misfiled as "Keet, Electric" @ElectricKeet@awoo.space

"No, $software is fine, users just need to learn how to use it"

"That's a stupid feature, nobody should ever need that"

If you've spent any amount of time in FOSS circles, you've probably seen sentiments like that all over the place. Unfortunately, they're a big part of why dubious corporations (eg. Microsoft, Google, etc.) have been able to co-opt the FOSS community.

Why? Because regardless of what you, as a technical FOSS person, believe is "necessary"... users are not going to care about that. They have certain expectations from their software in terms of feature set and ease-of-use.

Either you meet those expectations, or users go elsewhere.

Now, "it's FOSS, it gives you freedom" can sway that decision *somewhat*, but it only gets you so far. Most people care more about getting their stuff done, than they care about (to them) abstract ideals of "freedom".

And because of that, you're setting yourself up to be vulnerable to corporate capture - because corporations can superficially *claim* to do FOSS, but provide an actually accessible user experience, and suddenly everybody flocks to the corporate thing.

And sure, corporate FOSS has real problems compared to community-run FOSS. But understanding that requires a degree of nuance that most people won't see, and that you frankly cannot expect from people for whom FOSS isn't their whole existence. It's specialized knowledge.

Which boils down to a very simple reality: either *you* provide the UX that users want, or a corporation will do it for you, and with none of the community governance and long-term sustainability. Those are the options.

A great example of this is systemd; yes, it has plenty of problems. But because of the widespread insistence in FOSS circles that "nobody needs more than SysVinit", everybody flocked to an actually usable alternative the moment it appeared, monolithic design and corporate governance be damned.

Don't be that person. Listen to users about their needs. Take complaints about UX and accessibility seriously. If you don't, then you're not helping FOSS; you're harming it.

saw someone posting pictures of cool building with graffiti on it --> cool! click expand on the cw to read the post --> "it would be prettier without the graffiti"
yep that's a block from me, dog

No Nut November, the first of the food allergy themed months followed by Milk Substitute December and Gluten Free January.

Anyway the entire world is going to crap and I’m having an off day #drawing so have a couple of Baphomets I drew, which is what did work out okay.

Now that it's officially out, we should plug it in #ttrpg - we made a tabletop roleplaying game for a podcast jam! https://packbat.itch.io/ltmawp

The series premise is that we're doing an actual-play where, every episode, we create and play a new mini roleplaying game to act as the next chapter of the story. In this pilot episode, us and our cohost Em make a game for the prologue/pre-credits scene of a YA creature horror story, and the result is fascinatingly creepy - I hope y'all enjoy it!

- 🎒 ✨

The 2022 Ace Community Survey is now open and everyone is welcome to submit their responses! It’s a yearly survey that explores the demographics and the experiences of people in the ace communities around the world – but everyone is welcome to answer, including people who are unsure or non-ace!

Here’s the link to the introductory post with the translation guides: https://acecommunitysurvey.org/2022/10/24/the-2022-ace-community-survey-is-now-open/

#asexuality #asexual #AceWeek

BIG AND GREEN AND STRONG AND HORNY
THE HULK FROM IPANEMA GOES WALKING
AND WHEN HE WALKS NEAR PUNY HUMANS
HULK SMASH

One of the most frustrating things about wildlife photography is you're entirely at the whims of nature regarding lighting.

Which makes moments like these all the more wonderful. ^_^

#WildlifePhotography

The podcast jam we joined just wrapped up! https://itch.io/jam/one-mic-stand

The episodes go up on The Podcast Mines - https://the-podcast-mines.pinecast.co/ - this coming Friday, but they're up on Itch right now if you wanna dig in! Ours is "Laying the Mechanics As We Play" - https://packbat.itch.io/ltmawp - and we're really proud of it: us and our cohost make and play an RPG to create the prologue to a YA creature horror novel.

...but also, y'know what? We're gonna post about the ones we listen to in this thread. :D

- 🎒 ✨