery, strong statements—will hurt, because it’s bound to convey painful truths.

[...]

The battle against euphemism and cliché is long-standing and, mostly, a losing one. What’s new and perhaps more threatening about equity language is the special kind of pressure it brings to bear. The conformity it demands isn’t just bureaucratic; it’s moral. But assembling preapproved phrases from a handbook into sentences that sound like an algorithmic catechism has no moral value. Moral language comes from the struggle of an individual mind to absorb and convey the truth as faithfully as possible. Because the effort is hard and the result unsparing, it isn’t obvious that writing like [Katherine] Boo’s [in Behind the Beautiful Forevers] has a future. Her book is too real for us. The very project of a white American journalist spending three years in an Indian slum to tell the story of families who live there could be considered a gross act of cultural exploitation. By the new rules, shelf upon shelf of great writing might go the way of blind and urban. Open Light in August or Invisible Man to any page and see how little would survive.

[...]

The rationale for equity-language guides is hard to fault. They seek a world without oppression and injustice. Because achieving this goal is beyond anyone’s power, they turn to what can be controlled and try to purge language until it leaves no one out and can’t harm those who already suffer. Avoiding slurs, calling attention to inadvertent insults, and speaking to people with dignity are essential things in any decent society. It’s polite to address people as they request, and context always matters: A therapist is unlikely to use terms with a patient that she would with a colleague. But it isn’t the job of writers to present people as they want to be presented; writers owe allegiance to their readers, and the truth.

This huge expense of energy to purify language reveals a weakened belief in more material forms of progress. If we don’t know how to end racism, we can at least call it structural. The [equity language] guides want to make the ugliness of our society disappear by linguistic fiat. Even by their own lights, they do more ill than good—not because of their absurd bans on ordinary words like congresswoman and expat, or the self-torture they require of conscientious users, but because they make it impossible to face squarely the wrongs they want to right, which is the starting point for any change. Prison does not become a less brutal place by calling someone locked up in one a person experiencing the criminal-justice system. Obesity isn’t any healthier for people with high weight. It’s hard to know who is likely to be harmed by a phrase like native New Yorker or under fire; I doubt that even the writers of the guides are truly offended. But the people in Behind the Beautiful Forevers know they’re poor; they can’t afford to wrap themselves in soft sheets of euphemism. Equity language doesn’t fool anyone who lives with real afflictions. It’s meant to spare only the feelings of those who use it.

[quinloki]

Writers - Where You Gonna Post?

Hey all, so the TL;DR of this is that I post on Wattpad, Tumblr and Ao3 - All have their pros and cons, and this post is going to get into those (with a neat little summary at the end).

Note this is not an endorsement or criticism of any of them. Just my personal understandings of each, the pros and cons I've noted, and a chance to put it all in one place.

We're going to touch on - Ease of Posting, Visibility, Tagging, Searching, Cost, Security & Visibility, Functionality, and less objectively - Vibe.

word count: 1,874

-:- Ease of Posting -:-

Wattpad: 7.5/10 Tumblr: 9/10 Ao3: 4/10

Wattpad and Tumblr have direct-from-source formatting, meaning your paragraphs, italics, bolds, etc. stay in place when you copy from Word, google docs, or - I assume, Scrivener.

Tumblr has more options for font size, color, and links within the body of the text, and so scores higher than Wattpad's more limited capacity (Wattpad does allow for centering, justified, etc. positioning of paragraphs.)

Ao3 has far more CAPACITY than both, but the ease isn't there. You have to know your HTML markups, and for so people that can be a pain. There's a very useful Google Doc markup template that can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, but hyper linking, image inserting, and other functions that are available have to be done manually.

This is great, in terms of options, but lowers Ao3 on the whole "ease of use".

-:- Visibility -:-

Wattpad: 4/10 Tumblr: 3 or 9/10 Ao3: 9/10

Wattpad has an algorithm and their tagging system - compared to Tumblr and Ao3 is pathetic. I realize I said I was going to be objective, but that is being objective. It's a spaceless tagging system, so you get really awesome tags like roronoazoroxblacklegsanjixreader and... yeah. There's also a limit on the number of tags, so if you're doing a collection of one-shots it's hard to get everyone in there.

On the upside, their search function doesn't just search by tags (would that it did though.) So having information in your summary will help your visibility. What really gets your stuff visible are reader interactions - knowing someone established on Wattpad and having them give you some shoutouts when you start is your best bet for being seen.

Tumblr's visibility - tagging, searching, etc rely HEAVILY on what kind of writer you are. SFW items are far easier to search than NSFW ones, and the Mature label hides you from people who have opted in to see Mature content, which still boggles me. The in-site search function leaves a bit to be desired, but google searches in better enough to off-set that a bit. Tagging is far more robust on tumblr, but it's also a little hit or miss, especially with new users. (I had no clue how to "tag" properly when I started, believe you me).

There's a solid foundation of readers here, so that makes it a good place to get your feet under you without being on TikTo-- I mean Wattpad.

I'm not going to say much here, because let's be fair, Ao3 was BUILT for visibility. There's no algorithm and the tagging system is robust and customizable. Searching is easy - as long as writers are decent with their tagging, and it's not too hard to find what you want, fluffy or otherwise.

-:- Tagging -:-

Wattpad: 4/10 Tumblr: 7/10 Ao3: 9/10

I've touched on this already in the other sections. Wattpad has a lot of restrictions on its tagging system, and aside from using it to "rank" stories, I'm not entirely sure what else it does. I really don't think it comes into play with searching - key words pull from titles, user names, and summaries at the minimum.

Tumblr tagging is a bless - for the most part. The site deems some words "problematic" and doesn't let you search them, which is poor practice because it doesn't differentiate smut from sex ed. (Personally, not that I want it to block anything on my behalf. If I type it Tumblr, I mean to look for it.) Fortunately, as stated, you can use external search engines to get around this.

Ao3 has probably the most robust, and most customizable tagging system of all three. This is great, as long as you know what you're doing, and terribly confusing if you don't. There's primers out there for tagging in Ao3 and other general "good to know" type things, but it's not intuitive. You really do need the primers.

And Ao3 limits neither content nor tags, so take care when searching, and use the omission functionality if you need to - Ao3 won't hold back unless you tell it.

-:- Searching -:-

Wattpad: 6/10 Tumblr: 6/10 Ao3: 10/10

Smash visibility and tagging together and you get search ratings. Wattpad can be hit or miss because of the Tikto- er - algorithm, my best advice is don't be afraid of the results on page 2 and beyond. As much as it tries to "rate" works, rating is just too subjective. You're going to have to dig, just like you do on Tumblr and Ao3.

Having fan fic reader connections is really your best bet when searching, but slugging through the proverbial trenches yields gems too - and one man's quartz is another man's diamond, so I'm not putting any writing down when I say this - what we're looking for varies, and what's out there is multitudinous and variable.

Ao3 is your best place place for good hunting - it's literally built around it. The only hangups are the limitations of what an author puts in for tags vs what you think to search. Differences in how we perceive some words regionally can limit what bounces back - and sometimes a writer might not think of the word in the first place to add it.

-:- Cost -:-

Wattpad: 3 or 9/10 Tumblr: 10/10 Ao3: 10/10

Wattpad has ads - on the mobile app. You can pay for some stuff on the desktop too, but it's not in your face there like it tends to be on the mobile app. Still, you can use it for free.

Tumblr and Ao3 both request money and offer stuff in exchange for money. Sites need money to run, so it makes sense. Neither locks functionality behind cost (neither does Wattpad, not even on the mobile app), but it's easier to ignore ads on Tumblr than Wattpad's app (and no ads on desktop at all for Wattpad >.> just fyi).

-:- Security & Visibility -:-

Wattpad: ??? Tumblr: ??? Ao3: ???

What's important about security and visibility changes from person to person and I'm not really sure how to rate them numerically.

Tumblr and Ao3 let you make your works private - member or password access only, so there's a layer of visibility control with these platforms that does NOT exist on Wattpad.

Ao3 let's people download works to read offline. Technically you can copy/paste with Tumblr and do this as well. Wattpad does not allow this - you cannot download or copy/paste a work from Wattpad (you can copy/paste when in edit mode on things you own on WP, but readers cannot).

