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What is the practical difference between the main instances of kbin and mbin, from a users perspective?
  • I'm not directly involved in either project beyond reporting bugs and suggesting features yet, but I follow both projects closely. My sense is that the Mbin community is prioritizing collaboration around UX improvements while Kbin is focusing on scaling/performance issues... which makes sense as kbin.social is more than 10x the size of fedia.io (https://fedidb.org/network/instance/kbin.social vs https://fedidb.org/network). I opened a bug about the UI for altering link images at https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core/issues/1365. When I tested the same steps in Mbin, the issue i was seeing in Kbin had already been solved in Mbin.

    Kbin is a great PHP implementation of ActivityPub for reddit-like communities, but requiring all major changes to be made/reviewed by a single person is a real bottle neck.

    It would be great if Kbin could figure out some form of goverance/delegation that would allow more contributors, but there doesn't seem to be much interest in that type of change so for now we have 2 project with different priorities and governance models... and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

  • The Unofficial Kbin Guide is now available from the kbin.social FAQ page!
  • The link to the FAQ is also in the footer in the Help column.

  • How do you deal with colleagues that argue 45 minutes on a call about a variable name?
  • Beware of the "whatever" aproach.

    Many years ago I was brought into a project where many variables where named after cars. Before I got there, if the team couldn't agree on a name, they'd use a car and move on. There was also a module in the code call "bucket". Didn't have a logical place to put a function? Add it to the bucket.

    I'm sure they saved a lot of time not discussing what to name things up front, but by the time there was enough turnover on the team to change the variables and rewrite, it took months to fix.

    Another, more product approach is to ask the "variable naming guy" to write up a naming policy document that would result in the names he has been suggesting. If there is logic associated his side of the "argument" it should be easy to document.

    Have everyone on the team discuss and approve the policy. Hopefully you never spend time in a meeting arguing about this again.

  • How can you drive off a gas station with the hose still connected?
  • So are Europeans just more honest and ethical than Americans? Or do all gas stations have better theft prevention systems? In the US, there is often 1 cashier managing 12 pumps AND ringing up vice sales (cigarettes, lottery tickets, junk food). In some states there a pumps with no human on site at all.

    What's to stop someone from driving off after filling up in the EU?

  • About Google and Degoogling in schools
  • https://www.clever.com/ is used to handle single sign on and providing a dashboard for hundreds of other education apps/services. It can be used to build a solution with FAR more functionality than what Google offers, but it's $$$ to do that and requires someone with some technical skill and UX experience to do well.

  • why are left leaning groups still using reddit?
  • They prefer a more polished UI? I know there are several mobile apps that improve on the default browser experience of visiting https://lemmy.world/, but you have to admit that the initial UX of Lemmy leaves room for improvement. This is the same reason many open-source projects gave up on IRC. The die-hard FOSS advocates raised the "but Slack isn't an open standard" argument only to be shouted down by a larger part of the community with "IRC's UX sucks and is a barrier to new contributors".

    https://kbin.social/ has a lot of issues (like calling communities magazines and general performance/stability), but the UI/UX is so much better than Lemmy.

  • Russian election candidate calls Ukraine war a ‘big mistake’ by Putin
  • which shouldn't be difficult as the "rest of his life" will likely be just a few days

  • This best-selling personal finance author of 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' Robert Kiyosaki, says he’s racked up more than $1 billion in debt
  • The 13 Rules of a Roman Emperor: How to Stop Giving a Shit and Live a Fucking Good Life

    Why bother with a book? What you've described was the structure of a dozen "documentaries" created for Netflix last year.

  • Gaza refugees bombed in tented ‘safe zone’
  • I appreciate the effort, but this version ends with...

    took his children to protect them from the occupation’s missiles, but

    But what?

  • Those who chose "never" in a "now or never" moment. How is it going for you?
  • I don't own a timeshare. Feel pretty good about that decision.

    The numbers they were showing us seemed to make sense. If we spent an average of X on vacations for Y years compared to the cost of the timeshare and fees, the timeshare was cheaper AND we could trade our week in a ski area for timeshares anywhere in the world. How could we not buy into this? Might have signed, but when they told us we couldn't take any of the information with us and had to decide NOW, I knew something wasn't right. Had to say no for almost an hour, but but we were eventually allowed to leave the "no obligation presentation" required for our "free" weekend.

    When I did more research, I found dozens of people trying to unload their purchases for far less than the company was selling weeks to new members.

    I'll NEVER own anything using that kind of sales strategy.

  • The Most Dangerous Canadian Internet Bill You’ve Never Heard Of Is a Step Closer to Becoming Law - Michael Geist
  • I think the best way to deal with the issue includes education, digital skills, and parental oversight of Internet use including the use of personal filters or blocking tools if desired.

    As a someone who works in technology and is a parent to 2 kids < 10, I'm already aware of what a niave statement that is.

    I keep my kids' iPad locked down and have a router with some basic parental control features, but as the number devices in our lives that are able to browse the web increases along with the number of wireless networks my kids can connect to, trying to police this myself is futile.

    And I'm not even concerned about them occasionally seeing "normal" porn. As a former Reddit user, I've seen some things I wish I hadn't. Things I'm not able to fully process as an adult.

    I can handle the conversation about...

    "you know how people drive in Fast and Furious isn't how people drive in real life? That's what porn sex is like compared to the sex you are going to have."

    I cannot explain some of the darker corners of Reddit.

    If you applied Geist's logic to alcohol, it would be up to parents to keep kids from going to liquor stores. Sure I can stop my kids from drinking the alcohol I have in my own home, but I rely on laws to make it very difficult for them to do something as a community we've agreed they aren't mature enough to make good decisions about.

