I’m a scientist and systems engineer, particularly materials science, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, bioengineering, renewable energy, um… okay, so kind of I enjoy being a general engineer and doing a little of everything.

But I love trying to help scientists turn super technical concepts into usable prototypes because I can translate biologist to electrical engineer really effectively.

I am the star trek kind of anarchist.

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Cake day: Jun 12, 2023

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Did they initiate the process and ask for help or did you offer?

I’ve been teaching twenty years. If students get themselves to the point of coming with a question based on experience, odds are excellent that they will listen to what I’m saying. If they do something at my suggestion, they are not engaged and do not retain. Same is surely true for learning to use a new website.

So I dunno if this is a suggestion for you or other people reading this post, but consider directing them to magazines/communities that are an actual draw, since people are the actual draw. When they find they cannot post, then they will have incentive to pay attention.

This is so far true for “what is a photon”, “what is consciousness”, “how do you do a kick”, and “why are most metals thermally conductive” so I suspect this isn’t a unique thing. Dangle the incentive, then wait for them to ask how to get involved.

Again, not criticizing especially since I don’t know your approach, hopefully this can help others. The draw is the community and posts, so highlight that way before they ever see a signup page. They can browse the site without an account.


Okay, so I’ve been using Mastodon for years so I basically understand the idea of how content is propagated.

People on your instance are following someone and so you see the people they follow on your feed, or else they boost posts that they can see in which case people can see them on your feed.

I know this is using the same protocol but I’m trying to understand a few things –

It sounds like each instance has separate magazines, so this means different instances have different magazines. How does it handle it when two instances have magazines with the same topic? No real attempt at trying to merge the two? It seems impossible to do with distinct mods from separate servers with different rules, did someone figure out a way?

Similarly, if someone from @kbin.pub wants to comment on a thread in a magazine on @kbin.social or whatever (assume valid instances), how do they know that the thread exists? They subscribe to that magazine on a different instance and then see it in their own home page? Or does them subscribing to a magazine on another instance make that magazine appear to others on their own instance?

I guess I’m trying to understand how this system is handling discovery and moderation in a forum system where different instances split up a forum, it would be neat if things were somehow interleaved.