wjs018

joined 2 years ago
MODERATOR OF
[–] wjs018@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Like winamp skins for lemmy?

[–] wjs018@lemmy.world 33 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

I am a big fan of content-specific instances. Some instances off the top of my head that fit this description:

...and I am sure there are many others. I just think that having a focus like that provides a more interesting local instance environment than a large, generalist instance, though both have a place.

[–] wjs018@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's all based on the median household income. I feel like that isn't the best representation if the median household is losing purchasing power over time due to wage stagnation, but it's the definition they went with. From the article:

The report, which crunched the numbers for all 50 states, is based on Pew Research’s definition of middle class: two-thirds to double the median household income.

[–] wjs018@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Edit: Reading is hard and I misunderstood that this post is about promoting lemmy on reddit. I don't have any experience to contribute with that, but I will leave the rest of my post for posterity.


By self-promotion, do you mean creating content for youtube/a blog/etc. and then posting it to lemmy? If so, then I think that is fine within reason. In the communities I mod, I have allow self-promotion with these guidelines:

  • Be an active member of the community on other posts too, not just your own content
  • If you post your own content, at least be responsive to questions you might get in the comment section
  • Rate limit your self-promotion so that it doesn't feel spammy (no defined rate, more vibes-based)

I have a couple posters that have posted article or projects that they have created and been fine. I also have a couple people I have ended up banning because they would just post links to their own content and vanish otherwise.

All that said, there is a sizable portion of lemmy that seems to chafe against any kind of corporate-controlled social media. So, there is an inbuilt hostility that can exert an outsized influence in smaller communities.

[–] wjs018@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just for some background information on how most countries tend to rely on larger, more rigorous regulatory bodies...

I am in the pharma industry (not in vaccines though). Typically the two main regulators that most other countries look to as a reference are either the FDA or the EMA (the EU organization). This usually means that if you can satisfy the requirements of one of these bodies, then it is satisfactory for the other country as well. However, it isn't universal as each other country will usually have some modifications here and there for whatever reason. The most annoyingly particular ones I have dealt with in the past are China and Japan.

[–] wjs018@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

subtitle playback

This is still a little weird. I found that the web client (in a browser) handles this really well with default settings. However, if I try to use the desktop app or a mobile client, I have to force it to burn in the subtitles for them to show up reliably. Fortunately, there are per-client settings for this now:

[–] wjs018@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's been a while since I last used LaTeX since I am in industry now, but there is definitely a learning curve. If you are talking about undergrads, then it might be too steep a challenge for most to want to take on unless they plan on pursuing academia long-term. Like others have mentioned, LaTeX is a kind of standard that you see used a lot in academic circles. Some journals also like or support things that are created through tex and will have their own templates to use.

Basically, LaTeX consists of writing in a markup language, like your screenshot, and then running that through a processor that interprets your .tex file and creates the formatted output (usually a pdf). Back in my day, TexnicCenter was the program of choice to write the actual .tex file, but some quick searching and it looks like VSCode with an appropriate extension is probably one of the best/easiest ways to do it now.

The most annoying part of tex is references. I remember being utterly confused by BibTeX when I was trying to get it to work. I am way out of date on what best practices for today might be, but I hope they have improved that process somewhat.

[–] wjs018@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (10 children)

Seconding LaTeX as the gold standard for formatting math/science in written form. Some of my peers in grad school (physics) wrote up their assignments in it (I opted instead for massive reams of handwritten work). However, I did write up my thesis in LaTeX. My university had a LaTeX template for a thesis that took care of the boilerplate formatting, I just had to focus on the content.

[–] wjs018@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Starting a new community is an uphill slog. Some tips and observations:

  • Make sure to subscribe to the community from several of the large instances so that it is federated there and people viewing the all feed can see it.
  • If you haven't yet, make sure to announce the community in !newcommunities@lemmy.world and/or !communitypromo@lemmy.ca
  • If you can think of some kind of recurring post series, it is a good structure to provide a steady drip of content. For latin, maybe something like a weekly post about the etymology of a modern word with a latin root?
  • In general, posts with a lead image generate much more interaction than non-image, discussion posts. So, the meme-type posts can serve a role to help people discover the community.
[–] wjs018@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Fantastic, thanks! I haven't made announcements yet about the new community, but hoping to do that some time this week when I get a chance.

[–] wjs018@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I haven't been able to post as much this past week compared to normal, but things have been going ok:

  • !anime@ani.social is actually kind of booming right now with the start of a new season of shows. I have seen lots of first-time commenters chiming in on episode threads. It actually hit ~300 users/day at one point over the weekend.
  • !manga@ani.social has been calm but active. There are a handful of other fairly reliable posters that have been able to keep things going while I have been away.

The not as active ones:

  • !nokotan@ani.social - I inherited this community when the previous moderator had to step away for an extended period of time. The nokotan community in general is very meme-heavy, and I just don't really know how to engage with that very well. There is only so much non-meme content about the series. So, I am going to try to binge-read the manga and start posting chapter discussion threads when new chapters are released. I just need to find the time to do that.
  • !gundam@ani.social - This is another kind of special case. The current, most active Gundam community is !gundam@possumpat.io. However, that instance announced that they are shutting down later this month. The current users over there were interested in setting up a new community but there wasn't anybody that wanted to moderate. So, I offered my help in that respect. It just started this past week, so there isn't much there yet, but I am going to try to keep posting any Gundam-related content I find over there.
[–] wjs018@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

You must have taken Nokotan's loss pretty hard. /s

Good luck finding new mods and I am hoping that you are able to come back before Dan Da Dan season 2 this summer.

 

cross-posted from: https://ani.social/post/7586224

Some excerpts:

About Record of Lodoss War's origins:

Record of Lodoss War originally started as a TTRPG Replay, a written transcript of a tabletop RPG (TTRPG), with the first Lodoss War stories being a Replay for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

Reading the original Replays is oddly endearing. I expected the chit-chat, playful snipes at the DM, or even the reading of dice rolls to be cut out in order to make the players’ adventure read like an actual narrative and not a transcription. All of that stays in the Lodoss Replays, however. Everything from excitedly reading out dice results to the players’ reactions to twists in the narrative, to character creation itself, is kept in the text.

About its influence on Japanese TTRPGs:

Besides the good that Record of Lodoss War did for Group SNE as a company and the aesthetics of anime itself, it was also good for fostering a small but dedicated community of TTRPG aficionados in Japan. TTRPG Replays are still very much alive and well, although many of them are being replaced by Twitch VODs and YouTube videos.

Tabletop RPGs are still enjoyed as a pastime in Japan. Since Sword World [game created by Lodoss War author] dropped, Japanese game designers have produced a plethora of TTRPGs, including fantasy games like Alshard and Arianhrod, which both use their own versions of 2d6 dice systems, similar to Sword World. Both games are distinct from SW, with Alshard taking its imagery from Norse mythology and Arianhrod feeling more like Ragnarok Online than D&D, but they are still high fantasy games at their core.

About its influence on fantasy anime:

In much the same way that Fist of the North Star or Saint Seiya changed the shonen battle subgenre, or how Rose of Versailles changed romance manga, Record of Lodoss War brought a lot of key narrative and design elements to the foreground. The Lodoss aesthetic of flowing capes, long hair whipping around in the wind, and chitinous armour has been recreated and lampooned over the years.

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