Alyx Hinata 🇹🇩🚫💀 @alyx@gameliberty.club

As cat don't want to be separated from me more than 7 seconds (she's on my belly rn), lemme wish you a happy new year

This February, a big portion of the Pleroma team met in Brussels for FOSDEM. Blissfully unaware of the horrible fate that would befall us all, we just poisoned ourselves with North Korean ginseng soju and bad fish.

Soon after, we started our tradition of missing release dates with our FOSDEM release in March, Pleroma 2.0. That's when we added Emoji reactions! Can you believe it? Seems like ages ago. AdminFE also made its entry in that one, still in a somewhat rough shape, but getting better with each release.

The next big thing came out in August. Chats! I hope you're all using them a lot! One step further in the direction of replacing all known software (email client will follow).

Our latest big release in November brought us the media preview proxy so that you can use Pleroma on cell phones without going crazy.

All the frontend changes we had in PleromaFE are too many to count. We also got a great new frontend in SoapboxFE and made it easier to install new frontends for admins.

So what am I looking forward to in the next year?

We'll make it much easier to install Pleroma, to host Pleroma, and to switch frontends around, both as an admin and as a user. Seeing how the existing big players will ban people left and right, an alternative is sorely needed, and we can provide it. Can Pleroma be 'social networking for the rest of us'? Let's do our best and find out!

We'll try to figure out how to make connecting to other people easier. We'll have to figure this one out together! There won't be an algorithmic timeline in Pleroma by default, but the firehose we currently have is also not very approachable for new users. Maybe a 'friendly instances' timeline? Better 'users to follow' suggestions? More outreach to explain how everything works? We'll see. Pleroma's what you make it.

And of course, the big one will come, hopefully sooner than later. Groups. Including group chat. I want it, you want it, everybody wants it. We'll get it. I've put literally years of thought into this one. Please be a little more patient, and then drop discord and facebook right away once it's released :p

I want to thank everyone who worked on Pleroma this year, who used it, who had fun on it, who was angry about it, who found new love on it and who keeps loving me. Every time I think about how far we've come in this backwater social network for outsiders and free software freaks, I find it hard to believe. We all make it happen together.

Was 2020 the Year of Pleroma? Not quite yet. But we made good progress. Next year will count. Can't wait to see you all again!

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Shit wait, no. That's the wrong video.

Here is the right one.

And now, have some words from GMan for this new year...

Never Forget.

It all started with Harambe.

@harblinger @augustus Out-of-context Alex Jones is best Alex Jones.
bangmywife.mp4

@alyx My experience is similar, but the first thing that comes to mind is that it might be some sort of a filter bubble that you (and I), personally, are trapped in. Some complex non-intuitive filter causing you to encounter a higher concentration of trans people online for some reason. Confirmation bias can play a role here too.

But then there's the idea that the wired is the frontier of today, and all oppressed, closeted undercover, and isolated people seem to gravitate towards it because they can express themselves, often anonymously, in a safer manner, and use various online filters to increase the chances of meeting others like them. Trans people, Nazis, ex-Muslim apostates, pedophiles, Saudi women rights activists, etc. And as mainstream social media starts reflecting the stigmas and ideological wars of the real world with the floods of average people joining it constantly, the marginalized groups start getting driven away from them and into new frontiers, like the Fediverse.

Well, there might be some other coincidental, but more concrete, reasons for the fedi to be like that. Maybe, for example, some of the first instance admins was a trans person, and they got their trans friends on it, then a network effect started pulling more and more of them into the fedi, starting new instances, and joining existing ones. That admin could have been equally a gardening enthusiast, and then the fedi would have been full of gardeners and florists.

But what do I know