diegoebe

The New Troll Diet

2025-07-01T10:00:00-05:00

I have been thinking a lot about online harassment in software communities lately.

Harassment is nothing new in our spaces, and I even have a bunch of fun stories from trolls, past and new. However, all these stories have one thing in common: they are irrelevant to modern harassment and trolling. So I would like to humbly propose a new framing of this whole issue.

Harassment In The Troll Feeding Days

Perhaps the most jarring change in online culture has been in how harassment happens on the internet. Spending our formative years in forums, IRC, and mailing lists, we got used to the occasional troll that after a few annoying interactions would get blocked by an admin.

Back then, a troll was limited to baiting for replies, and that power was easy to take away. Remember, removing a troll was as simple as blocking an email address or banning an IP on IRC.

In short: Don't feed the troll and it will either get bored and go away, or be blocked by an admin. Right?

Online Harassment Is a Different Game Now

The days of starving trolls are over. Trolls now have metaphorical DoorDash, UberEats, and are even decent cooks themselves.

It is now impossible to defend an online community by simply "blocking the bad apples". A determined troll now has access to its own audience, peers to amplify their message, and even attack tools that used to be exclusive to nation states.

A DDoS attack can be implemented with a few dozen dollars and cost thousands to defend. Social media accounts can be bought by the hundreds. Doxxing is easy for motivated individuals. Harassment campaigns can be orchestrated in real-time to flood comment sections, media outlets, employer inboxes, and even deplatform creators.

Deterrence used to work because the trolls would lose access to attention and relevance if banned. This is no longer the case. In fact, trolls now have a lot to gain by building an audience around being ostracized by their targets, portraying themselves as brave truth tellers that are censored by evil-doers.

A strange game indeed, and not playing it doesn't work anymore.

Rules Are No Longer Enough

All of the above means that online communities can no longer point to the "No Trolls Allowed" sign and consider the job done, this "rules-based" framework is no longer viable deterrence. A different approach is needed, one that is not naive to the ruses and concern trolling of contemporary harassment.

A relevant example comes to mind. The popular "Nazi Bar" story as told by Michael Tager:

"(...) Tager recounted visiting a "shitty crustpunk bar" where he saw a patron abruptly expelled: the bartender explained that the man was wearing "iron crosses and stuff", and that he feared such patrons would become regulars and start bringing friends if not promptly kicked out, which would lead him to realize "oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now" only after the unwanted patrons became too "entrenched" to kick out without trouble."

(...) "(Internet slang) A space in which bigots or extremists have come to dominate due to a lack of moderation or by moderators wishing to remain neutral or avoid conflict." From Wiktionary

The story is not about the necessity of having a better rulebook. No, the point is that, in some circumstances, moderation can not afford to be naive and has to see through the ruse of bad actors appealing to tolerance or optics. Some times you have to loudly tell someone to fuck off, and kick them out.

This might seem counter intuitive if you grew up in the "don't feed the troll" era. But trolls no longer need the attention of their victims to thrive. In fact, some times silence and retreat from conflict are even bigger rewards.

The Trap Card of Behavioral Outbursts

Because the rules-based framework considers any engagement a failure, it leads groups to avoid conflict at all cost, not realizing that they are already in conflict with their harassers. Taken to an extreme, any push-back against harassment is seen as bad as the harassment itself. This flawed reasoning might even lead to throwing others under the bus, or walking back statements of support, all done in the name of keeping the harassers seemingly silent.

Unfortunately, conceding to trolls after receiving push-back is one of Behavioral Psychology "trap cards". The concept is formally known as "Behavioral Outburst" and describes how a subject will intensify an unwanted behavior after receiving push-back. The classic example is a kid having a tantrum:

A kid is at the store with their parent. The kid starts crying, asking for a new toy. The parent says no and warns the kid that they will go back home if they keep crying.

The kid keeps crying and the parent decides to fulfill the warning to go back home.

As a response to this consequence, the kid then has an outburst of the unwanted behavior: louder crying, screaming, throwing themselves to the floor.

The parent gets overwhelmed and ends up buying a new toy for the kid.

