I don’t think there’s anything in the Fediverse meant to support the family updates use case.

We use giant SMS text message threads for that.

For more privacy, we get everyone to use Signal or XMPP with OMEMO.

A “real answer” is rarely as credible as an article with quotes including time and place, as well as citing statistics and peer reviewed studies.

Depends what kind of learning is needed. Fixing a car, I have found rando-on-the-Internet to be a far more effective resource, than peer reviewed sanitized but irrelevant information.

Different tools for different needs, and all that.

People are even writing entire fanfictions about current events to fit their narrative.

Impossible!

(This is sarcasm, meant to purposefully demonstrate your point.)

This does not address the searchability issue

Search will always be a challenge, but my understanding is that WordPress is as well or better optimized for search than any thing else that exists.

or the complexity and cost of self hosting.

WordPress is the single most hosted app in existence, I think.

I want less friction for the user who is only focused on publishing and does not care much to own their infrastructure.

You just described WordPress.

Edit: I don’t even like WordPress. Lol. But I still think you’re dismissing a likely 80% or better solution to your problem, if you don’t look into WordPress.

For creating an RSS feed, WordPress will certainly get the job done.

but most of the world considers them to be right wing.

Yep. I’m fiscally conservative, mildly sympathetic to people who fear and resist change, and fond of the pragmatic pursuit of libertarian ideals, where that’s possible.

I also feel that how others do sex is none of my damn business, taxes supporting social services are necessary, and equitably applied rule of law is critical for any real economic prosperity.

On the scale of history, I suspect that makes me centrist or even a moderate conservative.

In my country, and today, somehow, astonishingly, this combination makes me what most would call very left leaning.

I feel that the right has gone insane and continues to alienate people who might otherwise have been allies.

I’m sticking with popular layouts, so far. That way I can get a pre-printed board, standard size keys, and a pre-printed case.

I’m not familiar enough with the keyboard you’re trying to replicate to say whether an existing popular design can be adapted.

(Edit: Searching up images of the board, I suspect you can achieve your vision for a flattened version by adapting existing popular recipes and using standard sized key caps.)

As long as the keys aren’t wild shapes, you’re probably fine. If you need special shapes and sizes, you may be able to order something close enough from a hobbyist with a 3d printer. There seems to be a good number of folks out there supporting us newbies for relatively cheap.

I know some folks go as far as getting their own board printed, and 3d printing custom key shapes.

I’m still working on my first custom board, myself, and decided to stick with a popular PCB.

Price doesn’t seem to be too much of an issue, if you can find someone making the board layout that you want.

Like any hobby, you can spend as much as you want.

But I think your budget should be very doable if you’re willing to go your own soldering.

Open the pod Bay doors, HAL…

HAL, open the pod bay doors!

Oh. This is seriously cool. Thank you.

The arbitrary standard for the censorship in Fediverse is extremely bad.

“The pirates code… Be more like… guidelines.”

Yeah. The litigation risk is considered high right now, and no one wants to be first to try it.

Which I totally get. This place is largely run by volunteers, after all.

We saw similar hesitation in the early days of WordPress/Wikipedia/Drupal proliferation. Eventually those solutions greatly enabled sites like BlogSpot and Tumblr to become wild places, and niche sites to pop up for stuff that BlogSpot and Tumblr didn’t want to touch.

I can think of a few specific anti-spam and security tools that strongly enabled casual admins of WordPress to start sites.

I think we will see an erotic golden age once Fediverse moderation tools cross some unknown usability threshold.

Edit: I come across here as really excited about porn. Lol.

Art has a long history of being erotic, and beauty appreciation is one of the better things technology can do.

I am also really excited for the rest of the content that will thrive after demand for porn has pushed the technology to maturity.

I’m not sure what to do.

On Mastodon, I used the search function to shotgun random topics that interest me, and then followed all the hashtags on the posts that came up.

Over time, I started replacing following hashtags with following my favorite users who I discovered through those hashtags.

Then I started discovering and following their favorite users through their boosts.

Now that my feed is pretty much where I want it I tend to click “hide boosts” on anyone new that I follow, to prevent their every random amusement from cluttering my feed.

The end result is fantastic, but it took awhile to get there.

stopped talking to me once I said I didn’t have instagram, because it meant I was “hiding something”.

That’s awful.

Also, I guess they would think I’m hiding so much, considering the number of bloated awful services I’ve rejected.

You’re doing better than I am. I just bullshit them and say I’ll “probably check it out later.” By which I really mean whenever it gets reposted on a less shitty technology platform, in a few decades. But I don’t say that part.

Yeah! I think that’s going to sway in this place’s favor very soon.

I predict a glorious age of the very best curated pornography being here.

As other preferred platforms enshitify, I expect a lot of innovate erotic sensual and/or dirty artists (new and established) to have a dynamic, accessible, profitable experience here.

It’s probably going to be very horny, but also really beautiful in a lot of pro-social ways.

I would also say that your comment would be a thousand times more damning than upvoting every comment/post critical of Musk.

Yeah. If I were out as my real name, John Jacob Jinglehimer Schmidt, then I wouldn’t make these comments.

If votes were anonymous here, I might “come out” as my professional self and share more from my resources that can be used to Identity who I am.

I’m concerned that my voting pattern is probably already being collected to build a profile on MajorHavok, to decide whether MajorHavok should be favored or disfavored in anything owned by old Elon or Zuck or Bezos.

Elon is a fuck up, but he still owns a lot of places that I might need to use for my work.

So, for now, it’s pretty important to me that MajorHavok and John Jacob Jinglehimer Schmidt are kept as separate identities, so that John’s employability where Elon/Zuck/Bezos has influence will remain unaffected.

Yeah. I wouldn’t have guessed.

Maybe they’re not? It feels like these deals, in technology, are usually due to investors gambling that two unprofitable companies smooshed together will strike gold.

“No border, no nation, no gods, no masters, never gonna…” got me good. As bad as other things are, this is a delightful moment in the Fediverse, and you’re all a delight to share it with.

You’re delusional.

We have established that. It doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

Show me evidence that “the Windows kernel” is going away.

That’s what my other examples are evidence for. I’m extrapolating a trend I’ve seen many times before. I could easily be wrong.

I’m not stressing over it though, because I’m happy being a delusional old person.

My dude have you not seen marketshare for Chrome and Safari?

Yes. And it supports my point. Here’s the source code to Chrome: https://github.com/chromium/chromium

Here’s the license: https://github.com/chromium/chromium/blob/main/LICENSE

And here’s the source code to Safari: https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit

There’s an advertising campaign by the current big players that everyone may as well accept their bullshit, because everyone else does.

I’m telling you, from experience, that putting up with that (current) bullshit is temporary.

They’ll innovative new bullshit, of course. That’s how the pattern goes.