You don't need an account to interact with Ao3 and Tumblr - I *think* you do for Wattpad, but all three are free sign ups - Ao3 is just by invitation (when did that start, btw? I signed up years ago and missed that change).

Which is best, is up to you.

-:- Functionality -:-

Wattpad: 8/10 Tumblr: 7/10 Ao3: 10/10

Let me start by saying that Tumblr's functionality for Short Form Fiction is easily 10/10 - the search limitations notwithstanding. Tumblr's functionality for LONG Form Fiction can be a real pain in the ass, hence the 7/10 overall. Linking posts is a manual nightmare, and sometimes breaks between mobile and desktop for no reason.

Wattpad's limitations on some styles of formatting and linking aside, it does have an easy to use update process, and if there's a limit to how many words can be in a chapter, I haven't seen it, or heard of it.

Wattpad's mature settings are also more functional than Tumblr's, leaving the onus of if the reader is old enough on the reader by the words of their own ToS (I still block minors, personally, since you can see who votes and comments.) They do have stricter limitations, regarding "dark" content, and there is by no means any threat to be levied against minors allowed. Shonen levels of violence, sure, but you're not posting Juno the novel on the site without some issues.

All three sites - Wattpad most recently - have blocking functionality. Wattpad's recent changes allow for deleting comments as well as blocking users, which can be a cathartic ability to have.

One thing Wattpad and Tumblr have that I'd LOVE to see on Ao3 (and if it has it I've missed it) is the ability to schedule your posts and updates. Wattpad added this recently - it's only functional on the desktop, but it works.

For those of us who can write 10k words one day, and none the next two days, it's useful for spreading out your posts. Plus there's just something nice about being able to create a backlog of content, especially if you post on a schedule.

-:- Vibe -:-

No rankings, we die like blorbos.

One of the best things - to me - about Wattpad is a paragraph-by-paragraph ability to comment. Wattpad's readers have a similar vibe as Tumblr's readers - and I mean this affectionately.

You're all GREMLINS.

It gives me life and I love it.

Assholes exist everywhere, but my general vibe of who has the most goes: Wattpad Tumblr Ao3

Maybe some of you aren't assholes, you just don't think about how your comments can be taken before you post.

Ao3 gives me the most Long Form Comments I get out of anywhere else, and I love them. Please, PLEASE, gush to me about what you loved. Feel free to toss in what you didn't vibe with - as long as you're not cruel about it, I can take it. I can't possibly write something everyone perceives flawlessly.

I post to all three, because I like the combined experience I get from them. Ao3 feeds me in ways Wattpad and Tumblr can't, and honestly you can exchange all three of those entirely.

Ao3 feels like I'm walking down the street perusing sex toy shops and someone stops me and goes "Oh I read your story and really liked it, please keep up the good work!" (sometimes maybe they throw a drink in my face.)

Tumblr feels like I'm at a rave with 500 other people and there's 50 blorbos people are doing body shots off of and we're all having fun - and occasionally some asshole comes in, but they're handled pretty quick.

Wattpad's like... being at a Barnes and Noble having coffee in the cafe that's inside the store, and there's a BDSM class being taught in the manga section that's upstairs, and sometimes people take the escalator up and right back down again cause oops.

That's my breakdown - I hope it's helped you, or at least made you laugh a little. Good luck out there, where ever, however, and whenever you post, I hope you find the words you're looking for.

(I do want to add that Wattpad does, as mentioned, have a bit of a TikTok vibe. If you don't vibe TikTok you're not gonna vibe Wattpad, flaws and all).

[this-week-in-rust]

This Week in Rust 518

Hello and welcome to another issue of This Week in Rust! Rust is a programming language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software. This is a weekly summary of its progress and community. Want something mentioned? Tag us at @ThisWeekInRust on Twitter or @ThisWeekinRust on mastodon.social, or send us a pull request. Want to get involved? We love contributions.

This Week in Rust is openly developed on GitHub and archives can be viewed at this-week-in-rust.org. If you find any errors in this week's issue, please submit a PR.

Updates from Rust Community

Project/Tooling Updates

Strobe Crate

System dependencies are hard (so we made them easier)

Observations/Thoughts

Trying to invent a better substring search algorithm

Improving Node.js with Rust-Wasm Library

Mixing C# and Rust - Interop

A fresh look on incremental zero copy serialization

Make the Rust compiler 5% faster with this one weird trick

Part 3: Rowing Afloat Datatype Boats

Recreating concurrent futures combinators in smol

Unpacking some Rust ergonomics: getting a single Result from an iterator of them

Idea: "Using Rust", a living document

Object Soup is Made of Indexes

Analyzing Data 180,000x Faster with Rust

Issue #10: Serving HTML

Rust vs C on an ATTiny85; an embedded war story

Rust Walkthroughs

Analyzing Data /,000x Faster with Rust

Fully Automated Releases for Rust Projects

Make your Rust code unit testable with dependency inversion

Nine Rules to Formally Validate Rust Algorithms with Dafny (Part 2): Lessons from Verifying the range-set-blaze Crate

[video] Let's write a message broker using QUIC - Broke But Quick Episode 1

[video] Publishing Messages over QUIC Streams!! - Broke But Quick episode 2

Miscellaneous

[video] Associated types in Iterator bounds

[video] Rust and the Age of High-Integrity Languages

[video] Implementing (part of) a BitTorrent client in Rust

Crate of the Week

This week's crate is cargo-show-asm, a cargo subcommand to show the optimized assembly of any function.

Thanks to Kornel for the suggestion!

Please submit your suggestions and votes for next week!

Call for Participation

Always wanted to contribute to open-source projects but did not know where to start? Every week we highlight some tasks from the Rust community for you to pick and get started!

Some of these tasks may also have mentors available, visit the task page for more information.

* Hyperswitch (Hacktoberfest)- [FEATURE] separate payments_session from payments core * Hyperswitch (Hacktoberfest)- [NMI] Use connector_response_reference_id as reference to merchant * Hyperswitch (Hacktoberfest)- [Airwallex] Use connector_response_reference_id as reference to merchant * Hyperswitch (Hacktoberfest)- [Worldline] Use connector_response_reference_id as reference to merchant * Ockam - Make ockam project delete (no args) interactive by asking the user to choose from a list of space and project names to delete (tuify) * Ockam - Validate CBOR structs according to the cddl schema for authenticator/direct/types * Ockam - Slim down the NodeManagerWorker for node / node status

If you are a Rust project owner and are looking for contributors, please submit tasks here.

Updates from the Rust Project

397 pull requests were merged in the last week

rewrite gdb pretty-printer registration

add FileCheck annotations to mir-opt tests

add MonoItems and Instance to stable_mir

add a csky-unknown-linux-gnuabiv2hf target

add a test showing failing closure signature inference in new solver

add new simpler and more explicit syntax for check-cfg

add stable Instance::body() and RustcInternal trait

automatically enable cross-crate inlining for small functions

avoid a track_errors by bubbling up most errors from check_well_formed

avoid having rustc_smir depend on rustc_interface or rustc_driver

coverage: emit mappings for unused functions without generating stubs

coverage: emit the filenames section before encoding per-function mappings

coverage: fix inconsistent handling of function signature spans

coverage: move most per-function coverage info into mir::Body

coverage: simplify the injection of coverage statements

disable missing_copy_implementations lint on non_exhaustive types

do not bold main message in --error-format=short

don't ICE when encountering unresolved regions in fully_resolve

don't compare host param by name

don't crash on empty match in the nonexhaustive_omitted_patterns lint

duplicate ~const bounds with a non-const one in effects desugaring

eliminate rustc_attrs::builtin::handle_errors in favor of emitting errors directly

fix a performance regression in obligation deduplication

fix implied outlives check for GAT in RPITIT

fix spans for removing .await on for expressions

fix suggestion for renamed coroutines feature

implement an internal lint encouraging use of Span::eq_ctxt

implement jump threading MIR opt

implement rustc part of RFC 3127 trim-paths

improve display of parallel jobs in rustdoc-gui tester script

initiate the inner usage of cfg_match (Compiler)