The above example is commonly used to demonstrate two concepts:

When an unwanted behavior is met with resistance, it frequently leads to an outburst of that behavior to "defeat" such resistance
If the outburst succeeds, then the outburst becomes the new baseline for responding to any resistance

We should understand that applying consequences to a harasser (bans, warnings, condemnation) is likely to cause an outburst of the unwanted behavior. This is unavoidable. However, it is a fatal mistake to cede to a behavioral outburst. If consequences are taken back, then the outburst becomes the new default level of harassment.

Even worse, an illusion of control is introduced: we harass, they fight back; we intensify the harassment a little bit, they concede.

Why Speaking Up Is Important

Communities are not corporations and morale is not set by a rule-book or by mandate of leadership. Communities, specially the ones giving away tens of thousands of dollars in value to each other, are held together by mutual trust.

One element of this mutual trust, maybe the most important one, is knowing that your colleagues have your back and will defend you from anyone unfairly coming after you. Just like a soccer team will swarm a rival to defend a teammate.

Knowing that your team will loudly tell those coming after you to fuck off is not only good for morale, but also a necessary outlet and catharsis for a community. Silence only leads to festering of the most rancid vibes, it erodes trust and creates feelings of isolation in the targeted individuals.

If solidarity and empathy are not demonstrated, is that any different from there being none?

A New Framework: Never Cede To The Troll

We need a new framework for how to defend against "trolls". The feeding metaphor ran its course many years ago. It is done and will not be coming back.

New online risks demand that we adapt and become proactive in protecting our spaces. We have to loudly and proudly set the terms of what is permissible. Those holding social or institutional power in communities should be willing to drop a few loud fuck offs to anyone trying to work their way in by weaponizing optics, concern trolling, or the well known "tolerance paradox". Conceding through silence, or self-censorship, only emboldens those who benefit from attacking a community.

It is time that we adopt a bolder framework where defending our spaces and standing our ground to protect each other is the bare minimum expected.

packpath: A command line utility to upload Signal stickers from a simple config file

2021-03-15T12:10:00-05:00

I have been using Signal a lot and, besides the privacy features, I have come to really enjoy custom sticker packs. Naturally, this led me to upload and maintain a lot of them. To keep things under control I wrote packpath, a small command line utility to easily upload and update Signal sticker packs from a simple config file.

Although the Signal stickers API is only kinda public, some developers have written libraries to interact with it. Concretely, signalstickers.com maintainer Romain Ricard, has written signalstickers-client, a Python library to interact with the sticker API.

Thanks to signalstickers-client doing all of the heavy lifting, I was able to write packpath, a simple command line utility to create and publish sticker packs based on a simple YAML configuration file. It's already available as packpath in PyPI:

$ pip3 install packpath

To use packpath, you need to create a directory with your sticker images and a config.yaml file. The YAML format is available in packpath --help, but it's actually very simple:

pack:
  title: Ketnipz
  author: Harry Hambley
  cover: ketnipz_001.webp

stickers:
  ketnipz_001.webp: 💓️
  ketnipz_002.webp: 💃️
  ketnipz_003.webp: 💕️
  ketnipz_004.webp: 😐️
  ketnipz_005.webp: 🙃️

You'll need your Signal "user and password", which are available on the desktop app through the web developer tools (window.reduxStore.getState().items.uuid_id and window.reduxStore.getState().items.password). See details on signalstickers-client README.

You can then call packpath on the directory:

$ packpath --user UUID --password PASS path/to/sticker/pack

You will get a progress report, and the "secret" URL to share your sticker pack:

$ packpath --user UUID --password PASS path/to/sticker/pack
[packpath] Configuring sticker pack Ketnipz by Harry Hambley
[packpath] Adding: 💓️ for ketnipz_001.webp
[packpath] Adding: 💃️ for ketnipz_002.webp
[packpath] Adding: 💕️ for ketnipz_003.webp
[packpath] Adding: 😐️ for ketnipz_004.webp
[packpath] Adding: 🙃️ for ketnipz_005.webp
Pack uploaded!

Pack uploaded. You can install it by visiting:
https://signal.art/addstickers/#pack_id=NNNNN&pack_key=MMMMM

You can also preview your pack at signalstickers.com:
https://signalstickers.com/pack/NNNNN?key=MMMMM

Note that visiting the above URL will (technically) make the pack ID and key visible to signalstickers.com server logs.
This will NOT add your pack to signalstickers.com, see https://signalstickers.com/contribute for that.

