(problem) You intend to report a bug, but the project officially
uses an exceptionally controversial bug tracker
(e.g. Gitlab.com or MS Github).
(solution) Users report the bug wherever they want (forum, mailing
list, Mastodon, usenet), then a reference to the ad-hoc
bug report is indexed somewhere so users can browse all
existing reports for a particular project. A similar
idea is proposed here: https://pleroma.libretux.com/objects/c2e53ffd-212b-42c7-92cf-2ab7422e0372
Censorship Whistleblower:
Maintains local copy of posts to Reddit & Lemmy. Periodically
checks public (cookieless) view of those articles. Logs & alerts on
shadowban/censorship/moderator actions.
Perhaps collaborate on metrics to expose patterns of censorship.
Perhaps automatically post copies of censored material in a
out-of-band place that has different people in power.
Citation Scrubber/Optimizer for essays:
Accepts text-based file or a link to an already published doc, parses out all URLs and checks for:
Tor hostility (403, CloudFlare, Impurva, tar-pitting)
assets of tech giants (CloudFlare, Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, MS Azure, etc)
JavaScript that fails LibreJS
dead links
Creates report showing:
any offending discoveries from the above checks
most recent mirror link found in wayback machine (regardless of article quality/ethics, in case the article later disappears)
alternate links to nefarious/harmful links
Produces new markdown version (if the input was in markdown),
which automatically applies the suggested changes. Perhaps give
an option to retain the bad links but annotate warnings.
Surfraw Expansion:
CLI search tool with results imported to a local db for filtering
and analysis before using. E.g. CloudFlare results could be given
a reduced ranking.
Mastodon pro-netneutrality client:
When posting: checks your link to see if the document has access
restrictions (e.g. paywall, blocks tor, CloudFlare). If yes, it
edits your toot with an archive.org version of the link and keeps
you in the editor.
When reading: posts containing bad links are hidden or replacement
links are attached. Stats are kept so chronic offenders can be
unfollowed, muted, or targeted for etiquette pursuasion/gentle lecturing.
Mastodon pro-netneutrality server:
Similar to the client. Posts with Tor-hostile and/or CloudFlare links are refused.
Email address free-society compatibility tester:
Does an MX lookup & checks whether an email address is hosted in a
walled-garden like Gmail or MS Outlook, and reports known situations
that the server refuses RFC-compliant messages. E.g. some servers
will reject a message if the domain of the FROM address doesn't
match the reverse lookup of the connecting IP; some reject
connections from dynamic IPs, thus forcing senders to share the
message with another third party.
Perhaps state the retention policy of the server, if known, and/or
the legal retention limits in that jurisdiction.
Checks whether the email address has a PGP key on public keyrings.
Wire-Bitlbee plugin
Wire is a better alternative to Signal, but the bloated client app is Electron based. A bitlbee plugin would make it possible to use any IRC client the user wants.