Quicky

Yeah, and that’s fair enough. I hope it does get revisited.

Haha don’t put it on me, I’m merely a consumer!

You’ve already suggested feddit.uk, why not use that for UK Voyager installs? Anything that isn’t an instance that they can’t actually use would be good.

Speculatively, but it would assume prior research, which many people simply won’t do. If a de-facto app (say Voyager on iOS) offers a default option that’s unavailable for a selection of its potential users, it’s another hurdle within onboarding that is already the biggest barrier to entry. If we want to grow as a platform (more users equals more content), putting up a default wall saying “your kind aren’t welcome” to entire countries seems obtuse.

Yes, those potential new UK users can get around it by picking another instance, but the question is how many will give up if they can’t get over the first hurdle.

The suggestion of changing the default instance by region, where those instances prohibit specific regions seems logical enough to me.

It’s not actually complying with UK law, it’s removing it from the equation so it doesn’t have to. I don’t begrudge the decision though, it will have been a difficult choice to make. That said, it’s a sledgehammer approach to self-censorship, as a response to an inability to comply.

Like I say, I don’t have an issue with Lemmy.zip being unavailable in the UK. But I do think it is potentially damaging for Fediverse uptake to promote a default instance that is unavailable to such a large number of users.

For comparison purposes, the UK easily has the second highest number of Reddit users by country. It is a remarkable decision to exclude that potential market by default.

Yep, a region check that sets an alternative default for countries that are blocked by the default server makes way more sense than the default being inaccessible for them.

I’m not sure that the answer to a government’s regulation of the Internet should be an individual’s blocking of access for an entire country. Seems like 2 sides of the same coin to me.

Yeah I don’t blame you either. But I do think the default server should be more inclusive than less, particularly at the potential starting point of a user’s introduction to the fediverse.

Realistically that is never going to happen. The biggest issue the fediverse has is onboarding. People just looking to try out a reddit alternative aren’t going to bother emailing their fucking MP just because the default settings of an app won’t let them sign up. They’ll just give up and go elsewhere.

If we want to encourage growth, adding additional barriers isn’t the way to do it.

Bit shit for UK users though since lemmy.zip is blocked for them. Not exactly going to encourage new users from here.

The Discovery section in Pixelfed definitely needs work, but the ability to follow hashtags offsets that somewhat. I’ve found loads of great photographers to follow off the back of following hashtags that I’m interested in.

I suppose, but he did start name-calling just because another developer had the audacity to start building their own fediverse photo sharing platform (Vernissage). Then apologised and removed the toot.

Bearing in mind the other developer also actually built a functioning and rather excellent third party Pixelfed app (Impressia) that he wrote because he got frustrated with the lack of development on the official Pixelfed app, and which was available on app stores years earlier, it seemed beyond unnecessary.

Weirdo

It means the dev can be a bit of a dick, and it’s not always a great look. “Darling” in this instance means “face of” or “icon”.

Yeah he’s definitely up himself, and highly prone to preschool outbursts on Mastodon. No doubt he deserves plaudits for ambition and talent, but a bit more humility and grace would do him good. I’ve cringed at a few of his (often retrospectively deleted) posts unnecessarily slagging off other devs.

That said, I’m extremely grateful for what he’s trying to do, and his genuine desire to expand the fediverse.