Hi everyone at BSD Cafe,
I’d like to start by thanking everyone for being part of this community - your presence and support truly mean a lot!
This message will appear across all my BSD Cafe social accounts, as I’d like to make sure it reaches everyone. Apologies for the duplication, but I genuinely believe it’s important.

Lately, there have been some discussions and questions surrounding content moderation on our instance, and I wanted to take a moment to offer some clarity and reaffirm the spirit of our community.

As you know, BSD Cafe was founded as a space primarily focused on technology, with a special place for *BSD and open source. More importantly, though, I want it to be a positive, welcoming, and constructive place for everyone. Our community guidelines, especially principles like "Promote Positivity" and "Be Kind", are central to this vision.
I've seen questions arise, sometimes involving accusations of political censorship from different perspectives, regarding why certain posts might be moderated. I want to be very clear on this: My moderation approach focuses primarily on the tone and manner of communication, not the specific topic itself.
I don't intervene simply because a post discusses politics, a particular tech company, or any potentially divisive subject. I do step in when a post, regardless of the topic or the viewpoint being expressed, adopts a tone that is:
* Provocative or intentionally confrontational.
* Aggressive or disrespectful towards other users or groups.
* Overly negative without constructive intent.
* Contrary to our core principles of kindness and mutual respect.
This standard applies equally to everyone and every "side". If someone were to post something like "Users of X software are idiots", I would address that just as readily as any other topic presented in a hostile way, even if I personally dislike software X.
The goal isn't to "censor" opinions, but to preserve an environment where discussions, even critical ones, can happen civilly and respectfully, without descending into flame wars or personal attacks. We aim to be a space that is pro-constructive dialogue and pro-positivity, not anti-anyone.
BSD Cafe is our shared digital home. Let's continue working together to keep it a pleasant and rewarding place where we can share ideas, learn, and connect over our shared passions (tech and beyond!), feeling comfortable and respected.

Thank you sincerely for your understanding and for everything you contribute to making BSD Cafe a special community!
Let's keep building this positive space together.

Many people share your feelings.
Our societies are facing environmental collapse. We feel that we have to do something. But we don't know where to start.
...
My thoughts on this:
We need collective action. We can recycle and save tapwater until our fingers fall off. If the structures don't change, individual actions will mostly keep us busy while the world gets burned because of a mixture of rich people's greed, bureaucrats that "just do their job" and a society that has too little phantasy to see the many desirable alternatives to this apocalyptic late-stage capitalism.

There is this amazing concept of the handprint, making you ask yourself the question: "where can I promote societal change?". This is on contrast to the 'carbon footprint' that measures the impact of our individual lifestyle and shifts the guilt to the people. This concept was widely promoted by fossil fuel companies. [1]

At the bottom of the web is the link to the poster [2]. It is quite straightforward to use e.g. in a workshop with other people asking themselves the question "what can we do?".

1. What topic am I enthusiastic about?
(E.g. sustainable mobility, ecological agriculture, renewable energy, social justice...)

2. At which level am I familiar with decision-making processes ?
(At work, university, religious group, neighbourhood...)

3. What is the best way to implement my idea?
(Make the sustainable option the default, pressure politicians, make sustainable more known or affordable...)

4. Which allies do I need? (Initiatives, colleagues, experts, politicians, media)

And here you go. At the end you have a plan for an attainable objective that will make a difference and bring change on a higher level. All that while showing yourself that you can be part of the change, creating community and mobilizing others. We have a lot to do, so this is something to start with. :anarchoheart3:

Interestingy, the handprint was originally launched by the Indian organisation CEE ( https://www.ceeindia.org ) as an open concept of positive action!

1: https://medium.com/greener-together/who-invented-the-carbon-footprint-the-shocking-origins-13d940d05f59

2: https://www.handprint-hub.de/handprint-concept

3: further reading:

"The solutions are already here" by the fantastic @PeterGelderloos
https://archive.org/details/tfsr20220417-PeterGelderloos

@ratika @germanwatch

#openSUSE + @framework Laptop? Yes, please! Discover #community-led efforts to enhance compatibility, overcome integration hurdles & deliver seamless UX.🎥 German-language talk includes a hands-on demo!

