Am I supposed to post something?

People usually call me Adam, because names, and some friend of my mom from her highschool mime club (yeah, I guess that happened...I've seen photos). I constantly struggle with uncomfortable/mixed feelings with regards to the social-network sections of online existence, which is no doubt why I only found out about this place yesterday. That said, I'm suuuuuper excited this space exists, that you all seem chill, and I promise to do my best to not be an ass. ....but when I (inevitably?) fail at that and end up being an ass anyway I welcome your thoughtful calling-out of my behavior (or your rude, rough smack, if you're one of those people)--totally willing to re-cognize when I'm in the wrong when it's pointed out to me. I like to art things along the lines of: ...still figuring out how to be more consistent with my output (for my own demanding inner demons, mostly) but also living entails multiple pursuits on my end and it's a weird, exciting balancing act to address them all. I infrequently vomit up disconnected, poorly-thought-out posts about gaming and gaming-adjacent things (which I often later will realize are only bad amalgamation of other peoples' ideas) on my blog: then-what-happens.blogspot.com/ I'm into a bunch of other stuff too, but probably it won't come up. I would like to say that I'm working on, or have already produced, some cool game supplement or book, but that'd be A BIG DAMNED LIE. Maybe someday though. In any case, glad to be here ^_______^

#GygaxianDemocracy

We're 8 months into the diaspora. I'm still miserably missing the G+ scene, and it seems as though a lot of other folks feel the same way. I think we can do better than we have been. G+ was an anomaly. It worked for us because everybody else hated it, which would kill any service that didn't have a titan like Google backing it. We are unlikely to be so lucky again. Big Social alternatives like Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit have not been working out. To my thinking, it is not really desirable that they work out. There is a movement away from these toxic social spaces which many of the most interesting people are a part of. If we ever did get Facebook working, we'd still be missing everyone who is part of #DeleteFacebook. Our best short term solution is to strengthen small social spaces. Forums like this one, or lasagna.social. Small ~50 person discord servers. The comment sections of blogs. Our best long term solution is to get more people onto federated social media services, like Mastadon or Diaspora. These have the benefit of all the modern features folks have come to expect from their social media. They're also more stable, since they're not dependent on a single host maintaining them. They're less likely to create skewed power dynamics because of the same reason. The best way to accomplish both of these goals is to have interesting conversations in the spaces you like best. Be as interesting as you know how to be. Then link people to the interesting conversation. If it's interesting enough, they'll want to participate. They'll create an account. Once they've got their foot in the door, it'll be easier to get them interested in the next cool conversation, and the next. Sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit can be useful for funneling new people out of those spaces and into our small and interesting spaces, but aren't good for much else.