    Why can't we apply the same policies on to internet services?

  • Want to keep Gen Z off vaping? Teach them about the industry's marketing tactics, study says
  • The fact that teaching media/marketing literacy reduces its effectiveness is not new.

    The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology. - Marshall McLuhan 1964

    It isn't just vaping that would be effected by teaching kids to be more aware of marketing. I work in marketing on the marketing automation or marketing ops side of things in higher ed. If teenagers were more aware of the techniques we use to influence them to borrow tens or even hundreads of thousand of $$$ to enroll in a 4 year degree, fewer would... and that would probably be a good thing.

  • Want to keep Gen Z off vaping? Teach them about the industry's marketing tactics, study says
  • Bacon doesn't need marketing. A marketing campaign using facts to change consumer behavior is just marketing. Not really the same as and effort to educate kids to recognize marketing.

    I work in marketing so I recognize it in all its forms. I am very concerned about the amount of influcing my kids are exposed to through "safe", "ad free" channels like YouTube Kids.

    I also consider myself well informed about environmental issues. I consciously eat less meat for both environmental and health reasons, but bacon doesn't need marketing. I want bacon because I REALLY enjoy bacon.

  • If you were to give feedback to the Devs of "Life", what would you say?
  • Enjoyed the begining of the game, but the cancer story line was way to depressing. Not fun at all. If I could give it 0 stars I would. Would not recommend.

  • Texas power plants have no responsibility to provide electricity in emergencies, judges rule
  • The free market solution would allow communities to negotiate contracts that DID hold the provider liable and allow competitors to emerge that would focus on different aspects like reliability, renewable production or integration with other grids.

    If you aren't aware of the story of Central and Southwest Corporation (a Texas power company) and thr "midnight connection", it's the type of story that I'm sure is nearing the top of Netflix's documentary todo list.

    On May 4, 1976, a power company based in Texas sent electricity from a substation in Vernon, Texas, to Altus, Okla. By doing so, they were breaking a deal among power companies in Texas to keep electricity within state borders.

    https://www.kut.org/energy-environment/2022-09-08/texas-energy-island-the-disconnect-vernon-midnight-connection

    If what Texas has with ERCOT is neither free market nor a public utility, what is it?

  • Mickey Mouse's 'Steamboat Willie' will become public domain in 2024, along with Minnie and Tigger
  • This YouTube video show some screenplay from Mouse, an upcoming noir based FPS game. The game will take full advantage of the public's right to reuse1920s era cartoons, particularly Steam Boat Willy, in new and innovative ways.

    https://youtu.be/kNad1vG1QG4?si=QywRxIhPpQpq6GPM

  • What Film Are You Surprised Didn't Get A Sequel?
  • Princess Bride

    I always thought a sequel where the roles are reversed and Fred Savage is reading to an ailing Peter Faulk would have been a great way to start a sequel.

  • ✨ What is your favorite thing about kbin? ✨
  • Is there a list of magazines with great, custom CSS? I'm not sure if it's how I use KBin, but I haven’t noticed many customized magazines.

  • Lauren Boebert critics cheer as she gets "devastating" fundraising news
  • Adam Frisch came within 600 votes of defeating Boebert without this much money to spend. The money is likely given freely now by people who hate Boebert more than they like Frisch. They never want to hear about this trashier version of Sarah Palin again and donate make sure he wins, but if the donations are primarily coming from outside his conservative district, this election could still be decided by Trump's ability to motivate people who would still enthusiasticly vote Boebert to show up at the polls. If that happens and true conservatives just sit this one out rather than voting for "the other side", CO may end up sending this train wreck back to DC.

  • I just developed and deployed the first real-time protection for lemmy against CSAM!
  • Sounds like progress, but please consider using a term other than "whitelist" when describing a list of allowed values. While the use of blacklist predates references to black as a race, allowlist is a reasonable alternative that doesn't reinforce viewing black as less than or unwanted and white as allowed.

  • Do Moscow Mules taste different if they are served in a pure copper mug or a copper mug with a stainless steel lining?

    Do Moscow Mules taste different if they are served in a pure copper mug or a copper mug with a stainless steel lining?

    \#AskKbin

    1
    /kbin meta @kbin.social kreynen @kbin.social
    Questions about https://kbin.social policies and options

    I started https://kbin.social/m/drupal yesterday after discovering that Kbin is also a PHP/Symfony based project. There is a lot of ActivityPub work being done in Drupal right now including https://www.drupal.org/project/activitypub. I'm not an ActivityPub or Fediverse expert, but I did get excited about the possibility of the Drupal community replacing some of our corporately owned channels like Stack Overflow and Slack with a Kbin instance that replaces the groups.drupal.org. That site is still running on Drupal 7. Drupal 7 just got its fourth (and final?) EoL extension until January 2025. This is a great time to look at an "off the island" solution like Kbin.

    I have a few questions, but I'm not even sure where to ask them.

    I found m/kbin and m/kbinDevlog, m/kbinDesign, but I think my questions are more about policy on this specific kbin instance. If I'm asking these questions in the wrong place, please feel free to redirect me.

    1. Drupal currently maintains a feed of Drupal related blog posts that is aggregated at https://www.drupal.org/planet. I've been manually posting these to m/drupal, but I'd like to automate this. After looking at https://docs.kbin.pub/, it's my understanding is that kbin.social doesn't support posting through a API, but there are other ways to post with a bot. Is that allowed?

    2. Are there any examples of a Magazine or Kbin instance being run as a Stack Exchange-like QA site?

    0
    kreynen kreynen @kbin.social
    Posts 2
    Comments 30