This is shameless self-promotion, but part of a working theory I have that Mastodon users have more to offer Lemmy than your average Reddit user. See my other post about it here: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/2174573

TLDR: Mastodon users are inherently active posters and already understand federation. Also there are MILLIONS of them.

Please consider following if you'd like to get more Lemmy in your Mastodon feed or more Mastodon users in your Lemmy feed!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/2173435

Reinvestment

Regardless of where the loss in users is coming from the major takeaway here is that we are firmly in a reinvestment phase. This will likely last until Reddit does something stupid related to the IPO but in the absence of that we will probably not see a significant uptick in growth again without major improvements to the threadiverse as a whole. That means that those of us who are personally invested in the growth of the threadiverse should be taking this time to develop the tools and features necessary to weather the next wave more gracefully than the last.

Niche Community Growth

One of the biggest issue I see here is still community growth. Growing certain communities is significantly harder than others and if you don’t have a lot of crossposting potential it can be damn near impossible. As it stands, I do not see a way to fix this situation without a hot and active ranking system that takes into account the number of users active in the particular community. As part of a change like this I think we would be best served by consolidating a significant portion of the small dead communities. I think we should also strongly prefer specialized instances like lemmy.film or literature.cafe to truly take advantage of the special attention these sorts of instances are capable of providing particular topics. As it stands only a handful of them have enough broader threadiverse activity to be truly useful.

Recruiting From Mastodon

At this point it seems like we are unlikely to pull a significant amount of users from Reddit without more reddit-policy-driven migration, but there are tons of highly educated and engaged users over on Mastodon that would make serious positive contributions to the tone and quality of the discourse over here. For some reason there seems to be minimal overlap between the two communities and that blows my mind. Not only that but I actively see folks disparaging Mastodon in fediverse related communities on a regular basis (and even sometimes in the Mastodon communities themselves). As far as I can tell, these are largely lingering sentiments from a Reddit/Twitter dichotomy. Remember, as things develop the lines between threaded social media and microblogging are likely to blur. A significant number of Mastodon apps already provide a threaded view and one of kbins explicit goals is very much to bridge the gap. With this in mind, Mastodon (and federated microblogging more generally) seems like the best source for new potential users.

TLDR

TL;DR: What I’d like to particularly emphasize here is the focus on Mastodon user recruitment. They are far more likely to both improve the quality of discourse here and contribute to community building than your average reddit user. Not to mention they can already be active from their existing accounts. The barrier for entry is nil. I think a valid strat to go about this is to advertise existing specialized instances to their existing equivalent communities on the microblogging fediverse. This solves both the problems of growing the specialized instances from 0 and making their discourse substantially different enough to warrant specialized instances in the first place. Things like:

• #bookstodon to literature.cafe
• #monsterdon to lemmy.film
• #climateemergency to slrpnk.net
• #histodon to some equivalent of ask historians (This is probably the only way we’d get the experts needed)
• Any of the many art tags to lemmyloves.art

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/3684765

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/UTvTX

A supermarket security guard, a taxi driver, a guy at the gym. The Russian government has a message for all of them: Aren’t you a man?

And don’t you want to earn more money?

Last spring, the Russian military kicked off a new recruitment drive for the war in Ukraine, seeking to replace tens of thousands of dead and wounded without having to resort to an unpopular draft. For the last four months, The New York Times has tracked how the campaign played out on Russian state television and social media, and found that recruitment messages focused on the Kremlin’s official rationale for the invasion — an existential threat from the West against Russians — played only a supporting role.

Rather, there were frequent appeals to masculinity, sometimes voiced by soldiers’ wives and other women interviewed on television news. There were incessant reminders of above-average pay and benefits for military servicemen. And the messages — appearing both in video ads produced by the Defense Ministry and on regular TV newscasts — stress the ease of signing up, promising relief from Russia’s notorious bureaucracy

The campaign appeared to start in April. Online, the Defense Ministry published a splashy video ad focusing on two central motivations: machismo, and money. It defines military service as more meaningful — and manly — than what’s depicted as the Russian man’s typical, humdrum existence. After moody shots of civilians transforming into modern warriors, the ad ends with a more down-to-earth reminder: “Monthly payments starting at 204,000 rubles,” or about $2,000.

The themes in the Russian Defense Ministry’s recruitment campaign are picked up frequently in television newscasts — as would be expected, since all of Russia’s major television channels are controlled by the state. But the news anchors and reporters delivering the message are essentially acting as glorified recruiters themselves, repeatedly reminding viewers of the quick-dial phone number — 1-1-7 — they can turn to if they want to sign up to fight.

Since the invasion’s beginning, state television newscasts have been offering viewers a sanitized view of the war. Death and injury of Russians is rarely mentioned. The war itself is referred to with the Kremlin’s anodyne term, “special military operation,” or simply by the term’s Russian initials: “the S.V.O.”

But there are signs that, at least in some regions, the costs of war have now become too widespread to ignore. During a local morning newscast in the city of Irkutsk, in Siberia, on Aug. 9, a reporter introduces a piece about new “mobile” recruitment stands with an interview of a Ukraine war veteran wounded last year.

