Okay here's a real toot that you can actually boost without people looking at you like you're crazy.
https://medium.com/@alliethehart/gameingers-are-dead-and-so-is-mastodon-705b535ed616
The past few weeks (okay, ever since the schism) I've felt kind of disenchanted by Mastodon and especially its development environment, and I wrote an essay about why that is. It's long, but if you're interested in Mastodon's history or politics you should give it a read.
@u2764 to quote you: "It is the nature of software development that the historical contexts from which features emerge are often erased", I think you hit the nail on the head, except I'd say this goes for pretty much every meaningful human endeavor, except maybe poetry, sometimes and not very often. I've joined Mastodon within the last two weeks like most other folks here nowadays, and I'm awed by it. I'm very happy to have found it, and I didn't mean to spoil it, same like probably most others.
@u2764 I'm not saying you implicated we somehow intended to do it, which you didn't - your post is very thoughtful. I'm just hoping we can continue to coexist on it and moreover find meaning, and that it will somehow be a part of a wider movement towards healing the rifts between peoples, rather than simply losing its soul and becoming a mere Rails + React codebase.
@u2764 reading further, thank you so much for the detailed history of the project! (I apologize for not being patient enough to read the whole thing before posting comments - I'm like this in RL too, I got it from my mother :grin:). It's amazing, and you've saved it from oblivion. When it comes too "far from being the product of enlightened and planned foresight, new features were added to Mastodon generally after their moment of need first arose", again, this is true for almost any larger SW.
@u2764 done. Wow. Thanks. I hope you get the tools you need. Furthermore, let me reiterate my hope we can find ways to coexist in the fediverse. Peace.