calgary blogger

  • 31 Posts
  • 22 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • Because it would be faster is all. I can do it myself of course but if I can link an article and ask it to summarize, and it does a good job of it, great. It doesn’t need to be much, perhaps just extending beyond the headline a bit to provide a little more context. I can always add in my own as well.

    It’s not like the output would be some kind of drastically different information that I would take and share without reading it. I’ve always tried to only share accurate and trusted sources for news, beit MSM or subject matter experts. A source is always included. Also, I generally try to share news without an opinion attached to it but sometimes that can help.

    Maybe I can attach a poll to every single article that I create a blog post for, gathering thoughts? Some kind of added value beyond a link would be cool.

    The whole point is to circumvent the stupid blocking of articles being shared directly. This should actually be a really good thing for me because I’ll be able to make some money from website ads too, but, I’ve always tried to provide the best experience possible when doing things online and having to share a middle-man approach to keep people informed sucks ass. I predict a lot of media websites will take a huge hit in traffic due to this, which means much less ad revenue. I have no idea why the government is doing this. Links to articles are not taking away anything imo. Services like Google AMP are different and those do take away from the articles, so maybe it’s for stuff like that?

    Testing it out, here’s some examples,

    I pasted in the link and said “please summarize this article up in a short paragraph”

    “Taylor Swift has announced her upcoming tour this 2023 called “The Eras Tour” where she will perform her songs from past and present. The first leg of the tour has already been announced and it is described as “a journey through the musical eras of my career,” said Swift. However, Canadian cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver were conspicuously absent from the list”

    “According to CTV News, Const. Elena Golysheva of the Edmonton Police Service who joined the “Freedom Convoy” in Coutts, Alta., has been allowed back with Edmonton police”

    “According to Global News, Lethbridge Police are warning the public about suspected fentanyl resembling candy bear”

    “According to CityNews Calgary, Dr. Esther Tailfeathers resigned from the Indigenous Wellness Core after a hiring decision involving former Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw”

    “According to The Toronto Star, Canada’s federal environment and climate change ministry has stated that compostable bags “contaminate recycling streams; and they have not proven to perform better than conventional plastics when littered on land or in water”. The bags “remain a threat of harm to wildlife, are difficult to recycle and have available alternatives””

    Results

    The results are kinda disappointing but I might need to come up with a better query description. A couple of them were decent. All of them were accurate.







  • That sounds so… complicated. Like, almost a coin toss to see if your post or comment will actually end up being allowed lol. I’ve always tried to mod reddit with a very laid back but fair approach.

    I don’t miss that place at all. It’s cool to connect with other locals but reddit is such a hive of villainy and egos that it’s really hard to find common ground simply because you live in the same area. So many other subs at least have something in common between users, a video game, a celebrity, a topic… but a location? It’s rough. That being said, being a mod in that place is not easy. For whatever reason it has a huge handful of super toxic users that will willingly do whatever they can to cause havoc, get themselves suspended, make a new account… rinse and repeat forever. It’s super pathetic but a big part of life there. A lot of dudes in their 30s/40s/50s behaving like edgy teens.

    I’m still a mod in r/Alberta but don’t actively do very much these days to be honest. I don’t look at modmail or take part in any direction or decision making, though I do occasionally handle some reports. It’s also a sub that is very complicated and filled with political drama, which isn’t really my thing. Lots of screeching.

    I actually liked Texasnorth too lol though not for what he said (I disagree with pretty much all of his opinions) but with him you at least knew what you were getting. Always pretty straight forward. Not really hateful comments but just very passionate in his political beliefs. I did spot a new account of his in the wild and messaged him to confirm and say hi, after TN was suspended, but no idea where he might be today. I’d assume still on reddit somewhere. He once told me his name so I can confirm that if I do ever come across him again.

    I’ve been on Lemmy for about 4 years now though pretty sporadically, and just on the OG Lemmy.ml (but I’ve heard not great things about the founders that run it). Always prefer a locally grown option if there is one. Lemmy.ca is super fast! Quite digging it so far.

    While on the topic of subs and moderation, I have r/YYC on reddit, though I’ve kept it private. I recently had an idea for it but I’m not sure how it would play out in reality. With the latest reddit admin bullshit I don’t expect to do much with it anymore. The app I use (reddit is fun) is going away and fuck that :( https://i.imgur.com/VTq97Zh.png - just was thinking of a different approach to a community.



  • I’m not sure what you mean by bullshit free, that’s pretty ambiguous. What you consider bullshit might not be for someone else etc. That said I think I’m pretty good with moderation, in general. I helped mod r/Calgary for I think 7 years? before it became too much. So much toxicity and drama, it was making me miserable and wasting my time over the most trivial of things. I still use reddit but haven’t used that sub since I left so I’m not even sure what it’s like now. I still see it sometimes when people drop links to posts in my Discord server but that’s about it.

    For this place… I would personally roll with the same basic rules lemmy.ca has:

    • no posting/commenting with hate/racism/bigotry
    • no spamming
    • no sharing private info like names/phone numbers/etc
    • posts must be relevant to Calgary in some way

    Don’t give a shit to babysit people, they can just block someone if they don’t want to communicate with them. It’s cool when people agree to disagree. Not everyone will agree with everything else but as long as you can share your feelings in a civil way, good stuff.

    This place seems small and new enough where deeper conversations could be possible. There will probably be one-offs where someone will refuse to stop being a huge toxic asshole to everyone else, but I imagine that would infrequent, especially with the lemmy.ca mini-application to even create an account.