lint non_exhaustive_omitted_patterns by columns

location-insensitive polonius: consider a loan escaping if an SCC has member constraints applied only

make #[repr(Rust)] incompatible with other (non-modifier) representation hints like C and simd

make rustc_onunimplemented export path agnostic

mention into_iter on borrow errors suggestions when appropriate

mention the syntax for use on mod foo; if foo doesn't exist

panic when the global allocator tries to register a TLS destructor

point at assoc fn definition on type param divergence

preserve unicode escapes in format string literals when pretty-printing AST

properly account for self ty in method disambiguation suggestion

report unused_import for empty reexports even it is pub

special case iterator chain checks for suggestion

strict provenance unwind

suggest ; after bare match expression E0308

suggest constraining assoc types in more cases

suggest relaxing implicit type Assoc: Sized; bound

suggest removing redundant arguments in format!()

uplift movability and mutability, the simple way

miri: avoid a linear scan over the entire int_to_ptr_map on each deallocation

miri: fix rounding mode check in SSE4.1 round functions

miri: intptrcast: remove information about dead allocations

disable effects in libcore again

add #[track_caller] to Option::unwrap_or_else

specialize Bytes<R>::next when R is a BufReader

make TCP connect handle EINTR correctly

on Windows make read_dir error on the empty path

hashbrown: add low-level HashTable API

codegen_gcc: add support for NonNull function attribute

codegen_gcc: fix #[inline(always)] attribute and support unsigned comparison for signed integers

codegen_gcc: fix endianness

codegen_gcc: fix int types alignment

codegen_gcc: optimize popcount implementation

codegen_gcc: optimize u128/i128 popcounts further

cargo add: Preserve more comments

cargo remove: Preserve feature comments

cargo replace: Partial-version spec support

cargo: Provide next steps for bad -Z flag

cargo: Suggest cargo-search on bad commands

cargo: adjust -Zcheck-cfg for new rustc syntax and behavior

cargo: if there's a version in the lock file only use that exact version

cargo: make the precise field of a source an Enum

cargo: print environment variables for build script executions with -vv

cargo: warn about crate name's format when creating new crate

rustdoc: align stability badge to baseline instead of bottom

rustdoc: avoid allocating strings primitive link printing

clippy: map_identity: allow closure with type annotations

clippy: map_identity: recognize tuple identity function

clippy: add lint for struct field names

clippy: don't emit needless_pass_by_ref_mut if the variable is used in an unsafe block or function

clippy: make multiple_unsafe_ops_per_block ignore await desugaring

clippy: needless pass by ref mut closure non async fn

clippy: now declare_interior_mutable_const and borrow_interior_mutable_const respect the ignore-interior-mutability configuration entry

clippy: skip if_not_else lint for '!= 0'-style checks

clippy: suggest passing function instead of calling it in closure for option_if_let_else

clippy: warn missing_enforced_import_renames by default

rust-analyzer: generate descriptors for all unstable features

rust-analyzer: add command for only opening external docs and attempt to fix vscode-remote issue

rust-analyzer: add incorrect case diagnostics for module names

rust-analyzer: fix VS Code detection for Insiders version

rust-analyzer: import trait if needed for unqualify_method_call assist

rust-analyzer: pick a better name for variables introduced by replace_is_some_with_if_let_some

rust-analyzer: store binding mode for each instance of a binding independently

perf: add NES emulation runtime benchmark

Rust Compiler Performance Triage

Approved RFCs

Changes to Rust follow the Rust RFC (request for comments) process. These are the RFCs that were approved for implementation this week:

Add f16 and f128 float types

Unicode and escape codes in literals

Final Comment Period

Every week, the team announces the 'final comment period' for RFCs and key PRs which are reaching a decision. Express your opinions now.

RFCs

No RFCs entered Final Comment Period this week.

Tracking Issues & PRs

[disposition: merge] Consider alias bounds when computing liveness in NLL (but this time sound hopefully)

[disposition: close] regression: parameter type may not live long enough

[disposition: merge] Remove support for compiler plugins.

[disposition: merge] rustdoc: Document lack of object safety on affected traits

[disposition: merge] Stabilize Ratified RISC-V Target Features

[disposition: merge] Tracking Issue for const mem::discriminant

New and Updated RFCs

[new] eRFC: #[should_move] attribute for per-function opting out of Copy semantics

Call for Testing

An important step for RFC implementation is for people to experiment with the implementation and give feedback, especially before stabilization. The following RFCs would benefit from user testing before moving forward:

No RFCs issued a call for testing this week.

If you are a feature implementer and would like your RFC to appear on the above list, add the new call-for-testing label to your RFC along with a comment providing testing instructions and/or guidance on which aspect(s) of the feature need testing.

Upcoming Events

Rusty Events between 2023-10-25 - 2023-11-22 🦀

Virtual

2023-10-30 | Virtual (Melbourne, VIC, AU) | Rust Melbourne

(Hybrid - online & in person) October 2023 Rust Melbourne Meetup

2023-10-31 | Virtual (Europe / Africa) | Rust for Lunch

Rust Meet-up

2023-11-01 | Virtual (Cardiff, UK)| Rust and C++ Cardiff

ECS with Bevy Game Engine

2023-11-01 | Virtual (Indianapolis, IN, US) | Indy Rust

Indy.rs - with Social Distancing

2023-11-02 | Virtual (Charlottesville, NC, US) | Charlottesville Rust Meetup

Crafting Interpreters in Rust Collaboratively

2023-11-07 | Virtual (Berlin, DE) | OpenTechSchool Berlin

Rust Hack and Learn | Mirror

2023-11-07 | Virtual (Buffalo, NY, US) | Buffalo Rust Meetup

Buffalo Rust User Group, First Tuesdays

2023-11-09 | Virtual (Nuremberg, DE) | Rust Nuremberg

Rust Nürnberg online

2023-11-14 | Virtual (Dallas, TX, US) | Dallas Rust

Second Tuesday

2023-11-15 | Virtual (Cardiff, UK)| Rust and C++ Cardiff

Building Our Own Locks (Atomics & Locks Chapter 9)

2023-11-15 | Virtual (Richmond, VA, US) | Linux Plumbers Conference

Rust Microconference in LPC 2023 (Nov 13-16)

2023-11-15 | Virtual (Vancouver, BC, CA) | Vancouver Rust

Rust Study/Hack/Hang-out

2023-11-16 | Virtual (Charlottesville, NC, US) | Charlottesville Rust Meetup

Crafting Interpreters in Rust Collaboratively

2023-11-07 | Virtual (Berlin, DE) | OpenTechSchool Berlin

Rust Hack and Learn | Mirror

2023-11-21 | Virtual (Washington, DC, US) | Rust DC

Mid-month Rustful

Europe

2023-10-25 | Dublin, IE | Rust Dublin

Biome, web development tooling with Rust

2023-10-25 | Paris, FR | Rust Paris

Rust for the web - Paris meetup #61

2023-10-25 | Zagreb, HR | impl Zagreb for Rust

Rust Meetup 2023/10: Lunatic

2023-10-26 | Augsburg, DE | Rust - Modern Systems Programming in Leipzig

Augsburg Rust Meetup #3

2023-10-26 | Copenhagen, DK | Copenhagen Rust Community

Rust metup #41 sponsored by Factbird

2023-10-26 | Delft, NL | Rust Nederland

Rust at TU Delft

2023-10-26 | Lille, FR | Rust Lille

Rust Lille #4 at SFEIR

2022-10-30 | Stockholm, SE | Stockholm Rust

Rust Meetup @Aira + Netlight

2023-11-01 | Cologne, DE | Rust Cologne

Web-applications with axum: Hello CRUD!

