Code deploy happening shortly

Aug. 31st, 2025 07:37 pm
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Per the [site community profile] dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

[syndicated profile] wwdn_feed

Posted by Wil

I am at my desk, staring at the blinking cursor in my text editor for what feels like an hour. If I were in a movie, the camera would do that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off thing they did with Cameron in the museum, with his eye and the eye in the painting, but with me and the damn cursor.

It just cheerfully sits there, like, “are you doing to do anything? I can blink all day, my dude. I’ll just be sitting here, blinking and waiting. I wait a lot. And I don’t want to make it weird but you’re always staring right at me and not doing anything and it’s kind of creepy. So are you going to actually write anything? Or — oh, hey! Here we go! WHEEE I’m moving to the right an– oh, you stopped. Okay, that’s fine. I’ll just blink while you — WOOOAHHHH now I’m going backward so fast! Oh I think I’m going to be sick!”

After a couple of dry heaves, it continues: “No, no, just more blinking. Okay. Let me catch my breath for a seco- OH GOD WHY DID YOU SELECT ALL OF THAT TEXT I CAN’T EAT ALL OF THAT!

“Gulp, gulp, gulp, burp.” Exhale, gasp. “Oh god that’s a lot. Okay. Okay. You didn’t like those words, I get it. I don’t judge, but if I’m being honest, I didn’t feel them, either. It’s okay, you’re still figuring out these beats. I’m ready when you are. Blink. Blink.

“Oh, you’re getting up and … okay, you’re dusting the bookshelves. Okay, that’s good. You go ahead and I’ll be here when you get back. Just … just blinking. Just blinking because … that’s what I do. I blink and I type things.”

And so it goes, over and over for most of the day. My bookshelves are fucking SPOTLESS.

If we were still doing this with a typewriter, or a yellow pad, my room would be a paper ball pit. Which actually sounds kind of fun, if I’m being totally honest.

Anyway, this is a long way to go so I have something to post today, and it’s a long way to go to say “I eventually got about 190 words that I may even keep, and that’s good enough for me.”

As my dear friend Will says, Onward!

[syndicated profile] wwdn_feed

Posted by Wil

It’s been one of those days when I do an incredible amount of creative work, but it looked like I spent the whole day just cleaning and unfucking my office while I watched and listened to the latest episode of The Record Junkies, followed immediately by the entire Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

Yes, to the untrained eye, it would appear that I didn’t do any writing work today. But! The creatives among us already know what I’m going to say next: the entire time, I was creating space for the writer’s assistant who lives in my brain (Damon Knight calls his “Fred”, mine is currently unnamed) to help me figure out how to get through this block that’s vexing me. He did a ton of work, pitched a lot of ideas (some of them were even kinda good), and threw away a lot of stuff that’s been cluttering up the space between my idea and a draft I don’t hate. We got a lot accomplished. Maybe tomorrow we’ll actually make words happen.

Then, at the end of the day, I went to the pharmacy and got my flu shot.

Thank you, science!

I’ve been getting the flu shot every year for as long as I can remember, and I can’t remember the last time I had the flu. I feel like these two things may be related. I have a lot of travel scheduled during cold and flu season, and I’d like to keep my streak alive.

Here’s a thought, that came up while I was getting ready to hit publish:

I haven’t written a blog post like this in years. Somewhere along the way, I decided that everything had to be just so, you know? I really got in my own head and in my own way. It doesn’t have to be huge essays or perfect, or some minimum length. It can just be my blog.

Writer’s Block and Creative Paralysis Hate This One Weird Trick!

I’m gonna try to remember that one way to just post more stuff in my blog (because it makes me happy to do that) is to just post more stuff in my blog (because it makes me happy to do that).

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