“I got all the payments that contract servicemen are entitled to if they’re wounded,” the veteran, Nikolai Karpenko, says.

“Contract military service, Nikolai says, gave him the chance to show that he’s a real defender of the fatherland,” the reporter intones.

The message: Yes, you could get hurt, but the government will take care of you. And you will have shown your patriotism

The recruitment drive appears to have borne some fruit. The Kremlin has been able to keep its invasion going without resorting to a second draft, after mobilizing some 300,000 civilians last fall. And Ukraine’s counteroffensive this summer has run into fierce Russian resistance.

But analysts believe that Russia’s official recruitment figures, claiming that 1,400 people were signing up per day last month, are likely to be overstated — and that a second draft could still come. New laws passed this summer would make it much harder for Russians to dodge the draft if another were declared.

“Soldiers are not being relieved or regularly rotated on the front, suggesting there is still a manpower problem,” said Dara Massicot, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation who studies the Russian military. “It looks like the Kremlin is waiting as long as possible again to make a decision on mobilization, like last fall.” A prime incentive: money

Ever since the invasion’s beginning, the Kremlin has deployed Russia’s vast wealth to motivate men to sign up to fight — and to mollify families that lost loved ones. The advertised minimum monthly pay of about $2,000 a month, at the current exchange rate, is nearly triple the nationwide average income; families of soldiers killed in action are paid $50,000, enough to purchase a decent home in many regions.

One recurring state TV ad shows just how central material benefits are to the recruitment drive. Set to rock music, it reels off specific benefits like a “land tax exemption,” “compensation for household utility bills,” and vouchers for sanatoriums, or health resorts.

“Here, you’ll be treated fairly,” the ad concludes

Television news reports follow up that message by emphasizing a streamlined process for signing up.

An April 18 segment aired on Channel 1, one of the main nationwide channels, describes joining the ranks of the military as being as simple as filling out some routine paperwork. It compares recruitment offices to the user-friendly service centers that the government rolled out across the country in recent years to streamline and digitize the country’s daunting bureaucracy.

“There’s an electronic queue, and volunteers are always ready to consult and help,” the reporter says, as the camera shows a young woman in a sweater with “Volunteer” written across the back

The appeal to masculinity is pervasive, attempting to tap into deeply entrenched expectations of duty and service for Russian males. The April 18 news segment, for instance, refers to being a soldier as “unquestionably the manliest job.’’

At times, the appeal is blatant and superficial.

The same Channel 1 report featured a message from a man identified as a “commander of assault groups.”

“Here, you can find yourselves as real men, earn a fair salary, and make all your childhood dreams and wishes come true,” he says

The message that service is a man’s duty also sometimes comes from fresh recruits and their families. The April 18 clip also shows three cousins boarding buses to head to training. The reporter declares that their wives, sisters and mothers “supported the decisions of their loved ones.”

One of the cousins says that his brothers, colleagues and classmates were already in the military and that “everything is going well.”

“It’s kind of hard to stay here while they are there,” he says

The realities of the war itself are described sparingly, if at all. On the nightly news, the action on the battlefield is often described in stilted roll-calls of “heroes” that don’t specify whether the men are still alive. In a segment from June 7, a sergeant is praised for having restored communications with his unit despite continuous shelling, while another was said to have “personally destroyed” a Ukrainian machine-gun crew

But in some cases, the suffering of military families comes to light, even as state television attempts to cast the government as taking care of them. In the same Aug. 9 Irkutsk newscast that reported on new mobile recruitment stands, another segment heralds the opening of a new support center for soldiers’ families.

It includes an interview with the wife of a soldier who, she says, has had only one two-week vacation since volunteering for the war last September.

“It’s getting harder and harder every day,” she says

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/372134

The women reported being verbally abused, having their requests for help go unanswered and having their physical privacy infringed upon, according to a CDC survey.

I figured since their admin has asked them to stop participating over here it may be worthwhile to get a new discussion going that is primarily blahaj. I'm almost certain they'll still be upvoting so keep that in mind as that may skew things. Worthwhile to check in from instances that have already defederated them. The previous thread definitely left a bad taste in my mouth but what do y'all think?

Old thread can be found here

EDIT: With regards to the post on new federation guidelines here: https://hexbear.net/post/352119

The current top comment is:

Every instance that has talked shit and got dogpiled should be thanking us for breathing some life into their dead and boring ass websites.

Reposting since there are now significantly more subscribers and I can provide full text instead of some sketchy link.

Full Text: ON MALE LIBERATION Jack Sawyer

Male liberation calls for men to free themselves of the sex role stereotypes that limit their ability to be human. Sex role stereotypes say that men should be dominant; achieving and enacting a dominant role in relations with others is often taken as an indicator of success. ‘Success,’ for a man, often involves influence over the lives of other persons. But success in achieving positions of dominance and influence is necessarily not open to every man, as dominance is relative and hence scarce by definition. Most men in fact fail to achieve the positions of dominance that sex role stereotypes ideally call for. Stereotypes tend to identify such men as greater or lesser failures, and in extreme cases, men who fail to be dominant are the object of jokes, scorn, and sympathy from wives, peers, and society generally.