2023-11-07 | Bratislava, SK | Bratislava Rust Meetup Group

Rust Meetup by Sonalake

2023-11-07 | Brussels, BE | Rust Aarhus

Rust Aarhus - Rust and Talk beginners edition

2023-11-07 | Lyon, FR | Rust Lyon

Rust Lyon Meetup #7

2023-11-09 | Barcelona, ES | BcnRust

11th BcnRust Meetup

2023-11-09 | Reading, UK | Reading Rust Workshop

Reading Rust Meetup at Browns

2023-11-21 | Augsburg, DE | Rust - Modern Systems Programming in Leipzig

GPU processing in Rust

2023-11-23 | Biel/Bienne, CH | Rust Bern

Rust Talks Bern @ Biel: Embedded Edition

North America

2023-10-25 | Austin, TX, US | Rust ATX

Rust Lunch - Fareground

2023-10-25 | Chicago, IL, US | Deep Dish Rust

Rust Happy Hour

2023-11-01 | Brookline, MA, US | Boston Rust Meetup

Boston Common Rust Lunch

2023-11-08 | Boulder, CO, US | Boulder Rust Meetup

Let's make a Discord bot!

2023-11-14 | New York, NY, US | Rust NYC

Rust NYC Monthly Mixer: Share, Show, & Tell! 🦀

2023-11-14 | Seattle, WA, US | Cap Hill Rust Coding/Hacking/Learning

Rusty Coding/Hacking/Learning Night

2023-11-15 | Richmond, VA, US + Virtual | Linux Plumbers Conference

Rust Microconference in LPC 2023 (Nov 13-16)

2023-11-16 | Nashville, TN, US | Music City Rust Developers

Python loves Rust!

2023-11-16 | Seattle, WA, US | Seattle Rust User Group

Seattle Rust User Group Meetup

2023-11-21 | San Francisco, CA, US | San Francisco Rust Study Group

Rust Hacking in Person

2023-11-22 | Austin, TX, US | Rust ATX

Rust Lunch - Fareground

Oceania

2023-10-26 | Brisbane, QLD, AU | Rust Brisbane

October Meetup

2023-10-30 | Melbourne, VIC, AU + Virtual | Rust Melbourne

(Hybrid - in person & online) October 2023 Rust Melbourne Meetup

2023-11-21 | Christchurch, NZ | Christchurch Rust Meetup Group

Christchurch Rust meetup meeting

If you are running a Rust event please add it to the calendar to get it mentioned here. Please remember to add a link to the event too. Email the Rust Community Team for access.

Jobs

Please see the latest Who's Hiring thread on r/rust

Quote of the Week

When your Rust build times get slower after adding some procedural macros:

We call that the syn tax :ferris:

– Janet on Fosstodon

Thanks to Jacob Pratt for the suggestion!

Please submit quotes and vote for next week!

This Week in Rust is edited by: nellshamrell, llogiq, cdmistman, ericseppanen, extrawurst, andrewpollack, U007D, kolharsam, joelmarcey, mariannegoldin, bennyvasquez.

Email list hosting is sponsored by The Rust Foundation

Discuss on r/rust

[muhammadarslanalvi]

Seeing Beyond the Pixel: An Introduction to Digital Image Processing

Have you ever stopped to wonder how that blurry picture from your phone gets transformed into a crystal-clear masterpiece on social media?

Or how scientists can analyze faraway galaxies using images captured by telescopes? The secret sauce behind these feats is Digital Image Processing (DIP)!

Imagine DIP (Digital Image Processing) as a cool toolbox for your digital images. It lets you manipulate and analyze them using powerful computer algorithms. You can think of it as giving your pictures a makeover, but on a whole new level.

The Image Makeover Process

DIP works in a series of steps, like a recipe for image perfection:

Snap Happy! (Image Acquisition) - This is where it all starts. You capture the image using a camera, scanner, or even a scientific instrument like a telescope!

Person taking a picture with smartphone

Picture Prep (Preprocessing) - Sometimes, images need a little prep work before the real magic happens. Think of it like trimming the edges or adjusting the lighting to ensure better analysis.

Person editing a photo on a computer

Enhance Me! (Enhancement) - Here's where your image gets a glow-up! Techniques like adjusting brightness, contrast, or sharpening details can make all the difference in clarity and visual appeal.

Blurry photo becoming clear after editing

Fixing the Funky (Restoration) - Did your old family photo get a little scratched or blurry over time? DIP can help remove those imperfections like a digital eraser, restoring the image to its former glory.

Scratched photo being restored

Info Time! (Analysis) - This is where things get interesting. DIP can actually extract information from the image, like identifying objects, recognizing patterns, or even measuring distances. Pretty cool, right?

Xray being analyzed by a doctor on a computer

Size Matters (Compression) - Ever struggled to send a massive photo via email? DIP can shrink the file size without losing too much detail, making it easier to store and share images efficiently.

Large image file being compressed

Voila! (Output) - The final step is presenting your masterpiece! This could be a stunningly clear picture, a detailed analysis report, or anything in between, depending on the purpose of the image processing.

Highquality image after processing

Real World Wow Factor

DIP isn't just about making pretty pictures (although that's a valuable application too!). It has a wide range of real-world uses that benefit various fields:

Medical Marvels (Medical Field) - DIP helps doctors analyze X-rays, MRIs, and other medical scans with greater accuracy and efficiency, leading to faster and more precise diagnoses.

Cosmic Companions (Astronomy) - Scientists use DIP to analyze images from space telescopes, revealing the secrets of stars, galaxies, and other wonders of the universe. By enhancing faint details and removing noise, DIP allows astronomers to peer deeper into the cosmos.

Space telescope capturing an image of a galaxy

Eagle Eye from Above (Remote Sensing) - Satellites use DIP to monitor Earth, tracking weather patterns, deforestation, and other environmental changes. By analyzing satellite imagery, researchers can gain valuable insights into the health of our planet.

Satellite image of Earth

Unlocking Your Face (Security Systems) - Facial recognition systems use DIP to identify people in images and videos, which can be used for security purposes or even to personalize user experiences.

Facial recognition system unlocking a phone

Selfie Magic (Consumer Electronics) - Your smartphone uses DIP to enhance your photos, automatically adjusting brightness, contrast, and other factors to make your selfies look their best.

Person taking a selfie

The Future's Looking Sharp

DIP is constantly evolving, thanks to advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Imagine self-driving cars using DIP for super-accurate navigation in real-time, or virtual reality experiences that seamlessly blend real and digital worlds with exceptional clarity. The possibilities are endless!

So, the next time you look at an image, remember, there's a whole world of technology working behind the scenes to make it what it is. With DIP, we can truly see beyond the pixel and unlock the hidden potential of the visual world around us.

References:

Gonzalez, Rafael C., and Richard E. Woods. "Digital image processing." Pearson Education India, 2008.

Jain, Anil K. "Fundamentals of digital image processing." Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1989.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). "Digital Image Processing: An Introduction." https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Digital-Image-Processing/dp/0134806743

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). "Image Processing and Analysis." https://www.baeldung.com/cs/energy-image-processing

Patel, Meet, et al. "Image Processing Techniques in Medical Field: A Literature Review." Journal of Medical Physics, vol. 40, no. 4, 2019, pp. 140001. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3782694/

[toolstehyai]

Using Medium to Get Traffic — Proven Strategies for Bloggers

Ever wondered how some blogs get a massive influx of readers seemingly overnight? The secret could be closer than you think. Using Medium strategically can be the game-changer you need to maximize your blog’s reach by June 2024. Here’s how you can harness the power of Medium to drive traffic to your blog and achieve your blogging goals.

Understanding Medium’s Potential

Medium is more than just a blogging platform; it’s a vibrant community of readers and writers. With its user-friendly interface and built-in audience, Medium offers bloggers a unique opportunity to reach new readers who are genuinely interested in their content. The platform’s distribution algorithms ensure that quality content is more likely to be seen by a larger audience, making it an excellent tool for traffic generation.

Setting Up for Success on Medium

The first step to leveraging Medium is creating a compelling profile. Your profile is often the first impression you make, so make it count. Use a high-quality photo and write a captivating bio that highlights your expertise and interests. Don’t forget to include links to your blog and social media profiles to drive traffic back to your main site.

Connecting with the community is equally important. Follow publications and writers within your niche to stay updated on trending topics and engage with their content. Building relationships on Medium can lead to more followers and increased visibility for your articles.

