I hate how people talk about off grid living as something you can pull off alone, that’s difficult even if you allow for buying food and installing all kinds of fancy infrastructure in your home.
The truth is that properly sustainable and reliable off-grid living requires a small community, because you need a lot of labour.
I read a book a while back about the real life of the author of little house on the prairie (it’s called “prairie fires”) - her books really sugarcoat how hard life was - even people who knew how to live off the land had a really hard time
Now there are people who live off the grid in places like Alaska (just watch Life Below Zero) and do it successfully… But these people grew up doing that or studied and prepared A LOT. And man, doing that solo is not easy. None of them seemed to be super healthy or cheerful.
But even in the story they went into town for food and blankets, and they didn’t try to winter in a tent.
I don’t know this guy, but even Superman needs a backup plan in case he gets sick, and infected wound or ruins his ankle by tripping over something. Living off grid alone is just one misstep away from catastrophe.
You nailed it. And these folks were simply living off canned food and ramen… For how long?
Communal living is great if you get the right mix of people with a shared vision… In the right location… With the right resources… To be successful it seems you need to have a pretty organic evolution of the process and attract people with shared vision. The dark side of this devolves into cultism; the brighter side is a sustainable living and sense of belonging.
Now there are people who live off the grid in places like Alaska (just watch Life Below Zero) and do it successfully… But these people grew up doing that or studied and prepared A LOT. And man, doing that solo is not easy. None of them seemed to be super healthy or cheerful.
I am reminded of that guy who did that in Alaska solo, for like 30 years Dick Perniky or some such I believe his name was. He took video of wildlife and got it edited. I think he was 50 or there abouts when he left the lower 48.
Sources should be as unbiased and reliable as possible Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion.
Every source is biased.
You’ll get someone telling you that mainstream newspapers are biased in favor of their country’s dominant ideology, or their owner’s business interests, or the cult that started them, or whatever.
However, some sources report on things that actually happened, and some sources report on rumors, fake news, speculation, and other BS.
We are aware, but we’re just humans, so we’ll moderate as fair as we can. I’ll be compiling a blacklist, with sources that are not accepted here, and people can let us know if they don’t agree with any of the sources on that list.
Sources should be focused on factual news reporting — not rumor, gossip, condemnation, or opinion. Broadly, sources should be telling the reader what happened and not what to feel about it.
I like this wording - with emphasis on focused - even most credible sources provide some analysis and opinions, so enforcement is bound to be somewhat subjective - but as mods its our job to be as fair and impartial as possible. I expect there will be opportunities along the way for the broader community to provide feedback which will be carefully considered.
For a worked example of why “unbiased” is undesirable, take a look at any news site that reports on issues relevant to a particular population — such as LGBTQ+, Christians, or Black Americans.
An LGBTQ+ news site is not going to be “unbiased” on, say, marriage equality. It’s going to have a viewpoint. However, it can still report true news stories.
Per rule 1: “Trolling” is in the eye of the beholder, but I like that you’re trying to address bad faith argumentation. I’d rephrase the rule like this:
[Be civil. Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only.]
Then link to a document that details “good faith argumentation”, with examples. You’ll need them.
Per rule 2: A list of approved sources is better than a removal of biased sources. At least that way you can get individualized feedback on the list, rather than constantly having to address bias within each individual submission. Whitelist good/credible sources and blacklist others, and post occasional notices for feedback on each list. That way you can filter by domain and avoid most confusion.
Per rule 4: Remember that sites change headlines occasionally, so you’ll likely get some reports on those.
Per rule 5: I would rephrase it like this: [Posts must be news from the most recent __ days. No opinion/editorials.]
You can specify the timeframe, but 60 or 90 days is generally pretty good.
Add a catch-all rule 6 that goes without saying but gives you clear protection if something just doesn’t sit right with you: “Mods reserve the right to remove disruptive posts and comments on a case-by-case basis.”
I will indeed rephrase the first rule, good suggestion!
If you have a whitelist, you don’t need a blacklist, so I don’t fully understand what you mean with that. The problem with having a whitelist is that I think it’s to much work to curate each news source, and could be seen as restricting if not enough are whitelisted. That’s why we’ll probably go for a blacklist.
Yea, the bot already has some problems with that. But we’ll first ask questions, then delete, so no worries there.
Good suggestion, I’ll discuss it with the other moderators.
That catch all rule is already included in the instance rules, so that’s not really needed.