The code is licensed as AGPL-3.0-only, and you can check it out in the packpath repo in GitHub.

Many thanks to Romain for writing signalstickers-client, which actually made this tool possible.

A minimal jhbuild GNOME session in Debian

2020-08-01T17:33:00-05:00

I recently setup a GNOME development environment (after about seven years!). That meant starting from scratch since my old notes and scripts were completely useless.

My goal for this setup was once again to have the bare minimum jhbuild modules on top of a solid base system provided by my distro. The Linux desktop stack has changed a bit, specially around activation, dbus, and systemd, so I was a bit lost on how to do things properly.

Luckily around the time I was trying to figure this out, I ran into Florian Müllner's excellent post on how to work on shell hacking on a Silverblue system.

After removing the container-related bits, I was able to get a reliable jhbuild session integrated into my system.

Here is how to run a development GNOME session, fully integrated into your system.

Register a new session

First, you need to tell GDM about your new session. I was able to do that by creating /usr/share/wayland-sessions/jhbuild.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=jhbuild GNOME
Comment=This session logs you into a development GNOME
Exec=/usr/local/bin/gnome-session-jhbuild
TryExec=/usr/local/bin/gnome-session-jhbuild
Type=Application
DesktopNames=GNOME
X-GDM-SessionRegisters=true

Other distros might have slightly different paths. Check the installed files of your GDM package.

Create a wrapper gnome-session-jhbuild

The above jhbuild.desktop won't do anything unless you create an executable that starts the session. Most of the script is actually moving some systemd/dbus plumbing around so the right jhbuild services get started.

Put this in /usr/local/bin/gnome-session-jhbuild:

#!/bin/sh
#
# All credit to fmuellner!
# https://gitlab.gnome.org/fmuellner/silverblue-stuff/-/blob/master/sb-session-setup.sh
set -x

jhbuild() {
  /home/diegoe/.local/bin/jhbuild "$@"
}

export $(jhbuild run env | grep JHBUILD_PREFIX= | sed 's:\r::')

USER_UNIT_DIR=$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/systemd/user.control

if [ ! -e $USER_UNIT_DIR ]
then
  # Pick up systemd units defined in jhbuild
  ln -s $JHBUILD_PREFIX/lib/systemd/user $USER_UNIT_DIR
  systemctl --user daemon-reload
fi

DBUS_SERVICE_DIR=$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/dbus-1
rm -rf $DBUS_SERVICE_DIR

if [ ! -e $DBUS_SERVICE_DIR ]
then
  ln -s $JHBUILD_PREFIX/share/dbus-1 $DBUS_SERVICE_DIR
fi

# $PATH and a few other things are likely overriden by your distro on your
# ~/.profile file (see /etc/skel/.profile) -- this might cause .desktop files
# to be seen as "broken" (because TryExec/Exec can't confirm there's a valid
# binary to use)
jhbuild run gnome-session

rm $DBUS_SERVICE_DIR
rm $USER_UNIT_DIR
systemctl --user daemon-reload

Don't forget to mark the gnome-session-jhbuild script as executable!

A minimal jhbuild module list

I can currently get a stable session running with the following modules built:

$ jhbuild buildone adwaita-icon-theme glib dconf glib-networking gvfs gtk+ gtksourceview glade gnome-session gnome-desktop gnome-session gnome-settings-daemon gnome-control-center gjs mutter gnome-shell

You might need to buildone a few others to satisfy dependencies, but most of the time it's better to try and fill the missing pieces with the distro -dev packages.

If for some reason your new session doesn't start and you get stuck unable to log into any session, this is likely because of stuck services or processes. A reboot will clean things up, but make sure you change back to your system's default session, or you'll keep trying to log into the broken one!

A word on $PATH and installed apps

I ran into a hair pulling issue where I couldn't get any of my jhbuild installed apps to appear in the overview unless I had the equivalent app installed on the base system. $PATH was being lost as soon as a gnome-session binary started.

Well, turns out the answer is rather obvious. gnome-session starts a login shell which means that your system takes charge and sets a few things for you, this means that the $PATH visible in calls to jhbuild run or jhbuild shell is dropped, among other things.