Read More

Crafting Content That Drives Traffic

Choosing the right topics is crucial. Medium readers are drawn to fresh, insightful, and relevant content. Use Medium’s search and recommendation features to find trending topics within your niche. Write articles that provide unique perspectives or solutions to common problems your audience faces.

When crafting your articles, focus on writing engaging content. Start with compelling headlines that capture attention without resorting to clickbait. Use high-quality images and maintain a conversational tone to keep readers engaged. Incorporate a clear call-to-action (CTA) in your articles, directing readers to your blog for more in-depth information or related content.

Read More

Leveraging Medium’s Distribution

One of the most effective ways to increase your reach on Medium is through publications. Submitting your articles to popular Medium publications can significantly boost your visibility. These publications often have thousands of followers who will see your content. Research and identify high-traffic publications in your niche, and follow their submission guidelines to increase your chances of getting published.

Utilizing tags and categories correctly can also enhance your article’s visibility. Use relevant and trending tags to categorize your content effectively. This makes it easier for readers interested in those topics to find your articles.

Engaging and Growing Your Audience

Building a loyal readership on Medium requires consistent engagement. Respond to comments on your articles to foster a sense of community and encourage discussions. Ask questions and invite readers to share their thoughts, creating a two-way dialogue that keeps readers coming back.

Cross-promotion is another powerful strategy. Share your Medium articles on your social media platforms, in your email newsletters, and on your blog. This not only drives traffic to your Medium articles but also brings readers back to your blog.

Analyzing and Adapting Your Strategy

To ensure continuous improvement, regularly analyze your performance using Medium’s built-in analytics. Monitor metrics such as views, reads, and engagement to understand what type of content resonates most with your audience. Use these insights to refine your content strategy. Experiment with different topics, writing styles, and promotional tactics to see what works best

Read More

Case Studies and Success Stories

Consider the case of John, a tech blogger who struggled to grow his audience despite creating high-quality content. By publishing his articles on Medium and submitting them to top tech publications, John saw a 300% increase in his blog traffic within six months. His secret was simple: consistently engaging content, strategic use of tags, and active participation in the Medium community.

Another success story is Emily, a lifestyle blogger who used Medium to reach a wider audience. By writing about trending topics and sharing her personal experiences, Emily’s articles quickly gained traction. She focused on building relationships with her readers, which led to increased engagement and more followers for her blog.

Read More

Conclusion

Using Medium effectively can significantly boost your blog’s reach and drive traffic to your site. By creating a compelling profile, connecting with the community, crafting engaging content, leveraging Medium’s distribution, engaging with your audience, and continuously analyzing your performance, you can achieve your blogging goals by June 2024.

Ready to maximize your blog’s reach? Start publishing on Medium today and watch your traffic grow! With these strategies, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a blogging powerhouse.

[g-kat423]

An update on the state of my fics

Worry not, they are not on an official hiatus(I swear, it’s just really bad writer’s block and I am trying to find ways to coax myself back into writing) nor are they discontinued.

This is about my works and where they’re hosted. Ao3 is currently the only place I am hosting my works. I had been crossposting on Wattpad since late 2021, but I found out rather quickly that I didn’t enjoy how the app worked with its ads, algorithms, and generally young user base. I kept posting though because I figured it wouldn’t hurt to cast a wider net since some people only read on Wattpad. I also originally joined to keep an eye out for plagiarism as it was unfortunately becoming common for Lady D fic writers to find their completed/in progress fics being uploaded on Wattpad without their consent by some rando who wanted attention. I figured if there was a chance of my fics ending up there, it would be of my own volition and then it would hopefully be easier to get copycats taken down should it happen.

Well, as of today, I am no longer hosting my works on Wattpad. I have wiped the account of all fics and have encouraged everyone to follow me on Ao3 where the fics shall live on. I already had an issue with Wattpad in February. One of my fics was removed without warning due to a guideline violation they didn’t specify. My guess would be because the fic contained sexual content, but it was marked appropriately as mature and their rule about sex in fics is subjective and weird. You can have it, but its sole purpose can’t be sexually stimulating?? All erotica serves to be sexually stimulating so what’s this magical sex to story ratio? No matter, I reuploaded the fic and haven’t had a problem since. Until now, that is.

Today (or late last night since it’s currently 3am whoops) I became aware that Wattpad is doing a massive purge of fics as they’ve updated their community guidelines(afaik they still allow nsfw with that same subjective rule but before they allowed smut with 16+ since they’re Canada based and that’s their age of consent, but now all sex has to be between people 18+ doesn’t matter to me anyway since I only write sex between 18+ parties) and have now implemented ai tools to flag fics. This new ai moderation also added a fun new feature, shadowbanning! So basically when their lil ai bot flags your fic, it delists it from the search which removes it from the ranking until it’s properly reviewed and deleted or relisted and able to be searched again. Sure enough, I checked my fics and most were shadowbanned because hey, I write a lot of erotica, but everything was always marked as mature 🤷🏻‍♀️ there were only a couple that still were in the rankings aka not shadowbanned, but you know what? Fuck censorship and fuck ai moderation when it comes to fics. Ao3 might be slow to remove tos breaking works, but at least they’re all reviewed by humans and there’s no such thing as mass reporting since a work can only be reported once. I already lived through the 2012 FFNET purges and watched in real time as my favorite fics were deleted and authors left the platform for good. Luckily for me, I don’t care too much about Wattpad as Ao3 was where I started sharing my Lady D fics and I’ve always prioritized updating over there first. I just hope that my Wattpad exclusive readers make the switch and aren’t too upset by me removing my works, but I figured it was best instead of risking getting my whole account nuked since I can advertise my ao3 on my profile there as well as my final announcement.

For those of you who do crosspost or host your works on Wattpad, just keep an eye out and make sure you have backups of your work because when Wattpad deletes a work, it’s permanent and there’s no appeal process. They also don’t have the courtesy to send you a backup. Oh and be sure to check your works to see if they’re shadowbanned. If you look underneath your work and it doesn’t have the #1(or whatever number) in one of the tags you used (so like #4 in sugarmommy), your work is shadowbanned and not searchable which means it was flagged and might be deleted.

Anyway, ourwickedlies on Ao3. The Wattpad still exists as does a squidgeworld account, but ao3 is the only place that has my works.

[stevetown]

On The New Tumblr Desktop Dash

I've been using the new Tumblr desktop dashboard for a few days now and I have some Thoughts that I thought would be useful to put out in to the wild. Most of the reaction I've seen has been...abnormally harsh about this UI update, so I think it would be interesting to actually go through the changes and point out what I like, what I don't, what I think could use some improvement, and maybe break down a little about why those Twitter comparisons are way off the mark.

More below the fold, but the tldr for me is - I think it's great! At the end of the day, I feel like I use the desktop version of Tumblr more and more since the change. Whereas before I used to just pick up my phone and refresh the app, now I get a hit of dopamine flipping over to the Tumblr tab when I need a work break.

The change is clean and logical, and as someone who came to Tumblr a year ago and still never quite grokked what all the icons at the top meant, having them spelled out is much nicer than guessing what they mean, even for someone who has become more familiar with the site. And to be clear, from what I can tell that's the goal of this change - to make it easier for newer people to use Tumblr and find their way around. Despite all the hate this change is getting, that is an unabashedly good thing.

The Left Nav

It's really, really clean. The old dash had a lot of unused space on the left, it makes sense to carve some of that out to have a menu that actually lays out what each icon means. The font size and style is comfortable without overcrowding. It just feels more...confident? Like these are the features Tumblr has. Use them! It's also just a more familiar web browser experience for anyone who has been using web apps since the dawn of email.

The badges also fit much nicer with the left nav. They don't float above an unclear icon, they're right next to what it says on the tin. You got 20 new posts to read, buddy. 5 new notifications. 1 anon ask. It's just better on my eyes.

I do understand the gut reaction that things are "too" cluttered. One of the first things I did was snooze Tumblr live and that helped me out a lot. Just removing all of the noise of live tags and loading-in thumbnails of people I'm not interested in watching went very far. It brought the post content further up on the screen.

A little before and after snoozing Live:

Explore

I didn't even know what Explore was used for before. It was a compass icon. I think I thought it was some kind of search? I can't remember if I ever clicked on it before. Explore is much more interesting to me. It makes me curious. For a site that struggles with getting new users to find new content, it's a beacon that says "Find some cool new stuff!"

