Today - 31 August - is World Blog Day.

And I’ve ditched the post that I was intending to write this evening.

I’m writing this one instead, and I’m grumpy.

Not grumpy that I have to write it. I don’t have to write it. Me writing this it isn’t going to make the slightest difference.

I’m grumpy not that I have a generally excellent experience in the fediverse - and I do - but because that’s not the case for everyone. Particularly for people who are not men.

I’m grumpy that, twice in two days, people that I follow in the fediverse - people who post nerdy, interesting, fun stuff - have been harassed, including the receipt of unsolicited, non-consensual, sexual messages.

One’s a woman. One’s non-binary.

Both have - for the fediverse - a relatively high number of followers.

And… this just isn’t on.

Men - and, as far as I can tell, it was men - sodding well need to do better.

Yes, yes, #NotAllMen. Blah blah blah.

I don’t have comments on my blog, for a few reasons, but one of them is that I just like to write.

Sure, I might toot about a blogpost, and I accept that that might bring replies.

Primarily because I’ve no way to stop it.

My blog, itself, can be a broadcast platform, but my toots cannot.

I wonder if the ability to restrict replies in the fediverse might go some way towards dealing with this.

It’s sub-optimal, of course. It puts the onus on the person being harassed to second-guess which toots might cause harassment, and restrict replies to those toots. That’s not right, but nor is it inconsistent with many safety-type tools.

It’s not perfect either, of course. Someone can always find a way of being unkind to someone else online. Perhaps it is a road block - a hurdle, a bollard, some friction - to discourage harassing replies, rather than as a tool to prevent them entirely.

Either way, yes, I’m grumpy tonight.