#Tag · bonfire.cafe

While developing the initial version of the #polls for #ActivityPub #WordPress plugin, I so often got reminded to the preamble words of @gancio from @lesion

"Building software means taking a stand, making decisions, choices. These choices start from a precise look at reality, from specific needs and ends implementing specific features, choose default values, simplify some flow and patterns while making difficult others."

It's just a tiny poll plugin, but there are still decisions to be made: For example, when to reveal the poll vote counts, to whom, and when to reset the vote counts (e.g. when changing the type from single choice to multiple).

There are many flow patterns that I don't consider worth striving for. Please help me by leaving some comments on the scenarios you can imagine.

small circle 🕊 in calmness

@smallcircles@social.coop · 5 days ago

@linos @gancio @lesion

I brought this to #SocialHub on the #Polls #FEP discussion thread.

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fep-9967-polls/4885/14?u=aschrijver

small circle 🕊 in calmness boosted

André Menrath

@linos@graz.social · 5 days ago

While developing the initial version of the #polls for #ActivityPub #WordPress plugin, I so often got reminded to the preamble words of @gancio from @lesion

There are many flow patterns that I don't consider worth striving for. Please help me by leaving some comments on the scenarios you can imagine.

Mx. Luna Corbden

@corbden@defcon.social · 2 weeks ago

We're programmed in the US to only complain about the cost of taxes. Rents are just things that individuals do to each other so "it's not the same." But if you're paying more of your labor to rent than the labor a serf paid to rent+taxes (more or less), then we've been misdirected.

#poll #polls

Mx. Luna Corbden

@corbden@defcon.social · 2 weeks ago

Question:

So, given that, what percentage of your income do you pay in housing rent, or, if mortgage, what percent of your income goes to mortgage interest?

US residents only please. If not a US resident, feel free to reply with your percentage and country.

#poll #polls

Mx. Luna Corbden

@corbden@defcon.social · 2 weeks ago

My sources in the images.

#poll #polls

https://jannagnoelle.com/2015/11/30/making-rent-in-the-middle-ages-medieval-mondays-4b/

For example, whenever he called upon his villeins to perform a bene, the lord was required to provide either food, drink, money, or all three. These occasions therefore took on the character of social gatherings of which another feature was the "sporting chance" - an opportunity for villeins to compete for prizes like a bundle of hay or a sheep for roasting. The lord was also obligated during times of attack to take in his villeins inside his castle walls for their protection. The lord likewise owed protection to his vassals. According to the Gieses:
An important reciprocal obligation of
every lord toward his vassals … was that
of defending them when they were
accused in other courts - for example,
in those of the Church. (p. 49)
As well, the lord was beholden to a standard of behaviour laid down centuries earlier during the time of Charlemagne, namely that he not try to kill or wound his vassal, not rob his of part of his land, not make him a villein, not rape or seduce his wife or daughter, and not fail to defend him as required.

jannagnoelle.com — For example, whenever he called upon his villeins to perform a bene, the lord was required to provide either food, drink, money, or all three. These occasions therefore took on the character of social gatherings of which another feature was the "sporting chance" - an opportunity for villeins to compete for prizes like a bundle of hay or a sheep for roasting. The lord was also obligated during times of attack to take in his villeins inside his castle walls for their protection. The lord likewise owed protection to his vassals. According to the Gieses: An important reciprocal obligation of every lord toward his vassals … was that of defending them when they were accused in other courts - for example, in those of the Church. (p. 49) As well, the lord was beholden to a standard of behaviour laid down centuries earlier during the time of Charlemagne, namely that he not try to kill or wound his vassal, not rob his of part of his land, not make him a villein, not rape or seduce his wife or daughter, and not fail to defend him as required. jannagnoelle.com

Additional liabilities of the villein included the following:
• He had to pay a fee (merchet) when his daughter got
married
• When he succeeded his father, he paid both relief and
heriot, which was usually the best beast of the
deceased's flock
• He couldn't leave his land or sell his livestock without
the lord's permission
• During times of crisis, he was required to leave off
farming his own land to instead work the lord's above
and beyond his usual week's work (known as "boons"
or benes)
• He wasn't protected by the royal courts, instead
subject to his lord and the manor courts without
recourse — Additional liabilities of the villein included the following: • He had to pay a fee (merchet) when his daughter got married • When he succeeded his father, he paid both relief and heriot, which was usually the best beast of the deceased's flock • He couldn't leave his land or sell his livestock without the lord's permission • During times of crisis, he was required to leave off farming his own land to instead work the lord's above and beyond his usual week's work (known as "boons" or benes) • He wasn't protected by the royal courts, instead subject to his lord and the manor courts without recourse

They go to explain that this work included everything from
plowing, mowing hay, reaping, shocking and transporting
grain, threshing and winnowing, and washing and shearing the lord's sheep, and that,
By the thirteenth century labor services
were often commuted into money
payments. But in cash or kind,
approximately half of all the villein's
efforts ultimately went, in one way or
another, to the lord's profit. (p. 154)
Image of medieval art depicting Villeins reaping, from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1320-1340, Lincolnshire,
England)

jannagnoelle.com — They go to explain that this work included everything from plowing, mowing hay, reaping, shocking and transporting grain, threshing and winnowing, and washing and shearing the lord's sheep, and that, By the thirteenth century labor services were often commuted into money payments. But in cash or kind, approximately half of all the villein's efforts ultimately went, in one way or another, to the lord's profit. (p. 154) Image of medieval art depicting Villeins reaping, from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1320-1340, Lincolnshire, England) jannagnoelle.com

maco boosted

Mx. Luna Corbden

@corbden@defcon.social · 2 weeks ago

Poll with Preface

We're often told that taxes/rents (often the same thing in a feudal manor) for medieval serfs was crushing, and that we should be grateful under capitalism.

I've been lucky to dodge housing rents/mortgages for awhile, but that's not available for most, and I'm thinking to when I lived a "normal" American life. I was lucky if rent was less than half my monthly income, and typically I was paying far more than half my income just in rent or mortgage, not counting taxes. This was true even back in the late 1990s when I paid $400 for a 2-bedroom apartment. That was about 50-60% of my minimum wage income.

(I'm including mortgages in this, because 90%+ of any 30 year mortgage in the first years is going to interest, NOT to owning, so it is a form of rent, and most people refinance or move before they pay significant principle.)

Today I looked it up, and generally rents/taxes for an unfree medieval serf (next step up from a slave) were around 50% of their labor, plus incidentals for special occasions. In exchange for "rent" they received many benefits that taxes provide, like policing and military protection. (This percent went up in times of war.)

In pure terms of rents+taxes, it doesn't seem like we're any better off, and in fact as of 2025 it seems like we're much worse off.

Now that I've biased you, the post contains the poll.