My problem with Explore is that clicking on it...doesn't get me much. The landing page just takes me to a feed from @todayontumblr that almost never has any content that I'm interested in. The "For You" tab on my regular dash is where I go mining for new blogs, along with "Your Tags." If Staff finds this change leads to more Explore click-throughs, I'd love if the tab itself get some love and made it a hub for finding new content easier. Maybe mixing up a feed of any tags you're following, trending posts, and other algorithmically sorted goodies that I'll want to take off the shelf and put in my chronological dash. I want it to be a place with the goal of encouraging me to follow new blogs.

Live

The transition to the Live page doesn't feel good to me. You're taken to a totally different kind of page, and the UI jumps all the way to the left. It feels like you're going to a separate site. At least when you snooze Live it also removes the menu item. That's really nice! But I'll save Live thoughts for another day.

Activity/Messages/Inbox

I never knew how much I suspected these things were a bit redundant, but I'm glad now that they're separated and labeled correctly. I don't have to remember what the face icon/mail/lightning bolt all mean or why they're different. Things are much cleaner in that regard.

I don't really care for the popups when you click on them. Those do feel cluttered to me, like I'm going to lose sight of my dash, or the notifications. I don't have much UX advice here, other than to say I think I prefer how the Inbox is handled, where you're just taken to a full page view of the page. However maybe another solution would be how the Account and Settings icons are conducted...

Account/Settings

This is the section that sold me on the new dash. On the old dash, I found navigating the Account and Settings options...ephemeral. I was afraid I was going to lose my place if I didn't find the menu I needed. Here, having them slide out as a drawer, keeps me in place and lets me orient myself easier. It's made exploring settings overall frictionless. I've changed dash palettes like ten different times just because I could and it was easy to find. Maybe something similar for inbox/messages/activity would make the UI feel more consistent and less overcluttered-feeling?

I do notice that the Account dropdown adds a new scrollbar which makes things like the t logo and badges jump to the left. That can be a bit disorienting.

TumblrMart/Get a Domain

The Get a Domain menu item is fine, but TumblrMart feels like it needs some love. On a new refresh, clicking the icon loads for a total six seconds before the mart pops up. By this point, if I wasn't intentionally testing, I would have just moved on. Again, I also just don't like pop-ups like this. Feels loosey. Much prefer the full-spread domain page you get.

Create

This is maybe my least favorite change. Every time I switch to my Tumblr tab, I see it in the bottom left and think it's the "Where were we?" button. When I do want to create a post, it feels like I have to travel far to get to the button, and then I have to travel again when the dots come up to select what type of post I'm making.

I wonder if just tucking it at the bottom of the menu under "Get a domain" would be better? Or at the top of the menu? Not sure. I feel in my jellies there's a better spot for this one.

On Twitter

If I can address the most frequent criticism I see on this site, which is that @staff are trying hard to "ruin" Tumblr by "turning it into Twitter," I understand that gut reaction.

But I'd encourage folks to think about that for a minute. UIs change, and a left-aligned nav is extremely common for a reason. Since the dawn of email, menu navigation has been relegated to a left sidebar. Twitter is not "burning to the ground" because their nav bar was on the left. Having a left sidebar means literally nothing in the grand scheme of what makes a website what it is.

What, truly, has this nav update changed? It does not change the functionality of the site at its core at all. It doesn't change what you can post, how you can post, what content you find, reblogs, or tags. For a site that struggles with new users "getting" the site and finding their way around, this nav change makes it much easier to settle in with something a bit more ubiquitous to the modern browser-viewing experience.

Thus leading me to believe the only reason people hate on this change so vehemently is they don't want to see new users or any effort at all to attract them at all, and I think that's exclusionary crap. Knock it off.

Change is Scary!

That said, the change is scary! Having your muscle memory interrupted isn't fun and can take a while to get used to. Every change has a growing period. I get that. For me, I got over that period fairly fast, but I recognize this process is different for everyone, especially those who have been around here for a lot longer than I have.

The change is also open for valid criticism. There are usability and likely accessibility concerns for sure. Staff needs time to iterate, and they need to know what problems are actually worth fixing and addressing. "I hate it turn it back" doesn't help anyone - it doesn't help Staff, and it doesn't help new users who are trying find a new place on the internet to call home after *shakes fist at the rest of the internet.*

I really like this change as a starting point, and I can't wait to see it iterated on further.

And on a small end note, if you also have thoughts and opinions that you want to tell Staff, please, please, please remember there are other human beings on the other end of line.

[punkalope]

There are so many ways Tumblr can help boost creators or engagement without making some kind of algorithmic feed I swear. Bring back the old tag viewing imo. Fix the search...

I know a lot of this isn't even entirely tumblrs fault though. Kids aren't taught how to use computers anymore because of the dumb "digital natives" myth, and so they're right when they say "tumblr is too hard to use for most new users".

I saw a 16 year old on twitter the other day have a public breakdown over that site dying because they didn't WANT to use tumblr and claimed it was "too difficult". It is, quite literally, too hard to use for ipad babies (noah fence to said ipad babies, it ain't their fault either, I'm just venting my own frustrations). Not to mention tumblr has to appeal to investors who are just adult ipad babies tee-bee-ache.

Most people use the internet now. Anyone who's grown up with it or has been on the internet for more than 10 years will know this is a bad sign, but a vast majority of people who use computers now are new and rely on everything being simple and convenient. Companies prey on the fact that internet safety or computer literacy isn't taught to anyone anymore because it gives them an excuse to spy on you and make money. Back when the tech literate were the majority, we could say no to shit and it'd work, because we were the ones who made people the money, but now we aren't - it's investors and the people who don't really understand what they're looking at and just trust what's being told to them because it's just easier that way.

And these people don't have many options if they do realize they don't like what's happening, because their only other options seem to be things that aren't medium level computer literacy but straight up high level. I consider myself pretty tech savvy but I hate the idea of the fediverse! It ain't for me and it def ain't for the average consumer, yet people try to push it, and it feels like there's no middle ground.

Argh. Arhgh.

[fluxxdog]

This is full blown rant mode. And I may just be screaming into the void, but dammit, I want to void to hear it!

Let me start by saying I am a needs-socialist/wants-capitalist. If it's needed for basic society, it should be funded by tax money and governed publicly. If it's not, then let whoever make money off of it legally. I'm fine as long as it's done ethically.

Case in point, a diner my wife and I went to for years has upped its prices a couple times. That's not a problem. We kept going and we liked it. Then, last week, the bill was dropped. I noticed 2 differing amounts, a higher one for credit cards. It was 4% and I wished they would have said something beforehand. But what got me mad was they tried to disguise it as an "Advantage Program" charge.

Fuck them, I'm not going there anymore.

With that said, I've laid the stage for the recent @staff announce of their "priorities" for Tumblr.

Let's start with the most important one first: Number 6. "Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality." Yes, infrastructure is very important. This shouldn't be a new thing. This just screams that they already have a load of tech debt that they should resolve first before adding on top of it. Nobody cares about your shiny paint job if your transmission is strewn all over the pavement. This should be priority one before moving on to new things or it just gets worse.

Next is 1 and 3, "Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr." and "Facilitate easier user participation in conversations." I can get behind that. Bring in new users and help them engage with current users. I see that as a win all around.

"Retain and grow our creator base." is number 4. This smells of the recent Reddit screw up. They at least admit they don't provide content, but they want to push people to create more content for them. Quote: "We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive." Translation: "We want people to work for us without paying them." Does that sound familiar? Reddit mods? No, you want to encourage creators? PAY THEM! Find a way to get them money and they will help make that happen.

Number 2, "Provide high-quality content with every app launch." I see where people read that as getting rid of the experience they curated for themselves. And it's an easy mistake given what a lot of platforms do. I read it as "Our algorithms are default and mandatory." It's like smashing two dolls together and hissing "kiiiiiiss." That ship ain't sailing. The experience that has lead to Tumblr's continued life has been an organic building and following of people, not content. Tumblr is actually social. You want to build something solid, let people OPT-IN to those algorithms, not enable them by default. Let it be a tool to augment their experience rather than "Surrender your flesh. We demand it."