One avenue of dominance is potentially open to any man, however—dominance over a woman. As society generally teaches men they should dominate, it teaches women they should be submissive, and so men have the opportunity to dominate women. More and more, women, however, are reacting against the ill effects of being dominated. But the battle of women to be free need not be a battle against men as oppressors. The choice about whether men are the enemy is up to men themselves.

Male liberation seeks to aid in destroying the sex role stereotypes that regard ‘being a man’ and ‘being a woman’ as statuses that must be achieved through proper behavior. People need not take on restrictive roles to establish their sexual identity.

A major male sex role restriction occurs through the acceptance of a stereotypical view of men’s sexual relation to women. Whether or not men consciously admire the Playboy image, they are still influenced by the implicit sex role demands to be thoroughly competent and self-assured—in short, to be ‘manly.’ But since self-assurance is part of the stereotype, men who believe they fall short don’t admit it, and each can think he is the only one. Stereotypes limit men’s perception of women as well as of themselves. Men learn to be highly aware of a woman’s body, face, clothes—and this interferes with their ability to relate to her as a whole person. Advertising and consumer orientations are among the societal forces that both reflect and encourage these sex stereotypes. Women spend to make themselves more ‘feminine,’ and men are exhorted to buy cigarettes, clothes, and cars to show their manliness.

The popular image of a successful man combines dominance both over women, in social relations, and over other men, in the occupational world. But being a master has its burdens. It is not really possible for two persons to have a free relation when one holds the balance of power over the other. The more powerful person can never be sure of full candor from the other, though he may receive the kind of respect that comes from dependence. Moreover, people who have been dependent are coming to recognize more clearly the potentialities of freedom, and it is becoming harder for those who have enjoyed dominance to maintain this position. Persons bent on maintaining dominance are inhibited from developing themselves. Part of the price most men pay for being dominant in one situation is subscribing to a system in which they themselves are subordinated in another situation. The alternative is a system where men share, among themselves, and with women, rather than strive for a dominant role.

In addition to the dehumanization of being (or trying to be) a master, there is another severe, if less noticed, restriction from conventional male sex roles in the area of affect, play, and expressivity. Essentially, men are forbidden to play and show affect. This restriction is often not even recognized as a limitation, because affective behavior is so far outside the usual range of male activity.

Men are breadwinners, and are defined first and foremost by their performance in this area. This is a serious business and results in an end product—bringing home the bacon. The process area of life—activities that are enjoyed for the immediate satisfaction they bring—are not part of the central definition of men’s role. Yet the failure of men to be aware of this potential part of their lives leads them to be alienated from themselves and from others. Because men are not permitted to play freely, or show affect, they are prevented from really coming in touch with their own emotions.

If men cannot play freely, neither can they freely cry, be gentle, nor show weakness—because these are ‘feminine,’ not ‘masculine.’ But a fuller concept of humanity recognizes that all men and women are potentially both strong and weak, both active and passive, and that these and other human characteristics are not the province of one sex.

The acceptance of sex role stereotypes not only limits the individual but has bad effects on society generally. The apparent attractions of a male sex role are strong, and many males are necessarily caught up with this image. Education from early years calls upon boys to be brave, not to cry, and to fight for what is theirs. The day when these were virtues, if it ever existed, is long past. The main effect now is to help sustain a system in which private ‘virtues’ become public vices. Competitiveness helps promote exploitation of people all over the world, as men strive to achieve ‘success.’ If success requires competitive achievement, then an unlimited drive to acquire money, possessions, power, and prestige, is only seeking to be successful.

The affairs of the world have always been run nearly exclusively by men, at all levels. It is not accidental that the ways that elements of society have related to each other has been disastrously competitive, to the point of oppressing large segments of the world’s population. Most societies operate on authoritarian bases—in government, industry, education, religion, the family, and other institutions. It has been generally assumed that these are the only bases on which to operate, because those who have run the world have been reared to know no other. But women, being deprived of power, have also been more free of the role of dominator and oppressor; women have been denied the opportunity to become as competitive and ruthless as men.

In the increasing recognition of the right of women to participate equally in the affairs of the world, then, there is both a danger and a promise. The danger is that women could try simply to get their share of the action in the competitive, dehumanizing, exploitative system that men have created. The promise is that women and men might work together to create a system that provides equality to all and dominates no one. The women’s liberation movement has stressed that women are looking for a better model for human behavior than has so far been created. Women are trying to become human, and men can do the same. This implies that sex should not be limited by role stereotypes that define ‘appropriate’ behavior. The present models of neither men nor women furnish adequate opportunities for human development. That one half of the human race should be dominant and the other half submissive is incompatible with a notion of freedom. Freedom requires that there not be dominance and submission, but that all individuals be free to determine their own lives as equals.

Autumn 1970