plisken
First off, any language/framework is just a tool.
Second, modern PHP is quite different than 2005 PHP which is about when people started moving to other languages for web development (Ruby, Python, etc.). What you can and should write in PHP today would be almost identical to what it would look like in those languages (i.e. MVC frameworks, ORM for DB access, dependency management with lock files). Many language features were added too such as namespacing which allow for better/modern code organization.
PHP has always had (and never lost) it’s dead simple capability to just package up a tar ball, ftp, unzip and just… run.
Would I use PHP today, not unless forced to or for a lot of money. But if it’s a language a team knows, there isn’t a benefit to switching to something else.
Although it would be good to see someone’s karma with you. If I’ve downvoted someone more than 5 times, I’d like to know so that I can just block them.
Anonymity/Privacy are not inherently universal. Your true identity can be known to some and unknown to others in this case masked via an alias.
Thus, I propose a hypothetical arrangement: separating Content Instances and Identity Instances.
Content Instances host the main communities and discussions. There must still be “many” (hundreds maybe even thousands) of these so that none can wield power of the others.
Within Identity Instances you are known or at least verified and vetted. External to the Identity Instance a user is only known as their alias from the identity instance. There should be many more of these with a maximum user size ~100 (see Dunbar’s number).
Further, federation should not be open by default. New Identity Instances are quarantined initially with the ability to subscribe to communities on Content Instances, but the posts and comments from the Identity Instances are not federated back to the Content Instances.
The goal here is to employ a heavily distributed Divide & Conquer approach to moderation and community management. The users of an Identity Instance are responsible to one another as any of their actions may cause the entire Instance’s users to be affected (i.e. defederation). Even better if you know each other, you should feel some real social pressure that your actions online will impact your social life IRL.
But to be honest and pragmatic, I don’t think this will form organically nor do I think it could be enforced. And even in practice it probably wouldn’t work. But perhaps it’s a nice dream.
feddit.de (users active last day = 641)
civilloquy.com (users active last day = 1)
thesimplecorner.org (users active last day = 1)
I find this hard to navigate and use, but this should be able to show which instances block fmhy: https://lemmymap.feddit.de/
You can see what instances FMHY blocks by clickling the “instances” link at the bottom of the page (or just here: https://lemmy.fmhy.ml/instances)
Yes, you can just type out the instance host name in the instance input.
While I have in the past felt the emotional impact of passive negativity that down voting makes easy, I think down votes are an essential tool for online communities.
Look what happened to youtube when dislikes were removed.
First of all, make sure you are treating your depression as best you can: talk to a professional, take medication if prescribed, work out (in whatever capacity interests you, I prefer lifting), eat well, drink lots of water.
Second, what are your hobbies and interests?
Third, why couldn’t you get a mind numbing minimum wage repetitive manual labor part-time job while still in school? I’ve found those types of jobs pretty good at motivating you to do something more interesting.
Lastly, why do you think you’re bored? What internal or external factors depriving you of motivation/drive? How can you remove or eliminate those factors?