The solution in my system was to add the following to my ~/.profile file:

# add jhbuild PATH
if [ -n "$UNDER_JHBUILD" ]; then
    PATH="$JHBUILD_PREFIX/bin:$PATH"
fi

The $UNDER_JHBUILD var is set whenever you are running inside jhbuild so you can use it to do other fun things in your shell, like adding an emoji to your prompt:

To get something like the above prompt you can add this to your ~/.bashrc:

if [ -n "$UNDER_JHBUILD" ]; then
  PS1="🍄 $PS1"
fi

Some (late) video and audio advice for GUADEC online

2020-07-21T23:31:00-05:00

GUADEC 2020 has moved online because of the pandemic, and that means that many of us will be streaming our voice and faces.

Seeing as I have a fancy B.A. on Communication Studies & Film, I thought I might share some guerilla film making tips for our new online reality.

Here are some tips on how to sound and look good online.

The executive summary

From most important to least: Clear voice, good framing, good big soft lights
Sit facing a big window, or on a light colored room with good lighting that hits your face as much as possible
Frame yourself in the center, and try to raise your camera to your eye level with books or boxes
Use your earbuds' microphone, but keep the cable away from your body by resting it on the desk, or using some masking tape to secure it to your clothes to avoid rubbing noises
Tune your microphone volume to the lowest possible sensitivity that gives your clear voice, low "noise" (hums and static). Record yourself, test playback at 20-25% of your maximum playback volume on earbuds.

The best lighting

The ideal situation is to sit facing a big window. With light coming into the room, on a cloudy day. You can put the window slightly in front and to your left/right if you can't sit directly in front.

If you have no usable window, you can use lamps. If you have tall lamps that you can point to a white wall, or white ceiling, that's perfect. That will give you a big soft source of light.

You have lamps but no white wall or white ceiling. Try to "make" a wall with white reflective cardboard, a lot of white printer paper, polystyrene (like a pro), or aluminum wrapping if you are desperate.

You only have your ceiling lights. Sit below and behind your ceiling light. You should be able to lightly tilt your head up and see your bulb or fluorescent. White rooms with many ceiling lights help bounce light to your face.

Remember you can borrow bulbs from other rooms or lamps if you find yourself with a light that is in the perfect spot, but too weak, or too blue ("cool light") or too orange ("warm").

The best framing

Put yourself in the center of the frame. Sit front and center of your camera, and try not to slouch to the sides, or worse, point the camera to your ceiling or desk.

Line your camera lens with your eyes. You can use books or boxes to raise your camera. You probably know this pitfall as "nostrils cam" and "receding hair line cam".

Cleanup your background, and some padding around it. Make sure that whatever ends up in frame is flattering, or at least not distracting, plus some "padding" around, in case you accidentally rotate your camera.

Don't put bright lights on your background. Bright light sources like a TV, monitor, or window will confuse your camera and might make you look washed out.

Put some distance between you and the background. Otherwise it will look like you are in a cell, a dungeon, or an unmarked CIA location.

The best audio

Microphones are "simple" but full of small technical details that are out of scope for this guide. The good news is that you likely already have a good enough mic that can be made to sound slightly better or in some cases much better.

For a more in depth look into how to properly record your voice, covering mics and voice use itself, see this "How to be an online voice actor" playlist by SBN3.

I only have my laptop mic, or my phone's cheap earbuds+mic. This is fine. You can still get good audio from this. See below.

How to set up your cheap laptop/earbuds (or any) mic

Set yourself up following the previous lighting and framing advice. Get comfortable
Pick the mic that makes you the most comfortable
Open your (system) sound settings, and a sound recording app
Set your system sound settings microphone volume to 50%. Record yourself as if you were talking across the table, plus some seconds of silence
Play back your recording at around 20-25% playback volume. Can you hear yourself clearly without having to raise the playback volume much more?
If you can't hear yourself, raise your sound settings microphone volume some more. Rinse and repeat until you hear yourself properly

You want the lowest possible microphone volume (sensitivity) where you have clear voice, without background "hums", "static" or "refrigerator noise", and without having to raise playback volume above 40% or so on speakers, or 30% on headphones.

