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Rosalyn Anne @Rosalyn@mindly.social
5mo
I’m seeing less blind people post on Masto as of late. And I can’t tell if it’s just because of the amount of cool people I’m following who aren’t blind or because people have left for other platforms. DOn’t get me wrong. I see posts from blind people all the time. It just feels like the number of blind people posting has dropped. Not that there are less posts from blind people in general. But maybe that’s just my field of view talking.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@Rosalyn I think it's probably because the windows clients are falling further and further behind. TWBlue doesn't support polls. Tweesecake still has a bunch of issues and no updates in like a year. Even if people liked web clients, Enafore still has issues with notifications and not updating timelines sometimes. On top of that, Mona on IOS and mac released a new paid version, so people would have to subscribe to it; it's not a one-time purchase anymore. If FastSM ever gets off the ground, or TWBlue gets the promised updates, activity will probably go back up a little. But if FastSM becomes the won, it also supports bluesky, so we might see the community split a bit now that they have a choice.
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Rosalyn Anne @Rosalyn@mindly.social
5mo
@fastfinge Ah yes. I was missing the client issue. My iPad is my main device these days. I have a laptop, but I only use it when strictly necessary. I’m on Mona 7, but that was a one-time purchase for me. Thankfully, Fastsm looks promising. But I suspect you may be right about a future split.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@Rosalyn I'm using it right now. It still has some issues that make it not quite ready for primetime. But they all seem quite fixable.
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Joseph King @jdking92@dragonscave.space
5mo
@fastfinge @Rosalyn I switched from Tweesecake to FastSM last week. FastSM now has some features that Tweesecake didn't, namely the ability to report posts/users, along with some pretty decent pole support and scheduling posts. For me, that's huge. Granted, aside from a couple trolls I haven't had to report many people, but the function's there in case it's needed, which is definitely no bad thing.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@jdking92 @Rosalyn I just wish they'd get the same issue with links that tweesecake had sorted out. A lot of posts that absolutely have links it says have no links and you have to use the clipboard. I filed an issue with some approaches I think would work and an offer to make a pr, so we shall see.
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Joseph King @jdking92@dragonscave.space
5mo
@fastfinge @Rosalyn Right on. For me personally I wish the vlc/yt-dlp thing could get sorted out. Youtube videos used to play in V0.2 and 0.3, but they don't play now and it's kind of annoying. Granted, yes, I can copy the link into a media player that does support that, but that's not very efficient, and I love efficiency.
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Bri🥰 @Bri@fwoof.space
5mo
@fastfinge @jdking92 @Rosalyn I saw that issue, but I actually think the issue with links lies within some forks of Mastodon having the ability to post markdown. This absolutely breaks the entire world for some reason and it just hasn't been high on my priorities list to figure out.
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Joseph King @jdking92@dragonscave.space
5mo
@Bri @fastfinge @Rosalyn Ah, markdown. I've been meaning to learn that seriously for quite some time. I hear it's majorly useful!
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@Bri @jdking92 @Rosalyn Some can also just post HTML directly. Either way, when you strip the HTML, you get the link text, without the URL. Usually, the link text is the URL without https in front. But it doesn't have to be. GoToSocial, Akoma, Iceshrimp, Pleroma, Sharky, threads, Lemmy, PiFed, and literally anything other than Mastodon allow for text in the post that is a hyperlink, but does not contain the URL as the link text. Even though Mastodon doesn't allow posting like that, though, it can display that type of post. So because of the way FastSM strips HTML, it can only find links posted by another Mastodon server. Every other server type can post links that FastSM users can neither see 'nor interact with. Even Mastodon forks can do this. As someone effected daily by this issue, because it's completely and totally impossible for me to post links that tweesecake or FastSM users can interact with, no matter what I do, this is a huge priority for me. Only supporting logging into a Mastodon server account is one thing, and I get it. But the way FastSM is currently, you only support viewing posts by, and following, users who happen to also be on Mastodon. If you follow an account using literally anything else, links won't work. And it's impossible for a FastSM user to know they've followed an account on an unsupported server type. It's to the point where I avoid posting any links at all, because every single link I post gets multiple replies (sometimes as many as thirty or more) from blind users who do not understand that the client they use is at fault and in complete violation of the standards, not me. I'm one hundred percent following the standards as defined by the W3C and all of the Fediverse Enhancement Proposals. Clients that can't handle formatted links are broken. They need to be fixed. I've had to start just blocking Tweesecake users. I don't want to have to also do that with FastSM users.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@jdking92 @Rosalyn @Bri To make all of this so, so much worse, every single fediverse server provides a plain text, non-html version of the post. Tweesecake and FastSM and others just refuse to use it. But if you look in the JSON, you'll find that while the content key contains HTML, _misskey_content and source.content both contain perfectly formatted, plain text versions of post content. FastSM and other clients just ignore them and strip HTML themselves, breaking posts and resulting in constant bitching from blind people. browser.pub/https://fed.interfree.ca/notes/ah4xrewupfr5jqja
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Alex Hall @alexhall@mastodon.social
5mo
@fastfinge @jdking92 @Rosalyn @Bri Is it the clients themselves, or the Python libraries they rely on to manage Mastodon? Not that it matters for the end user, but I'm curious if this is a conscious choice the devs made, or if they just trust the libraries to work and haven't worked around the problem yet.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@alexhall @jdking92 @Rosalyn @Bri It's both. The libraries assume that the strings they return will be displayed in a web browser, or other HTML capable view. In fact, the content key by default contains spans and divs. However, all of the blind clients just stripped the html using a regular expression so it can be displayed in a text file, while making no attempt to account for anything that might be lost by that approach.
