When I opened up Lemmy this morning I could not believe my eyes. The top story was a headline from Forbes stating:
« ‘Open Source And Ethical’ TikTok, WhatsApp And Instagram Alternatives Could Transform Social Media ».
The article mostly focused on #Pixelfed and did a fairly good job explaining how #ActivityPub works. But they spelled #Mastodon « Mastadon » over and over again with no links to it. Yikes.
B for the effort, but please editors do better!
Please join me in a round of applause for @elduvelle who, after reading my toot, reached out to the Forbes journalist, pointing out the "Mastadon" typo.
The typo has been fixed and the article is even linking to https://joinmastodon.org now
It just occurred to me that the Forbes article uses a stock photo of a hand holding up a smartphone with a bunch of apps from mainstream, for-profit social media... even if the piece is about the #Fediverse.
So on my to do list for today: recreating a similar photo showing Fediverse software instead. Like, how my actual phone looks like.
As a photographer, I feel it's my duty to do this.
I will give the pic a CC BY-ND license. Thoughts?
And fellow photographers will you join in?
My best shot at a stock photo for the #Fediverse, showing its most popular projects.
Please show some mercy, I am not a hand model (obvi) and my masking skills are a little rusty.
If some photographers would like to improve it, I could share my original photo and screenshot.
Hilariously, when I opened the tripod my bracelet got stuck in it and I semi-panicked for a few moments because I was home alone... with a tripod stuck to my wrist. Thankfully I managed to free myself
@_elena The author's probably never used it themselves—all their own social links are corporate.
@rfg spot on. While reading the article my top thought was: this journalist has never used any of these tools - and has probably never even visited any of their websites
But props for how they described decentralization and how ActivityPub works
@_elena its impressive to me that we trust them to be honest about who the top list of the richest people in the world is but they dont even use spellcheck before posting an article
@_elena weird, almost makes it looks like they misspelled Mastodon on purpose.
If it was deliberate it won't stop people finding Mastodon.
If you put the incorrect spelling into google the top search result is still
second is the wikipedia article about mastodon.
But, I am using a plugin to block the google AI crap.
@kingsleybugarin @ruisdeeltje good to know!
@ruisdeeltje @_elena Yeah we got the Peter Griffin enunciation on there.
@_elena I had never tried lemmy before, and it’s fabulous, thanks!
@_elena great and not so great, it illustrates why we are in the political fascist mess we are in here right now with the main stream media…
Either they have no clue, no educated opinion or they simply don’t care and they are acting as if stupidity is a virtue.
@xs4me2 tangentially-related but it makes me a little sad that the news media would only acknowledge the existence of the Fediverse when there is money involved.
I'm thrilled for the success of Pixelfed's Kickstarter campaign but Dan has been working on it tirelessly for 7 YEARS. Hello news media, why didn't you mention Pixelfed before?
Aw capitalism (ew)
@_elena @xs4me2 In defence, I don't think that's the reason. It's being reported on now because the official apps are publicly available having been in beta-limbo forever. Following their release, exposure on TikTok and insta resulted in user numbers rocketing. Tech media began to report on it, and now news media, as a result of Pixelfed entering the conversation. News media aren't likely to report on a beta app used by a relatively negligible number of people.
The problem is, it is not big news nor big politics, while the influence of social media and its weaponization now is. And no-one saw that coming. He who has the biggest megaphone has the attention nowadays… that is why democratic open source alternatives are so important.
Concerning the content, the span is in the now, we are more and more living in the moment… same goes for the news-media, its the clicks… its the hype…
@_elena Ew neoliberal capitalism indeed… sad.
@_elena Oh no. The Mastodon misspelling curse continues, after nearly 25 years.
(I joined the Power Rangers fandom in 2001 and it was a glaring issue there.)
@jedimb @_elena hYou're talking about modern writers. They're lucky they know how to use punctuation and some sort of proper grammar, let alone how to spell things correctly! But if it makes you feel any better, here is a quote from 1907 about newspapers. Unlike most of my grammars, it was written by an American, so I cannot say whether the same held true in England. Sadly, though, I can say that today, the quality of writing, and especially speech at the BBC is terrible in most cases, though there are some exceptions.
"Our newspapers are almost universally characterized by provincial and vulgar diction. (There are a few honorable exceptions.) An expression like " Rev. Clifford has proven himself a hustler" is no more justified by the wide currency of similar expressions in the newspapers than " has went " is justified by wide currency in conversation. General newspaper usage has nothing whatever to do with good English usage." EDWIN C. WOOLLEY
I’ve noticed that this “mastADon” misspelling is a thing. Seen it a few times on Reddit. I wonder if the drunken goblins that run autocorrect on our devices have now learned it that way for some of those users after repeated typos.
My drunken goblin has some favorite “corrections” for sure
@astroPug I know right? the misspelling is SO COMMON, I see it ALL the time.
Italian is my first language and when I write in English I invariably spell-check - especially if I'm writing an article for my blog. Imagine not spell-checking something that gets published on an actual news media site?
Seeing "Mastadon" in the press makes me a little angry every time it happens.
@dandylover1 @_elena @astroPug moreover, I know for a fact that eloquence consistently mispronounces mastodon as mastadon, and I think it's not the only one, that's why blog posts on the sites of several blindness organizations had it misspelled for a while. Braille displays help here a lot, but the issue is that afew companies have a monopoly on braille technology, which in turn makes a lot of even medium quality equipment prohibitively expensive unless you're in highly developed countries, such as the US
@_elena Thanks for letting us know! I sent a message to the author asking to correct the typo (from his personal website), we'll see if it works..