Now repeat the test with your next best option. Keep going until you are satisfied. Remember that price or looks can be deceiving. Your earbuds might as well be your best microphone.

Earbuds troubleshooting

My wired earbuds sound better, but they make "bottle noises" when rubbing with my clothes. Keep the cable as far from your clothes as possible. Any part of the cable can transmit these "bottle noises". Let the excess cable rest on your desk, not your clothes or laptop.

I still can't avoid the noises. Get a clothespin, or some good quality masking or gaffers tape, and secure the mic to your desk, or your shirt. You can do fine with two or three "fix points" on your clothes. Don't overdo it or you'll end up increasing rubs.

Also avoid "loose" clothes, or noisy accessories like necklaces or long complex earrings. And needless to say, don't play with the cable during the meeting or call.

(Also don't chew your mic or cable while talking. Yes, people do this)

I have a fancy mic

If you have a USB mic, like a "podcaster" mic, make sure you compare them against your earbuds or laptop mic. Specially your earbuds. While there are many good external mics, usually earbuds trump them because they are almost automatically set up at the perfect position and distance to make a good recording of your voice.

That's not to dismiss your fancy mic, but make sure you test it after doing some tuning as suggested above.

A note on polar patterns

The ideal position of your fancy mic will depend on its particular polar pattern (the shape of the "net" it throws to catch your voice). Most "desk" mics sold for calls or podcasting are usually designed to work the best on close range.

Here's a good visual explanation and examples of polar patterns for Shure microphones, but these are standard across brands.

Assuming you have a desk/podcast marketed external mic, that actually sounds better than your other options, here's some advice to make the most out of it.

Put your fancy mic "one fist away" from your mouth. Most of these mics are designed for voice, so you want them as close a possible, with the lowest possible sensitivity in your sound settings.

Use books or boxes if you need to raise the mic to be at a comfortable level that also gives you good audio. Your mic should ideally be "one fist away" from your mouth, and slightly off center (slight diagonal from your mouth) to avoid most breathing and wording "pops".

Remember this slightly depends on the polar pattern of your mic. For example, Blue Yeti mics "look" like you should "point them" to your mouth, like a karaoke mic, but actually they have to be "standing" (fully vertical) in front of your mouth (like an "old timey radio" mic).

Disable automatic gain in your fancy mic. Automatic volume/gain is a blunt tool and you don't need it if you properly adjust your base volume as explained above.

Make sure your mic has fresh batteries, if it uses batteries. Some mics run on batteries and you'll have weird bugs or noises if you have low enough batteries.

Check that your microphone does not "ground" with other devices. Depending on your setup, some times electricity can "loop" through your microphone causing the classic "ground" noise (that permanent electrical buzz). Try unplugging other devices, using a different USB port, or even unplugging your AC adapter. Also check that your sensitivity is not excessive.

If your mic has a "hardware" boost, it's worth trying it out. If you have raised the sound settings levels and you are getting noise or poor voice quality, turn on the mic "boost", lower the sound settings mic volume and try again. Some mics have very good "boosters" that produce much better recordings. But this is very hit and miss. Try it without, and then with. Compare the best two settings.

There's an almost infinite list of tech nitpicks and pet peeves for the above, but this should put you in the right direction at least.

Let me know if I omitted a good hack, or a better explanation for any of the above. I'll be in #guadec on chat.gnome.org if you need help or have comments.

See you at GUADEC (online)!

Fix HDMI audio lag on Retina MacBookPro 2013 (macbook11,1) in Linux

2020-06-14T18:37:00-05:00

The problem

The HDMI out works just fine out of the box, except that you'll notice that unless you boot with the HDMI cable connected, you'll experience some weird audio lag through HDMI. Even worse, after a few seconds, HDMI audio will simply stop working.

Audio drift, lag, and eventually no audio. To rub some salt into the wound, this does not happen under macOS. Classic.

The solution

Well, the good news is that you can get this fixed. Turns out this is because of Linux kernel bug #60769. I can't comment on the details of how and why the IOMMU feature breaks this particular combination of videocard/HDMI/audio, but I can tell you how to work-around this.

To fix, or at least work-around this, you have to edit your /etc/default/grub and add intel_iommu=on,igfx_off to your kernel boot options:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="(...) intel_iommu=on,igfx_off"