a gift for you

I'm a heavy Twitter user, have been for years; you can trust me on what I say here. I'm making an effort to use Cohost differently. Many of the parts of myself I express on here are ones I don't have a chance to express on Twitter.

take a while to look around, get a sense of the feeling, the gestalt of the site. how people talk and behave. this place is different, and we should all be mindful of it. it's healthier. people on here are kind. I'm not sure I've seen a single attempt to dunk on another Cohost user.

no snowflake is responsible for the flood. the activation queue helps, and the different mechanics of the site help. but we must all do our own part to prevent Eternal September from coming to Cohost.

much of Twitter culture is unhealthy. take a deep breath, consider how you and others act on there. consider the parts of the culture that you might intentionally choose leave behind, for your own sake and others'. this is not an Exodus in which we must carry your whole culture with us on our backs, though we can certainly bring the good parts.

be conscious of your behavior. be kind. give folks the benefit of the doubt. Unlike much of Twitter, Cohost is not a battle. It is more like a community garden. Take care not to tread on the plants; many of them aren't in containers, and the paths aren't bordered by stones. Carelessness can easily crush things that we would not want to kill, were we aware we were doing so.

it is also important that we, as cohost users, welcome people to the garden. It's a lovely place, and people should enjoy it, and feel welcome to start their own plots, as long as the mint stays in containers, and they aren't spraying Roundup everywhere.