Endymion_Mallorn

And how many of those circumventions were the result of humans being stupid?

The Three Laws strike again.

It’s about as smart as the average PhD in my experience.

That’s what companies always do.

I mean, yes. But I was trying to get at why it works and what would be needed to change the status quo. Tbh if Facebook or Twitter could be prosecuted for their role in harm to children or sex trafficking, schools would very quickly be ready for change.

I get your frustration. Why don’t they care? Have you asked people directly what benefits they get from Facebook and why they won’t move?

I expect you’ll get the following, based on my experience:

1. Exposure - Most people can access Facebook regularly.

2. External Accessibility - Facebook can be accessed on multiple devices, by people who are not tech-conscious.

3. Reliability - Facebook outages are rare enough to be newsworthy, so no matter what conditions the school or the org is in, it will stay up and be exposed and accessible.

4. Internal Accessibility - Everyone in the org, even the people who aren’t regularly involved in marketing or community comms, knows how to post to Facebook.

5. Cost - Facebook’s non-monetary costs are subtle and mostly apply to private users. To any organization with a tight budget, Facebook and Twitter are godsends, because they don’t need to have a P&L line that can be scrutinized and audited. I’m sure you understand as a volunteer how important it can be to dodge the accountants while getting messaging out.

Of course there’s also experience, knowledge, and negative inertia built up over time. Until you can cover all 5 of those points at least, you don’t have a viable option. Nextcloud is neat, but who will administer it without pay? Facebook runs the platform without being visibly paid by the school or the org. Facebook has widgets prebuilt to integrate with the website (that the org also outsources administration of). Nextcloud doesn’t natively have that. Facebook is hosted on a massive network of data centers, Nextcloud would have to be run on one mistakenly undiscarded computer acting as a server in the basement. And it would have to be that way because the org doesn’t have the budget approval for AWS or added hosting. And yes, everything will always come back to that cost issue. Until you can beat that, you have nothing.

Anger is pointless without action. Either accept the situation as it is, or start regularly attending school board meetings. If you want a policy changed, speak out about it. Don’t just give them vibes either, give them good reasons to change the rules and processes. Have a solution at the ready which is idiot-proof, accessible, and well-supported. Oh, and also, make sure that your clear solution is zero-cost, which is why schools fell into using Facebook and municipal groups used Twitter.

If you want to change the situation, you have to understand why it became the way it is and address the pain points that led here, as well as their pain points that both prevent moving and/or encourage moving. If Facebook suits the needs of the school and the majority of parents, stop being angry and realize that there’s a value in the platform for the purpose.

As someone who’s mostly been in the digital domain since childhood and had to learn early on about the difference, it’s one color system, it’s just that they’re doing different jobs.

The only response I’ve seen so far from F-Droid is that they’ve put up a banner to Keep Android Open. Has there been any kind of plan for next steps?

I don’t believe it’s just unhealthy for “some people”. I think it’s unhealthy for everyone, and for our society as a whole. Simulating romantic relationships with fictional characters is a bad idea, because it dulls our sense of the real thing, and removes the need to intact with real people. It removes the ability to fail. A video game can’t be true enough to life that one mistake can ruin a relationship, because even if that’s the case, the player can reload his save. It becomes too comfortable and too safe.

As far as dumbing things down… is Civilization (as a series, let’s not split every hair here) dumbed-down? How about Doom? Beyond All Reason? Factorio and Mindustry?

I’m not saying that games shouldn’t make us feel. I don’t even hate the idea of a romantic story involving characters who are not the PCs (or linear “romances” like Final Fantasy 8). I’m talking about the “Romance Options” that became prevalent in games because of Mass Effect. The player’s avatar should not be involved in player-driven romantic relationships.

Love in the Ultima IV sense? sure. Love in the Mass Effect/Dragon Age sense? No.

Or, and maybe I’m the weird one here, we shouldn’t include romance in games. We absolutely shouldn’t have the players’ avatars involved in those romances. Games are escapist fantasy, and I don’t believe it’s helpful to allow anyone to experience romantic things in an escapist context - that should be constrained to the real world.

Then again, I think the only game I’ve played with a narrative that I really appreciate anymore is Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. So maybe I’m just old and jaded.

if I’d known that Revolt was using LLM code, I would never have tried to re-engage with the community there.

Yeah. I’m actually kind of upset that I have to type ‘noai’. That should be the standard.