Finally, number 5 is the most heinous one. "Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr." Some of the techniques used are on the edge of having the terms "liability" and "illegal" applied to them. It's particularly bad when they say this:

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

What the actual HELL makes you think that's a good idea? First, if you even think that the notification can get "too noisy" THEY SHOULDN'T BE ON TO BEGIN WITH! "Test what the right daily push notification limit is." The answer is WHATEVER THE USER OPTS-IN TO! "Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off." What in the ever-loving name of <insert deity here> makes you think they want e-mails if they don't want notifications?!

It's because of this I decided not to purchase the "Go Ad-free" membership. If this is any indication of the future, this is not something I want to participate in or fund.

I like it here, damn it. It's not CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME with endless scrolling and just not really paying attention because so much of it has no connection. It's not HEY! LISTEN! on endless repeat and ignoring it anyway because it's likely nothing important. It's not GO HERE AND INTERACT when I want to go elsewhere because that person has a awesome story or funny comic they wrote.

I dumped Facebook because it got annoying. I ditched Twitter because it got boring. I have Youtube Red because my wife and I use it, but I have disabled YouTube Shorts (with various success) because of the doomscrolling. I left Reddit because they basically initiated a strike break.

I'm tired of things like this becoming political. It's not that I don't want Tumblr to make money, but just do it in a way that's not harmful.

I'm so tired. Can I just engage with people for a change?

[govindhtech]

MediaTek Genio’s Wonder: Snorble Children’s Play’s Future!

Due to MediaTek Genio, the Snorble, a Smart Companion for Children, Has Come to Life

What precisely is Snorble, and why does its operation need cutting-edge artificial intelligence and other technological advancements?

Snorble is a revolutionary new intelligent companion toy, and it is driven by a chip manufactured by MediaTek Genio. This toy is at the leading edge because of the innovative method in which it interacts with children and adapts to meet the changing psychological and sleep needs of children as they get older.

The stuffed animal known as Snorble was designed to assist children in establishing not just a regular pattern of restful sleep but also other emotionally wholesome routines, such as positive thinking and mindfulness. It is designed to aid children in accomplishing their goals by hearing, comprehending, and responding to the things that they say to it.

Its face has a moving expression. The ability for parents to keep their Snorbles up to date as their children continue to mature and their needs alter is made possible by the availability of an app for use on smartphones.

In addition to the significant requirements for speech processing and AI processing that this toy has, the technology that powers it must prioritize the privacy and safety of its users. Given that it satisfies all of these characteristics, MediaTek Genio is a fantastic option for accomplishing this objective.

A New Intelligent Companion that Puts Children’s Safety First in the World of Technology has Just Been Released for Young People.

So that it can interact with children and grow with them, Snorble requires sensors that can understand what they are saying and connections that can make product updates easier. Snorble was designed from the bottom up to function without any cameras at all, as an alternative to relying on audio processing that takes place in the cloud or remotely. This action was taken in response to concerns about users’ privacy and safety. Notably, a Wi-Fi connection is not required in order to utilize Snorble on a daily basis like other apps and services.

This eliminates a possible entry point for hackers and boosts mobility (because you do not need a Wi-Fi connection, you are free to take it with you wherever you go since it does not require this). The fact that Snorble executes its processing locally on user devices rather than in the cloud is the primary factor that sets it apart from other voice assistants. When it comes to the specifics of the Snorble’s interaction with the children in their care, parents may have an increased sense of peace of mind as a result of the device’s in-built parental control features, which are included with the product.

The Challenges That Are Presented by Modern Technology

The developers of Snorble needed an ecosystem that could provide all of the following features and functions:

Platform, in both its physical and digital iterations (hardware and software).

Capacity of the central processing unit to manage voice processing for artificial intelligence

Edge AI is a kind of artificial intelligence in which all processing is performed on the device itself, as opposed to being performed on the cloud.

Audio features that are cutting edge, such as the New Language Process (NLP), which can comprehend speech without the need of a dictionary stored in the cloud.

The abbreviation OTA is short for “over the air.”

The MediaTek Genio 350 Is the Solution to This Problem

The CPU that is used in this gadget is the MediaTek Genio 350. This highly integrated System on a Chip (SoC) makes use of a smart Linux application to connect the microphone sensors and run complex artificial intelligence algorithms that are able to genuinely comprehend children and respond with what it is that they need.

In addition, the MediaTek 350 is capable of conducting Edge AI on the smartphone. This includes audio and NLP processing, which may assist with the recognition of words and sounds and even the separation of spoken sentences from a distance, all while decreasing background noise.

Even after a family has purchased a Snorble, the manufacturer has said that it would continue to improve the device by making available for download a variety of extra updates, apps, and features that will broaden the scope of what may be accomplished with the product.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

[ashes-of-alar]

An Open Letter To FR Staff & Users (But Mostly To Staff)

This post will be long and I'm sure one or two people will deem it as brown-nosing staff, so here's a read more because I love my friends and followers and anyone perusing the Flight Rising tag. This is a very long post.

Preemptively, yes, you can reblog and add on, but I probably won't respond, as immediately after posting I'm muting this post.

There are 3 TLDRs under the read more, alongside the bulk of the post. Again. This is very, very long. 2.4k words long. I have 9 years of thoughts rattling around in this post.

TLDR for section 1 (No Wait!! Only Dragon): The art staff needs to draw, adjust and recolor (if this is seen past 3/24/23, over.) 7,244 individual pieces of apparel for every new modern breed (this is including both poses, not just one pose) they add, along with 324 genes (including f pose, m pose and h pose) and make sure all 177 colors with 2,680,125 combinations of colors possible (I.. I think? This is including all 3 poses also. Additionally, if I'm not wrong, they have an algorithm handle coloring to make things easier, but it doesn't change the fact that these still need to all be tested as they come up. Also this doesn't include every gene and gene combo, so uh, you can have fun with THAT math) don't break anything, and paired with their 'no crunch policy' it is no surprise we need to wait 5+ years between modern breeds, and even without modern breeds being taken into consideration, it makes sense that we have glitches with colors and genes just breaking.

TLDR for section 2 (Communication): Staff (Specifically those in positions like Aequorin, where they can be a bridge between coders/artists/etc and users) needs to communicate more with their users in regards to accessibility rollouts, issues with 'ban waves', false multi-account claims, actual multi-accounters being unnoticed for some time, etc. Full stop. The lack of communication can be a bit egregious, but it's slowly gotten better.

TLDR for section 3 (Final Thoughts): Staff messes up. With people they hire, things they do and decisions they make - We see it a lot more because they're effectively 20 or so people being eyeballed by (as of writing this) 4,221 people. So does the userbase. But we don't see that as much because the average user does not have 4.2k eyes on them at any given moment. But they're just a bunch of humans. They still deserve to be treated like them, even if you don't agree with every single thing they do.

v-v-Actual Post-v-v

To start, please know, I have been an active user off and on since 2014. This is not coming from a user who has been coddled by the release of Obelisks and onward. Additionally, I have plenty ill opinions on staff and some of the hills they've decided to dig their heels in on, as they are not perfect, no one is, but I would like to write this post to no one either way. This is more so in regards to their 'no crunch policy' and several other things that I've noticed over the years.

I'll focus on my main and only issue here first, the "no crunch policy." I'm not sure if they've ever quite explained what they mean by that, but, at a glance, it means they don't make their artists rush to finish pieces, which is fine, however it becomes frustrating as a user when they keep, in the case of Aberrations, putting the release off because of a 'no crunch policy.' There is a definite difference between not crunching and ensuring your artists adhere to a release schedule- That is to say if Stormlight Workshop intends to handle Flight Rising like a professional website, then they need to hire artists with the intent of making a set release date, rather than hiring them under the pretense of 'not crunching under any circumstances, ever.' Realistically, we should've gotten Aberrations a little sooner than we did.

