💾 Archived View for gemini.ctrl-c.club › ~stack › gemlog › 2021-11-06.%E2%99%8A.marking.gmi captured on 2022-01-08 at 14:01:36. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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It seems that many Gemini users want to discourage posting about Gemini and instead encourage a variety of posts on various other topics. That is understandable as we don't want to become a stackexchange. But technical posts about Gemini protocol and implementation curiosities are both important and necessary. The technological sophistication of many Gemini users is of great value, and should not be a source of shame. Instead, perhaps we can mark our Gemini-related tech posts with with ♊- the 'Gemini' unicode glyph - to indicate a deep tech post.
I am seeing daily posts along the lines of 'deleting tech rants', 'no longer posting about Gemini' etc. In a post today, user flow joins the ranks, saying among other interesting things,
I'm personally a real amateur techie just barely capable of spinning up a server and running free software.
I've been writing code for like 40 years, and I don't know if I am _at all_ capable of spinning up a server. Flow, maybe you should continue posting about Gemini, starting with how to spin up a server!
Personally I have a love-hate relationship with technology. I certainly don't want technology as seen in our everyday lives. My kids are now completely incapable of having a conversation, watching a film, or eating a meal without scrolling whatever app-de-jeur on their phones. Mainweb is a horror show - I run in to do banking or to to register my car and run out disgusted. Don't even start me about the 'influencers'.
But tech holds a special place for me. Coding is a respite from noise, a zen practice, a place to flex my mind and learn something new. It's a place of great joy that's been with me my entire life. I am not ashamed of it, and I do not want to replace it. I don't want to lose the posts about it either. In fact I want more tech posts - I noticed that many tech users have an http or gopher areas with some really interesting stuff - bring them here, please!
I understand that not everyone wants to read about how to get sed to do the right thing on the command line or improve their vim configuration. Why not mark such posts with a gear?
Gemini is young, and the 'construction crew' is here, visible to all. We post our thoughts - sometimes good, other times mediocre, here, in our gemlogs. We respond to others, bicker, and slap each other on the back. This is not infighting or animosity - just a social interaction. Have you ever seen how puppies play? Biting another dog's cheek and dragging it around the dog run looks scary to us non-dogs, but amazingly no blood is shed and the dogs are happy.
Until the Gemiverse settles into different corners, we have a few aggregators that pick up all kinds of posts. That is actually great, and I will miss it when things will naturally get more specialized. Perhaps it would be sufficient for those who dislike reading about tech to have a distinct visual mark such as ♊ or ⚙ that indicates that what follows is a geek post to avoid.