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Joseph King @jdking92@dragonscave.space
5mo
@alexhall @fastfinge @Rosalyn @Bri This is where I very promptly exit stage left.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@alexhall @jdking92 @Rosalyn @Bri And links are just the thing that blind users are noticing, because they read a post talking about a URL, try to interact with it, and it doesn't work. But I could happily post formatted lists, bold, italics, blockquotes, and both FastSM and Tweesecake would strip them out silently, and users would never know they missed anything to even complain about. I get that we don't want an HTML viewer for posts. But accessible clients need to do better than just assuming that HTML is completely unimportant and throwing it all away. They could convert the HTML to markdown. Or show the plain text version of the post that the server provides them. Or something else. But they don't. I'm sorry for ranting, but this has been making me crazy in Tweesecake for years now, and I hate that it's the same in FastSM.
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James Scholes @jscholes@dragonscave.space
5mo
@fastfinge @alexhall @jdking92 @Rosalyn @Bri This might be a rant, but it is a top tier, informative one. As someone who's pointed the link issue out to you at least once, I'm sorry you're getting so much repeated grief about it and hope it gets taken more seriously in new clients.
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Alex Hall @alexhall@mastodon.social
5mo
@jscholes @fastfinge @jdking92 @Rosalyn @Bri I agree with James. I didn't realize this was a problem. Now that I know, it seems like a serious oversight that should be a priority to address.
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Bri🥰 @Bri@fwoof.space
5mo
@alexhall @jscholes @fastfinge @jdking92 @Rosalyn I will try to see if I can work this out, but past a certain point, there's only so much I can do. If this what you say is true, and this plaintext representation of posts is indeed available in status objects, I've yet to evger find it. I'll look into it some more, because I definitely understand where you're coming from here, never mind I think the take of outright blocking FastSM/TweeseCake users is a bit hostile, I would still like to find a solution if I can
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@Bri @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 @Rosalyn Blocking is the only thing I can do to stop the endless complaints. I’m following the standard. I can’t fix broken clients. But too many users won’t accept that. If it doesn’t work with their clients, it’s inaccessible and obviously my fault.I can point to thee activity pub standard until I’m blue in the face. I can point at the json notes all day. But in the minds of most users, if their client is broken because the developers flatly refuse to abide by the standards, it’s my fault.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@Bri @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 @Rosalyn To be blunt, the standards all agree that content can contain HTML. You are responsible for handling that correctly. If you don’t, your client is broken.
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Alex Chapman @alexchapman@tweesecake.social
5mo
@Bri @alexhall @jscholes @fastfinge @jdking92 @Rosalyn I agree, blocking FastSM/Tweesecake users is a dick move, I'd never even consider doing such a hostile move over something like this.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@alexchapman @Bri @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 @Rosalyn If you reply to every single post I make complaining that the link doesn’t work, and demanding that I fix it, even when it’s your client at fault, I’m blocking. End of discussion.
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Alex Chapman @alexchapman@tweesecake.social
5mo
@fastfinge @Bri @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 @Rosalyn You could just use filters to block words like Tweesecake or something, I'd never block over something like this
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@alexchapman @Bri @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 @Rosalyn No, I can’t. Because the complaints always come in the form of: “Your links don’t work and your posts are inaccessible. Fix it now.”
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Alex Chapman @alexchapman@tweesecake.social
5mo
@fastfinge @Bri @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 @Rosalyn Well maybe filter out phrases like that or something, but entirely blocking people over it is not cool.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@alexchapman @Bri @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 @Rosalyn Sorry, but if you’re so untitled to think that the entire world needs to avoid making standards compliant HTML formatted posts, because your client is utterly and completely broken, and you complain about it constantly, a block is all you deserve.
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Bri🥰 @Bri@fwoof.space
5mo
@fastfinge @alexchapman @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 @Rosalyn Alright alright guys calm down. This really is not necessary.
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Alex Chapman @alexchapman@tweesecake.social
5mo
@Bri @fastfinge @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 @Rosalyn Ye exactly
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@Bri @alexchapman @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 @Rosalyn I’m sorry, but it completely is. I am sick and tired of being told that dealing with other people’s broken clients is my problem. And that I need to go out of my way to bend over backwards for people who have been told that they’re using an incompatible and broken client. It’s a bad look for blind people, who demand that everyone else follow W3C and WCAG standards, but then use apps that don’t do so themselves. And when I point this out, it’s my fault anyway, because I just shouldn’t use completely allowed and supported features that work literally everywhere else.
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Bri🥰 @Bri@fwoof.space
5mo
@alexchapman @fastfinge @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 @Rosalyn At the end of the day, it's his timeline, he has the right to block whomever he wishes. At the other end of the day, I've just added checks in the mastodon model to check for these plaintext copies of posts in the status object. You can try it if you like. I guarantee nothing.
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Alex Chapman @alexchapman@tweesecake.social
5mo
@Bri @fastfinge @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 @Rosalyn Ye I'm just saying because when you block someone that also stops them from seeing your content, I've followed a few people and they've been too trigger happy when it comes to hitting the block button.
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Martin @mcourcel@allovertheplace.ca
5mo
@alexchapman @Bri @fastfinge @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 @Rosalyn I have a little nap and this happens. I should have naps more often.
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Alex Chapman @alexchapman@tweesecake.social
5mo
@mcourcel @Bri @fastfinge @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 @Rosalyn Damn lol
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Joshua @J3317@allovertheplace.ca
5mo
@fastfinge @jdking92 @Rosalyn @Bri just wanted to let you know that the link that is in this post works with tweescake
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