Bradley D. Thornton Bradley at NorthTech.US
Sun Feb 21 11:30:42 GMT 2021
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What we have here, is a little cancel culture fun goin' on ;)
Let's play paint the asshats into a corner, shall we? You decide whichfolks get loaded on the train to oblivion okay?
What I'm really upset about here, is the fact that the last bambi Imurdered for food got incinerated coz I couldn't get it down off themountaiin when my part of the mountain was engulfed by the fires. Ibarely made it out myself, and were it not for a grower who knew I wasprobably still on the mountain and completely unaware of the evacuationorders, I would have been cooked myself.
So I come back, to what, this? Hey I took couple of glances at the listand how the Gemini space has grown, along with the explosive adoption ofthis experimental protocol and though to myself, "Man, it's still in thespirit of the old NSFnet AUP - that's awesome.
Now I learn that someone is disrespecting me. This will not stand.
For the better part of two decades, my friends and colleagues on theGopher list have chided me for my refusal to accept proxies which permitpeople to use HTTP protocol to access my gopherholes. Yet in that time,I have NEVER come accross an administrator who outright refused toaccept my personal **choice** to disallow such proxies to invade mynetwork space.
It may be not in alignment with what others have wanted, in order torepopularize the Gopher protocol, but I am, and always have been, a firmbeliever that if you want to surf any protocol space, then you shoulduse the tools specifically designed for those purposes. I lamented theremoval of Gopher protocol from the **browsers*, and subesquently,cogitated over why one would even bother having an http:// in theaddress bar if that's ultimately going to be the only supported methodof browsing, all of this while Geocities went lights out and Angelfirestopped showing up in SERPs... and people became the dopamine enslavedproperty of private enterprise that butcherd and packaged and wrapped usin celophane with a price tag as they placed us into inventory.
So here comes this new thang using TCP 1965 and I'm like, "Okay, kewl!That's how we extend Gopher to a new beginning without damaging it orcrippling the backward compatibility of it, and we can leave port 70alone, without losing what is so great about the protocol!"
From the lessons learned in hindsight with respect to functionality andutility, Gemini introduced a novel methodology that is, or at least wasuntil a couple of days ago, adventerous, experimental, with thatsensible utility and above all, not afraid to examine ideas and kickthem around a bit.
I was so excited when the first time Gemini space delivered to me analmost discernable ANSI graphics file. I know most of you weren't evenborn when that was a thing, long before most everyone here was privy toARPANET access. But it was a big deal for me.
And now, instead of simply discussing the virtues that include the prosand cons, with demonstrated test cases, some latecomers are showing up,drawing lines in the sand with their divisive sticks, and making threatsagainst the people who have put in the hard work and actually builtGemini in the first place? How dare you?
To see the creators and original pioneers, so to speak, of the Geminiprotocol threatened and bullied like this? Especially the gentlemenwhose servers most everyone in Gemini space actually run themselves?
I dunno what Faceplant taught y'all, but if it was kneejerk reactionsare something you think is a noble thing then maybe you learned well,and maybe you should just keep on Faceplanting and cutting off a fewmore pounds of flesh for Google, and those who would refuse to respectthe wishes of server admins that don't want their services bastardizedby proxies delivering their content to people in HTTP space.
Now, threatening people like the authors of Amfora, and Jetforce, andGLV-1.12556 (the first ever Gemini server)? Man that's not just badform, it's borderline ad homonym - a bannable offense in most treatisesof netiquette. The people I've just mentioned are the people who madepossible your very enjoyment of this novel service answering on TCP1965, and you have the audacity to dangle deplatforming at them? Do youwish to incite a Hatfield and McCoy like volley?
I don't think so. Chill, have a crumpet, watch an old episode of Lost inSpace, or listen to a a good death metal band live in concert, or astring quartet performing Bach - whatever floats your boat and takes youto that happy place of yours. If you don't, everyone will end up withurine on their pant legs and that's stinky, to say the least.
Now, I've personally just discovered Lagrange, and I must say I'menamored of it. It fricken' rocks and at this time is my goto GUI clientfor Gemini (and Gopher). My fav is however, still Elpher, and no, I'mstill a Vim guy, but that's okay. I've seen people rave about how kewlother clients are, some I like, some I feel are lacking with respect tomy needs, and ALL of that is okay. I even prefer using some reallyrickety old and unmaintained CLI based clients.
So let's talk not talk about ultimatums, but instead, about choices.About user choices and about server admin choices and the rules theyadopt as their acceptable use policies. If a server admin says, "Youcan't put up content on my servers with favicons - then fricken' don'tdo that!
but don't be an asshat and say you'll ban the IPs of people usingclients that support a feature you can otherwise prohibit yourrespective userbase as part of your terms of service, or threaten tolobby for the deplatforming of well meaning, enthusiastic developers -that's childish, that's juvenile, that's moronic.
That's as stupid as the crippleware that Tusky became when it violatedthe philosophy of FOSS and user empowerment by hardcoding philosophyinto the client. You take away the empowerment of the user and you're nobetter than Dorsey or Ellison or Zuckerberg or ABC... Don't be evil myass, that's exactly what ABC has become.
If a user says, I don't want favicons coz I'll get tracked (ridiculousreasoning, but as valid as any other preference), then either use aclient that doesn't support that or find the dev of your fav client andask them if they'll integrate such configurability into their clientthat allows you to hold the pickles and lettuce. Special orders reallydon't upset them, and if you do it in the form of a patch or pullrequest, even better!
You need to realize that you're speaking to creators - people who liketo build things, and more often than not, it actually makes their daywhen they know someone likes their product enough to ask for a featureto be added. That's actually flattery man!, Flatter them. Thank them.Let them know, as a consumer of their products that you have things youthink would be beneficial.
That's how you affect change.
Or you can threaten. And cancel yourself.
The truth about tracking, is that you can't do anything about stopping aprovider from attempting to do so. You're in their syslogs, theirfirewall logs, and they can fingerprint you from other remote resources.No one, that I'm aware of here, is interested in tracking anyone inGemini space. That will not always be the case, and already there arethose who are in earnest betrayal of the trust of this community, and asis typical, those people are the individuals that are clamoring theloudest for control, slinging threats, and engaging in ad homonym.
I'm seeing all kinds of new ideas and proposals and questions put intoexperimentation for feasibility and that's part of what Project Geminiis about (for example:gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/~ew/2020/20201217-towards-a-proper-flightlog-4.gmi), some fly, some don't. Some are adopted even though the use cases arenarrow while others are popular and detested by many - for those lattercases, we have three choices, that of user configurability, that ofserver administrative policy, and official canonization into the spec.That third item of remediation is, of course, the weakest of allremedies when a popular functionality is the topic. Anyone can fork anexisting project and launch a death star. Don't kid yourselves, and itwill happen. It already has actually, there's a Richard Cranium outthere in Gemini space disrespecting robots.txt - and that's a very real,clear, and imminent threat to privacy.
I hope that helps :)
-- Bradley D. ThorntonManager Network Serviceshttp://NorthTech.USTEL: +1.310.421.8268