kabe
@kabe@lemmy.world
A.K.A u/hucifer
- Comment on Why do we say, "when I look in the mirror" instead of "when I look in a mirror?" 2 weeks ago:
IMO, the first statement is half-stupid, the second one is half-overcomplicated :)
Welcome to English, my friend. No one ever clained that it wasn’t a pain in the arse to learn :)
- Comment on Why do we say, "when I look in the mirror" instead of "when I look in a mirror?" 2 weeks ago:
Lol well teaching this professionally surely makes me some form of authority (albeit of course not the authority!) on this subject.
To clarify, your original point sounded like you were making a distinction between metaphorical mirrors and actual mirrors:
“in the mirror” tends to more often refer to a metaphorical “mirror”, typically when discussing self-reflection
- "I took a look in the mirror and decided to change my ways."
“in a mirror” tends to refer most often to actual mirrors that exist in reality, not metaphorically
- "I looked into a mirror to fix my eyeliner."
This incorrect distinction is what I was objecting to, because of course we can use both the indefinite and definite articles to refer to either real or imaginary mirrors.
- Comment on Why do we say, "when I look in the mirror" instead of "when I look in a mirror?" 2 weeks ago:
Nope, as I explained in my other comment, it’s standard usage.
In English, we often use the definite article when speaking in general about a specific activity or action that involves a non-specific object. E.g. “go to the bathroom” or “catch the bus”, or “read the newspaper”. It’s not poor form at all.
- Comment on Why do we say, "when I look in the mirror" instead of "when I look in a mirror?" 2 weeks ago:
A fair guess, but this isn’t one of those times when a grammatical error becomes normalized through common usage.
There is no grammar rule that separates speaking literally versus metaphorically in this case.
“You have something on your face; go take a look in the mirror” is just as correct in English as "I need to take a good look in the mirror and change my ways.
- Comment on Why do we say, "when I look in the mirror" instead of "when I look in a mirror?" 2 weeks ago:
English teacher here. Articles in English can be really confusing but essentially we use the definite article in this situation because:
- Uniqueness: In most situations, there’s only one mirror in a room or building that’s readily available for someone to look into.
- Generality: Similar to “going to the bathroom,” “look in the mirror” refers to the general act of using a mirror to see oneself, not interacting with any specific mirror.
- Comment on The lemmy.ml Problem 3 weeks ago:
First impressions to new users is an important factor, I agree, but is it really"full of extremist political content"?
Scrolling through the first 4 pages of Lemmy World today, I see no extremist content at all. All of the political posts are standard liberal/left-of-centre talking points and the only things related to .ml content are three posts complaining about tankies, off the back of the original post that made a splash yesterday.
I can’t see anything that would be putting potential newcomers off in droves.
- Comment on The lemmy.ml Problem 3 weeks ago:
Absolutely agree, which is why I would advocate against defederation. It’s is better to let users organically migrate away from problematic moderation than for the LW admins to preemptively make the decision on everyone’s behalf.
Lemmy is still a relatively small community, and too much defederation is only going to be detrimental to it’s overall health.
- Comment on The lemmy.ml Problem 3 weeks ago:
I appreciate the effort you’ve put in here, but still I do not see grounds for defederation.
The question isn’t “are there communities on lemmy.ml that are ideologically censored”, because of course there are; the question I am putting to you is “is the average user going about their business and not actively engaging in politically-oriented communities affected enough to warrant the largest Lemmy instance completely defederating?” I would still say no, personally.
- Comment on The lemmy.ml Problem 3 weeks ago:
I’ve seen it in the obvious communities like worldnews@lemmy.ml, sure. But in non-political ones? Not once.
- Comment on The lemmy.ml Problem 3 weeks ago:
See, now that’s a much more positive approach. Users making informed decisions and organically migrating is much more in keeping with the Fediverse spirit than admins wielding the defederation hammer, IMO.
- Comment on The lemmy.ml Problem 3 weeks ago:
Yes I have, which is why I’m asking. While I agree that the admin response was totally out of all proportion, this is not evidence of either of the things you claimed. What happened there was that OP challenged the pro-CCP version of events in a political discussion and got banned from the entire instance.
If you’re going to justify defederation based on non-political communities being policed and injected with propaganda, you need to provide some concrete examples of that happening.
- Comment on The lemmy.ml Problem 3 weeks ago:
To what extent is this actually an issue? What examples do you have so far?
- Comment on The lemmy.ml Problem 3 weeks ago:
but, these communities come along with an assortment of lies and Propaganda.
So block those individual communities that post what you consider propaganda.
At which point the negative outweigh the positive?
With a server like, say, Hexbear, this would be an easy calculation. Defederate and what does the average user miss out on? Not a whole lot. On the other hand, .ml has a wide variety of technology, open source, gaming, hobby, etc. communities that don’t even touch on politics.
I regularly visit many of them, so for me at least, it would take a lot more on the negative scale to even break even.
- Comment on The lemmy.ml Problem 3 weeks ago:
There are some good points here, but I think defederation should always be a last resort and especially so in this case, given that we are talking about lemmy.ml here.
Since it was the former flagship server (in activity, at least) before LW came along, there are still many thriving, non-political communities hosted there. To cut them all off would be a net-negative to the average Lemmy user, I would argue.
That’s not to say that I agree with the actions of the .ml admins, or don’t think that opening a dialogue with them about moderation policies isn’t a great idea, of course. Let the individual user figure out for themselves which communities they want to engage with and which ones they want to avoid, I say.
- Comment on [Question] What single early moment in a movie made you realize that your low expectations for the film were going to be vastly exceeded? 3 months ago:
Wonka. I was low-key hostile to the very idea of an origin story, but within five minutes I realized that that it was going to be a fun ride.
- Comment on As a mod, what are the rules in regards to leftist/socialist communities and posts? 10 months ago:
Have you read the admin’s explanation post? They cited posts from HexBear admins which suggested they were intending to stir things up on other instances after federation?
Again, I don’t necessarily agree with the decision, but either way it seems to not be about political ideology as much as keeping out unpleasant behavior.
- Comment on As a mod, what are the rules in regards to leftist/socialist communities and posts? 10 months ago:
from my perspective it very much appears like it’s along ideological lines.
I wouldn’t say so at all. The admins took the decision to defederate from the alt-right explodingheads.com instance because the content there broke the servers rules here, and they made a similar judgment with HexBear because of their apparent intention to brigade.
For the record, I personally think the call to defederate with HB was premature. That said, the admins here seem to more or less apolitical band more concerned with protecting their users.
- Comment on Dr Strangelove: Armando Iannucci pens first stage adaptation of a Stanley Kubrick film 11 months ago:
For those who don’t know, Ianuuci is the guy behind the movie The Death of Stalin, and the political satire series Veep and The Thick of It.
His stuff is always worth a watch.