@elduvelle that's amazing, thank you so much for this!
I wanted to do that today but I had to take care of my little one (breakfast, getting dressed, pre-school dropoff). I just got home from her school. I'm so thankful for your email to the author!
@_elena Spell checkers are there for a reason, but I guess some would think they give fake info.
@_elena And mastodon is an actual word while mastadon is not, so they must not use spellcheck!
@_elena It seems they've fixed it, thankfully.
That said, I find the MastAdon misspelling interesting, because to me it's obvious that it's not spelled with an A because I'd pronounce that differently, but apparently a lot of speakers pronounce these two spellings the same. I wonder if it's native English speakers generally, or perhaps to do with dialects.
@stveje that's amazing! @elduvelle had reached out to the author about the typo. Great job!
@_elena That sounds like a great idea!
Consider making one with the official apps only, and one with a bunch of third-party alternative apps as well as (or instead of) the official ones. Showcase how Fedi encourages software diversity.
@mkj great point! My iPhone has Impressia, Ivory, Mastodon, Mona, Pixelfed, Surf, Voyager (for Lemmy) and Wordpress (for my federated Wordpress blogs).
I was thinking of removing Impressia (for simplicity) and Wordpress (confusing). Not sure what should be on it, just Mastodon and Pixelfed seems too few.
Maybe: Mastodon, Pixelfed, Loops and PeerTube? Is there something else for Lemmy? I could create a shortcut on my phone for lemmy.world
@_elena For Lemmy you can take a look here: https://join-lemmy.org/apps
For the rest, who knows if there are web apps in ios like for Android. Friendica for example on Android allows you to install the web app. On ios I don't know
@informapirata thanks! I added a shortcut to lemmy.world in that folder and it looks really nice. I think it's supposed to be a representation of Fediverse platforms (the photo) so even if one shortcut is not technically an app, I think it should do (I use Voyager for Lemmy)
@informapirata @_elena Seems like iOS lets you add a link to an arbitrary web page to the home screen. https://www.brandeis.edu/its/support/website-shortcut.html
@mkj @informapirata I have this so far.
Now taking a photo of my hand holding the phone while home alone is proving tricky. I will see if I can slap this onto a ready-made phone mockup
@_elena Great start!
And surely you must have a tripod (or even just a monopod) somewhere in the attic?
@mkj thanks! yes of course I have tripods (3 even!) but I need to switch cameras and use one with a remote.
Also: light/glare is a bit of an issue, an already made mockup would work so much better. Like this: https://elements.envato.com/a-hand-holding-phone-mockup-GS69TBH
@_elena A stock image as a backdrop does have an additional advantage in adding a little privacy.
@_elena Semi-related; I sometimes find myself looking for stock photography. Would you say that particular site has decent terms for both buyers and sellers, or is it just one you found at the other end of a web search to show an example of the type of image you had in mind? If the latter, do you have any go-to sites for stock photos that you can recommend?
@_elena non credo che nessuno abbia mai fatto una fotografia a un cellulare acceso per pubblicarla. L'unica possibilità di ottenere un risultato decente è quella di appiccicare lo screenshot in post elaborazione
Poi magari l'iPhone ha uno schermo così figo che puoi anche evitare di fare questo lavoro, ma credo che la cosa migliore sia lo screenshot
@_elena If at some point you want to do an update, I quickly edited it so that it has the original Lemmy logo and the new/future Loops logo.
No hurry, maybe it can wait the new version of Loops being released, and maybe it’s easier just to retake an updated screenshot at some point of the future with whatever apps are relevant at that time. Simply got an itch to “fix” those :)
@_elena I think the confusion aspect can be up to whoever wants to use the photo(s). Someone making a more technically oriented blog post might want to showcase the diversity; a mainstream media article might want to go for the relative simplicity of just the official apps which are named like the respective server-side implementation.
Just be sure to put them in a "Fediverse" folder in both cases.
@_elena CC-BY-ND is a good choice
@_elena You are completely on the right track, Elena. Also a good time to point out how much I admire your enthusiasm!
From a recent trip to Germany, I brought home a Fairphone 5. Let me know if I can help out with a photo of Fedi apps on such screen.
@everydayisextra thank you!
@_elena why not create a jpg that looks like a fediverse phone, put it in the phone as wallpaper, then you can set up the phone and photograph it with your camera or another phone without the screen getting dim?
@everydayisextra @_elena How are you liking the Fairphone? I would LOVE one especially if #grapheneos (I know it doesn't) would work on it. We can dream can't we?
@_elena lol hilarious
@_elena
You could even suggest it to Forbes.
Good observation. I din't even notice.
@_elena Better CC-licensed stock photos than Getty's but stock photos are used by news outlets to grab attention and clicks, not convey information. Their use is a symptom of that industry's rot.
@_elena Thanks, great idea! I strongly suggest the CC BY-SA license instead. This would allow:
1. Others to build on your good work, such as by swapping out, or adding, an app icon on the smartphone screen with another Fediverse app.
2. Still require attribution to you *without* implying endorsement.
3. Allow improvements to accessibility such as translations.
4. Allow easier incorporation into other things such as embedding the image in slides for a presentation about the Fediverse, etc.
@nacly @_elena +1 for staying away from CC BY-NC and using CC BY or CC BY-SA instead. This way it could also be shared with Wikimedia Commons repository! https://commons.wikimedia.org/