@phillip @cR0w @TNLNYC - Hahaha, yeah, when I spun up this group I realized that ALL of my last collaborative interactions these past couple of decades have been with hackers.

Like... even my language is so steeped in 1337speak and jargon that normal folks didn't understand me.

I said something like "Oh, I'll spin up a server real quick" and they were like... Wat. What's a server? And what do you mean by "Spin up?"

And I was like... Spin up. You know... like... spin up spin up. Huh...

Hahahaha!!!!

So yeah, if I want to build community and mutual aid movements, I have to design the solution around the people that use it, not force the people to use a weird ass (to them) solution.

So the local Food Not Bombs meeting went well!

It was the first meeting. We all introduced each other and got a feel for skills and experience.

I pegged one person as being an undercover cop.

(They had a very open disdain for police - insisting on saying ACAB when the conversation had nothing to do with police, etc. They used outdated terms or caricatures and stereotypes of how people who aren't leftist see leftists. They had no connections to the community or other similar projects and appeared to have "just materialized" into this movement. They tried real hard to ingrain themselves as likable without contributing much. Basically a try hard.)

(Edit to add based on responses: They were not socially awkward or a newbie or neurodivergent - We had plenty of those folks too and they were welcomed. The above behaviors are distinct to undercover cops - and distinctly different from your run of of the mill awkwardness or sociability issues or just being new to a group or movement)

Quick aside on this... Undercover cops join mutual aid groups generally just to monitor them. Generally after a while, they get bored and move on only to check in on time to time. Cool.

IF they decide to disrupt the group, they'll do it in one of two ways (or both):

1) They'll befriend, gain trust, and get people to commit illegal acts. They then arrest those that committed the acts and use those acts to smear the group as a whole.

2) They get people WORRIED about undercover cops and get everyone to become paranoid of each other, using the resultant attempts to lock down security to stifle action. After a while the entire group just breaks apart.

So, how to deal with this?

First, is to assume "compromise". Just accept that there's a couple undercover folks there. Neat. A fact of life.

Second, don't do anything grossly illegal with public groups. Misdemeanors will happen. Look at Food Not Bombs Houston when they were (are) targeted by the city and get little fines every time they serve homeless folks. Also INTENTIONAL civil disobedience is a thing - but the entire group (undercover cops and all) will openly acknowledge it, understand and prepare for the consequences, and you'll know what you're getting into. (See sit ins and other direct action protests). But don't go off and commit illegal acts. ESPECIALLY if someone asked you to do it.

Third, call out anyone publicly and openly who advocates illegal acts (even and especially if they approached you privately). Use it as a way to gentle-parent correct the undercover cop (or misguided sincere colleague) on what proper action is.

Lastly, get the suspected undercover cop to engage in your goals. Get them to feed people! Watch for sabotage and check their work a bit more closely of course, but hey! the more hands the better! 😂

Edit also to add: DON'T TRY TO DETECT OR ROOT OUT UNDERCOVER COPS! - Like... I have a suspicion on this guy... but I really don't care. If you try to find the myriad of bad, you'll start to think everyone is bad. Instead... just treat everyone the same - regardless of whether you suspect them or not. If someone wants you to do something illegal... don't do it. Even if you think they're a normal person. - See my entire section on how paranoia can also destroy a group.

(Okay, not a quick aside. I'll just conclude here, lol)

Community meetings that I have scheduled:

Tonight:
6pm - Local Food Not Bombs (folks are attempting to restart it. I'm not leading this effort but I might be able to help them as I work in food in my town as well)
7pm - Local NAACP (they have a food initiative that I might be able to work with - yay mutual aid efficiencies!)

Next Week:
- 1st monthly in person meeting of our Free Fridge & Food Rescue group

A lot of cool stuff going on in my town. This is just food (and not all of it... there's still the food bank / food pantries and the local hot food places). There are even more meetings and groups in other areas of mutual aid.

What community groups have you found in your area?

I don’t know who made this, but I’m glad they did. It’s an inspiring sentiment.

I just got my @frameworkcomputer merch! 😍

I am so glad to be a #Framework #Linux #Community #Ambassador.

I’d be super happy to show and let anyone who wants play around with these nifty goodies at the next events I am going to attend.

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