Now, staff has said on multiple occasions they are always working on new breeds, and only in the 2020s have we been able to get a good view of that being true, as we have had three Ancient breed releases in the past 12 months alone, a massive step up from the previous release 'schedule' where we got two in 2014 (Coatls, Nocturnes), one in 2016 (Bogsneaks), two in 2019 (Gaoler, Banescale), one in 2020 (Veilspun), one in 2021 (Obelisks), two in 2022 (Aberrations, Undertides) and one (so far) in 2023 (Aethers).

This isn't to be ignorant towards the artists employed at Stormlight Workshop and the fact that artists regularly, without fail, get absolutely shafted when it comes to income VS the work they put in and time constraints, etc, to the point where freelance artists (the average artist you'd commission off of Tumblr or other social networking sites) need to greatly undersell their commissions to even get one commission. For example, an artist who I'd put their art at maybe 45/50$ for one fullbody charged 20$ for a 2 character fullbody with full shading and details, it is that bad when it comes to trying to find work, so I can ABSOLUTELY understand why they'd choose to push for a 'no crunch' policy to give their artist a dang break when it comes to work they receive. However as far as I'm aware, no artists have ever come forward to speak about pay they receive working on Flight Rising assets. This is in no way me claiming they are not paying their artists a fair wage or not paying them at all, this is me saying that no official artist, as far as I am aware, has stated what they are paid and how (gems, USD, etc.), so guesses cannot be made re: hourly pay until then.

This is a very, very long-winded way to say I think the userbase should be a bit.. More understanding re: wait times. I know in recent times, as we've stopped being kids/early 20 year-olds, the agitation in regards to everything has gone down. And I still think the wait can be pretty egregious and I'm hoping we get more modern breeds soon, or a better idea on what release schedules we can look at going forward.

Now. The following segment is not about the art staff and issues in regards to the waits, but the company Stormlight Workshop as a whole. I am not claiming anything I say going forward reflects on the company, workers and staff in a negative light, nor am I claiming any/all of these bans were done to 'get back' at a user, were done 'incorrectly/in error' or were done without reason. These things happen with sites like Flight Rising where they have a smaller staff and cannot 100% screen every single ban/email inquiry re: a false ban/etc. But the communication is an issue all the same.

Moving onto other my secondary, significantly lesser issue is the lack of communication regarding this stuff. Staff - User communication should be kept at a minimum without being cold, snarky, standoffish, etc, (sort of like the behavior Aequorin(? i think that's how you spell her name) displays with users, she can be serious at times and silly others, it depends on the context really!) lest we get sites like PokeFarm Q where the site owner/main coder can be a total jerk and traumadump to a userbase consisting primarily of mentally ill minors while having no repercussions. However, the issue with this comes in when we don't have details regarding breed releases, actual ETA dates for when we're getting (for example) achievements back. Additionally there are some lesser promises that have fallen through that we've gotten no word on, such as more merchandise like the pins we never got, and why it can be such a complete pain in the butt to get Wildclaw scrolls and why they've only been in circulation for a total that's around a month when stuck back to back when they were intended to more 'regularly' cycle. (The post I saw claimed a cumulative 20 - 40 days? I don't recall exactly.)

Additionally, there are the, at times, false ban waves that staff goes on every once in a blue moon that makes a subset of the community lose their collective minds. I have been friends with two users affected by this. One I will not give details to, as they are back on-site under a new account (which is permitted under the pretense they give up on getting their old account back), but her husband and her both got banned. Staff can be very inconsistent with who does and does not get banned for multiaccounting, even while reporting is taken into account, as I've seen what I deemed to be a pretty blatant case not get taken care of for quite some time, when reported.

However I am aware this is very likely a case of personal bias. I am very aware that this is a topic that is very personal to me as I lost a pair of dragons to someone being banned unfairly for multiaccounting (context: they admitted they had an acc prior to their current one on the forums and got banned), and even when they relented the account and just asked that the dragons to be sent back to me, staff refused, per their TOS re: dragon ownership (once it leaves the original owner's lair, ownership is forfeit, so technically they weren't mine anymore). The final case I can think of here is when a user known best for their darker lore and was widely disliked for it being 'problematic' (see: it was dark, and people did not like that) was falsely flagged for multiaccounting and had their account locked, and staff eventually just stopped responding to their emails, so they gave up on waiting and made a new account. (I know that this was false because the user who flagged them admitted to it.)

Next are the many complaints regarding accessibility. Starting at the landing page on the site, it is VERY bright- Painfully so- And those with migraines, eye issues, so on and so forth, are not permitted within site rules to even use an addon to change the way the site looks. I won't do a deep dive into the issues with this, but they claim they 'will see' about a dark mode in the future. I am somewhat photosensitive. Not in the 'rapidly flashing, bright colors can give me a seizure' way, but more in the 'this can give me a migraine' kind of way, so while it is less harmful for me to have it open in a low-lit room, it still isn't particularly pleasant. Even sites several years it's predecessor, like Dragon Cave, even have alternate color schemes for their website, so I never quite understood the logic.

That is to say that things like this are not excusable, especially the lack of a darkmode and basic accessibility features regarding familiar bonding being marginally less painful to do than clicking and pressing left on your keyboard up to 215 times (this is 100% excluding those who bond ALL of their familiars every single day. they are not being counted in here, as even if they are disabled, they are making the intentional decision to bond 1102 familiars every day even if it hurts them) and that is a 'lesser' task that one can do in maybe 5 - 15 minutes if they're on the Desktop version of the website.

The coli captcha being changed was an incredible step forward, one that I'm very pleasantly surprised we actually got. And that's why I think we need to push more on these things in a respectful way. Key emphasis on respect. You obviously won't get anywhere being too gentle and kind and letting staff get away with ableism like the lack of a darkmode and banning of those who use applications to make the screen dark so they can use the site.. It doesn't make the site out to be a very friendly website to users who suffer from various disabilities. But they are making changes to help that. Several users enjoy writing in tiny, barely visible text, so they added a 'toggle text style off or on for this post.'

I know full well that no war was ever won with kindness, but you need to avoid making a donkey of yourself on the public forums- Especially ones where the minimum age is 13. Calling staff stupid/incompetent/nasty names is hurtful, even if you DO feel that way and it's a knee-jerk reaction to the lack of accessibility they seem to be digging their heels in on, that's just not how the real world actually goes.

This is not to say that staff is exempt of criticism, if anything they need to be critiqued more than they are in constructive ways that don't come off guns blazing.

All of this is to say that staff's communication, as a whole, not just about, say, a delay or two, but rather developer updates, needs to be done much better. I feel like I should actively be seeing more developers talking about what's going on rather than just Aequorin sniping misbehaving users and locking a thread, or Undel talking about what she's wanting to update next (for the encyclopedia, full disclosure, nothing too interesting.)

Going three pages into the dev tracker I have only seen the following administrators: Aequorin, Undel, Kaepora and Mutron. Aequorin seems to do a lot of the heavy lifting regarding engaging with the community, which makes sense, she's the community manager, but I sincerely think there needs to be more communication going on, more updates and such that aren't .

I could just be saying that as I feel every website, especially sites like this where a lot of it is on the users to make the fun out of the game, could benefit from more clear, concise communication. I am not asking a lot, I don't think at least, for them to maybe get one or two more community managers and hold more regular Q&A sessions like they used to. It is not right that we need to claw at staff for some of the things that we've gotten after 10 years, and it's not right that staff needs to shake us off their legs like rabid dogs from time-to-time because of a misstep they made that makes a small and very vocal subset of the community go ballistic, which sends ripples out to other parts of the community.

That's about all I have to say. I've been writing this nonstop for almost 3 hours, and I honestly can't think of anything else I have to say. Sorry if it's disjointed/doesn't make sense at times. I guess my very last thought is I don't know what I'd do to change the issues I have. I'd say monthly updates on various aspects of the site or maybe a Q&A, as I feel that's a fair request, given that's the average amount of updates a Kickstarter game gets, but that could prove annoying, frustrating or just ineffective in practice.

But again, I want to put emphasis on this: None of this is in any way, shape or form meant to reflect badly on Stormlight Workshop as a company or it's employees. This is merely a series of opinions I have in regards to Flight Rising, Stormlight Workshop and the staff behind Flight Rising.