Oh damn, look at that train wreck!!

At the start of the month/year when you quoted Cranberries "no need to argue", the word argue there actually was a placeholder for complain, troll, harass, bitch, whine, prod, annoy, and so on. You were (at the time) implying you were done with all that, but here you go yet again. Case in point: "You probably think this post is about you..." and then you go on to make a post about him.

I refuse to believe you were only saying you were turning over a new leaf by merely ending arguments... which is a very narrow strip of your previous antics. I encourage you to stick to the spirit of your new years post! Stop the fighting and the bickering and the insults, not just the arguments. After all, an argument is just one side of a debate, and debate is the hallmark of open society, scientistic thought, and free speech. Done properly, arguments are a constructive thing. Fights, not so much.

You're coming off as disingenuous, like a Ukrainian/Israeli ceasefire. Either that, or unable to resist the temptation to go back to your old habits you claimed to be leaving in the past. "I'm the bigger man" you imply... but don't appear able to live up to that statement. You literally called him "little" here. I encourage you to rise above! Don't just say you're rising above. Of course, you can do/say as you please, we all can.

Now, on to the actual point of your post... which I kind of replied to in your comment on Dan's post, but here it is again, expanded.

"Muting" on Hive, Steem, and Blurt is improperly named. To mute someone is to silence them. What these blockchains allow is to ignore someone. Ignoring people does not take away their rights, and is an important tool here. I ignore ("mute") a lot of pseudo-intellectuals, including "rycharde" ("dyck"?), practicalthought (anything but practical), and "baah". I also ignore bots that post the same garbage (generally self-promoting spam disgusted as charity) that comment everywhere "you have been curated". I don't care (I can already see who has curated me), and will never care, and these comments detract from my experience without adding anything. Click! This does not take away anyone's freedom of speech. I just can't hear them anymore. It affects nobody else's experience. It's a powerful and important tool, but should NOT be called "mute".

"Self-Sovereign Blogs" (aka "Destruction of Free Speech")

This Orwellian-named (the exact opposite of what it claims to be) feature was announced here back in July.

"This feature opens up the ability for self-moderation of one's own comment space, this addition will be crucial for businesses and families joining Blurt, both of which may require a santised discussion."

You can never sanitize a comment section, anywhere on the internet. Somebody will always be able to post text (and even images) you find disagreeable. If you silence someone, they can make another account, and go on showing your children dick pics, or swearing on your business posts you want to bring up in a board meeting, and anything else you don't want to see. There's no way around it. Not here, and not anywhere else on the internet. You can even censor every potential naughty word you can think of, and somebody will figure out a way around it. So the whole premise is fuc|<ing bull$h!t.

"enhancement of the mute feature to extend beyond the author to his audience as well"

Herein lies the problem. First, it's not an enhancement of the mute (ignore) feature at all. It's actual muting (silencing) of an account. They have lost the ability (right) to speak freely on any of your posts. If you happen to be a prominent member of the community, or a founder/owner/foundation/insider/witness/etc, then you are removing that person's ability (right) to be heard in the public square (aka public forum). Since time immemorial this has been seen as wrong in free and open societies. Gagging a person, taping their mouth shut, cutting their tongue out... this is not something we should be doing in a supposedly decentralized community that claims to espouse free speech and hate censorship. The internet - especially blockchains, and EXTRA-especially blockchains that claim they don't censor - is today's public square. They are blatantly silencing people from being able to speak in the public square. Removing freedom and calling it sovereignty.

Also, to "extend beyond the author to his audience as well" means to silence the account for ALL readers. They're claiming it's about shielding children and bosses from NSFW content, but the regular mute (ignore) feature already does that. Preventing other accounts from seeing the targeted account's comments doesn't protect anyone's kids or shield NSFW content from anyone's boss, unless those kids or boss have their own separate Blurt account, which they don't. Total bullshit. They were just sore they couldn't outright delete people and steal their wallets, which they wanted to do but were dissuaded by the community and a few decent witnesses, so they came up with this "Self-Sovereign Blogs" nonsense to silence people they don't like. Fake fucks.

They allowed no discussion, no voting, no debate. They just rolled it out secretly, began using it, and then announced they had done it.

They went woke, and the rest of us are going broke (their profits are always guaranteed).

"the comment option is greyed out for muted parties and replaced with the Reply Disabled text"

"You've been blocked from the public square" would have been more accurate. These dimwits put the "block" in "blockchain".

"It is very important to note that muted parties will still be able to post their own blog posts"

Oooooh, it doesn't ban the person from Blurt completely, great! /sarc

When I first signed up here, one of the first things I saw Megalomaniac say was "I can't wait to get all the nasty anarchists out of here". I am an anarchist, which is to say, I believe in absolute freedom and Liberty. I do not believe in rulers. That's what anarchy means. Either he doesn't know what the words he uses mean, or he's literally against freedom (free speech, free markets, etc). He's either ignorant, or an evil socialist (or both). That was not a good start. I should have seen that, and gone running back to Hive (where I can't post without losing my payouts and being sent toward 0 rep and censorship).

I'm completely against the "self-sovereign blog" (loss of free speech) concept on blurt.blog and will never use that frontend until they get rid of it. I will not use any other frontend that adopts it.

I will continue to use the "mute" (ignore) feature on Blurt. I wish it would be renamed something that actually makes sense, because it certainly doesn't mute (silence) anyone. I recommend everyone use it as much as they like. Nobody's rights are infringed.

Getting rid of bad witnesses

Certainly all for that. This is how we shape the blockchain. We do this with voting, each account deciding who to support and who to not support.

How does the community decide who is bad, though? One way is to post thoughts and evidence openly, allowing others to make up their own minds and vote accordingly. A bit like endorsing (or renouncing) someone. You've done some of that here.

Regarding specific witnesses, I do like Fervi, and I like Khrom to some degree but don't find him willing/able to take on the corruption at the top, preferring to say "let's wait 18 months" as if that will get rid of the cronyism and hypocrisy that prevents Blurt from prospering. Regarding Dan (wtp), what is your specific issue? You called him an idiot, and little, and mentioned his recent low-effort post. I don't find him to be an idiot, and I don't mind low-effort posts by witnesses. If I don't want to vote on (reward) the post, I won't. But that has little to do with their witnessing, which as far as I can tell is totally removed from their content-creation. Although I must admit, I find it distasteful when a post is 50% self-promotion like "vote my witness blah blah blah here's the link please help me" on every single post. But I haven't seen Dan do that.

I find that most people that should be witnesses, are not witnesses. For example, that @erh.germany guy. Never seen him say something I didn't agree with. And I find that most people who should not be witnesses, are witnesses. It's a bit like politics. The crap rises to the top. There are exceptions obviously... like Ron Paul! :P

I actually don't think witnesses have much power here. Supposedly to prevent an outside attack on Blurt, huge printed stake was granted to put certain witnesses in place. Kind of like saying, to prevent Russia from taking over the USA, we're making Biden president for life. It reeks, but that's how it is. I don't think the lower witnesses can do much about it. I recently voted #2 witness Khrom and it sent him to #1, but then insiders re-voted Saboin back to the top spot. As far as I'm aware, the founders/insiders/owners will ensure they have full control of the witness situation, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

Shit, that was a long comment. Kudos to anyone who read it all.

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_{Posted from https://blurtlatam.intinte.org}