If you have a whitelist, you don’t need a blacklist, so I don’t fully understand what you mean with that. The problem with having a whitelist is that I think it’s to much work to curate each news source, and could be seen as restricting if not enough are whitelisted. That’s why we’ll probably go for a blacklist.
Good point. Either way you’ll have a lot of work to sort out sources up front. After a few months of work the system should sort itself out and you’ll have to do much less maintenance. But you’re right that a blacklist-only approach is probably simpler. I guess it just depends on whether you choose to take a “source is forbidden until we allow it” approach or “source is allowed until we forbit it” approach. Both have merit, but the optimal choice depends entirely on how much traffic you’re generating.
I think regardless of whether we have a white list, black-list or both there will be sources that fall in the grey. Here’s an example. Imagine a school shooting in XYZ Community. Perhaps the local community newspaper provides a very detailed and credible article - the site is small enough it is unlikely to be on either a white list or a black list but it could still be a good contribution to the site. I providing examples of sources that are broadly accepted or not accepted is useful, but at the end of the day I think much of it falls to moderator discretion.
Absolutely true. A list either way is just meant to be a fast-track for approved sources and a stop light for disapproved ones. You’ll still have your work cut out for you. The value of a list, however, is that eventually submitters learn what’s kosher and what’s not. If you don’t have a blacklist, for example, then you’ll have to manually remove National Enquirer-type submissions every time they pop up. A blacklist allows you to set up an automated filter that everyone knows and understands. Coming from someone who modded on Reddit for over a decade, you want rules that are helpful enough to ALLOW you discretion, while at the same time being specific enough to cut down on repetitive bullshit. Clarity and consistency is key, and you don’t want rules that rely SOLELY on moderator discretion, otherwise your work just gets harder and harder as traffic increases. If you’re likely to remove Daily Stormer submissions every time they show up anyway, then go ahead and put it on a blacklist so folks know ahead of time that it won’t fly.
I think a blocklist of common sources of biased and sensationalized / misinformation sources would be the best option. It would definitely be a ton of work to whitelist every good source, and you especially want to encourage smaller trusted industry-specific sources (think like pv magazine), there are a lot of those small high quality sources that are geared towards industry professionals. With a short blocklist you could probably cover a significant portion of the loudest biased sources of misinformation.
The fact that a hiker found one and the other two weren’t found until the next day makes me think that one left to try and get help, froze to death, and the other 2 died waiting.
Apparently this was during winter. If they got hit by bad weather unprepared, they might not have had any options left once they realized they were fucked.
I’m not sure that’s how that works. I think if you just have a layover and you remain in the secure area of the airport, you’re not technically passing through a point of entry and only required a visa for your final destination.
That is only marginally better. I have had near whole day layovers in Europe. The only thing that didn’t drive me insane was that I could walk outdoors.
These rules imply, but do not acrually require, that posts must provide a link to an authoratitive source. It is possible to interpret those new rules such that sources are optional and that the only time some of those requirements come into play is if a source was optionally included.
I think there should be an explicit requirement that all posts include a link to a source…followed by all those other requiremeents.
Acknowledging the weather would be start, they don’t even need to acknowledge climate change. Just realize that when it’s over 98 degrees and you plan on a full day of hiking in the wilderness…
Bring a bunch of water and take plenty of breaks in the shade.
Just make informed choices. Want to visit Death Valley! That’s great! It’s a beautiful park worth seeing. But don’t go in the middle of summer, go in fall or winter when the daytime peak temperatures will be much more comfortable.
If you MUST go in the summer, plan ahead. Bring several gallons of water with you per person, plenty of sunscreen, ideally a hat and sunglasses, and lightweight, breathable clothing that won’t trap your sweat and body heat. And on top of that, make sure your car is up to date with maintenance and can comfortably drive when the temperature outside is 110+. To have all bases covered, it would also be worth investing in a satellite phone- not all national parks have cellular coverage. In my experience, cell service is extremely spotty to non-existent inside of national parks.
I think education is important. I think they should force everyone to watch a 10 minute movie about how people die in parks. Make is very graphic to drive the point home. Like those drivers education movies.
And you haven’t worked in pollution reduction, I see.
Just because it is tough, doesn’t mean you get a pass. These companies decided to collect all this data, they are responsible for keeping it secure. Just like companies that do any kinda chemical processing are responsible for what they unleash.
What would be ideal would be more political leaders seeing their data compromised. Maybe then we will start seeing fines for companies that think IT security doesn’t matter.
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