That’s not what I am saying.

In my opinion the forum is a altruistic area. Is the value I provide tailoring the posts by up voting and down voting not valuable? Is the value I provide by summarizing and or giving interpretations of the articles posted here not valuable? Or engaging in thoughtful honest discussion not valuable?

I believe they are.

Do I feel entitled to some profit because of my input on this forum? No I do not.

I give this work because I provide my value to this site voluntarily, honestly, many hours of my day, altruisticly, to build a better community and discussion. I don’t demand money because I receive a community in return.

What I am saying is that this kind of stuff will segment our community, by creating a profitable segment of the community and an unprofitable segment of community, implicitly creating a “correct” and “incorrect” way. Beyond that it will introduce people to our community who care less about furthering this forum, and more about making profit.

Remember YouTube before the partner program and video responses and how much more engaged and equal that community was? And what it is now with most every prominent channel being sponsored on top of ad breaks and product placement?

Obviously, if a person wants to dedicate their full time to some art and wants money for it, they should, and I’m excited for what they produce, but this is not where to do it.

But you don’t have vibrant thoughtful debates about world events in target, you don’t purchase microwaves at the library. You go to stores to buy stuff, you go to forums to discuss stuff.

Content creators can create their own site, their own patreon, or whatever - they can freely submit their work to our forum for feedback and an audience, and they can even link someone the link to their store if they ask - but introducing the profit angle directly to our forum and integrating it in will be the beginning of the end for this community as it is. The first crack of enshitification.

Fuck the commodification of culture.

Fuck full time content creators.

I don’t want people working full time on social networks. I don’t want to read your ad, your secret knowledge, your product placement, or sponsorship, or your oh so subtle pitch for VC funding. I’m certainly not going to give money.

I want people who do their own thing in the real world, and as a hobby and show-and-tell, submit their work freely to the Internet to hone and expand their craft and field, and gain organic enrichment altruisticly.

If you want to sell stuff and make money, make your own website and store. Not on our forum.

Don’t pollute our forum. I want to be inspired, be in awe, be entertained, be informed, and to give back in my own way that continues this cycle and fuels the forum.

We’ve fled so many greedy sites - fleeing this capitalistic parasite in hopes of finding honest discussion untainted by greed. I’m tired of fleeing.

Or, it’s because whoever is doing this hates freedom of information and historical evidence. There’s a long list of powerful people and governments who have the resources and will to carry out these attacks.

Cyber warfare is real, and the Internet archive is a museum and library of culture and truth. It provides evidence and context to our past.

As in conventional war, it is valuable to the amoral to destroy culture and truth in order to control it. Many would like to kill that to supplant it with their version of events that can’t be refuted with evidence.

I haven’t been paying attention, what was the original drama there?

It sounds like good things have come out of it with a more community aligned governance, and nixOS is very interesting tech that could solve some of my headaches with Linux

I will maintain ownership of the repository, but I won’t pass it down to anyone else. First, because I feel it’s not up to me to decide who to pass the project down to, and second, because there is no one else to pass the project to.

“But I want and can maintain it, can I take it over?” Let me put it plain and simple: No! I don’t know you, I don’t trust you! Fork it and carry on!

Bravo

Starting with a simple idea that could theoretically be completed by a simple task, but as you implement it, reality complicates and sends you off on many deviations from the original straight and narrow path.

Yak shaving could be required and unknown at the beginning, or it could be a lack of discipline leading to scope creep - often it’s both

The famous Malcolm in the middle scene for ref: https://youtu.be/AbSehcT19u0?si=Pchmbf3509l1CbeQ - but the term was originally coined from elsewhere: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving