Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch
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Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch
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Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch
#2I was expecting a post trying to convince me to care about federated servers for my social media, but it made some decent points.
I really like the “Boost” approach to the retweet-with-snark problem. And I like to see Mastodon addressing Twitter’s outrage-as-a-business problem.
Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch
#3I recently joined Twitter and I have to agree that Retweets are the most cancerous part.
Accounts with many followers act like schoolyard bullies with their gang of yes men.
I still see federation as being too niche, but it doesn't have to be that way! I think in an ideal situation, federated servers would rely more on physical location than on deviant niche hobbies or addictions.
The Smith family should have a server (or your neighborhood should) rather than cyberpunk.furry.foxes. Because the reality is that people are more than just one thing and the concept breaks down when you start discussing action movies or cryptography on your @steve@luddite.peace account.
I think secure-scuttlebutt goes for more of the real world location-based server concept a bit. But I think most people prefer the peace of mind of some kind of administration being possible if needed.
Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch
#4> As a result, Mastodon users basically never boost toots to say how wrong they are, and there isn't an issue with armies of followers descending on the original author.
Because Mastodon is full of like-thinking people, and the ones they'd strongly disagree with aren't joining.
This isn't a bad thing (it's the "local" point this post makes), but it's important to emphasize this as the primary factor responsible for people being nicer, above any design decisions the author is complimenting. Keeping people civil is easy when there are ten thousand times fewer and they all voted socialist.
I checked the mastodon.social local timeline and fewer than 1% of posts were tagged, so I don't see how that's going to make a big difference to my experience.
> Twitter is a public company, funded by investor money; they thus owe a legal duty to make as much money for their investors as they can.
False. This isn't a legal obligation, it's what the investors want because they're toxic scum.
Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch
#5>Finally, with instances, you keep control: if you find that you don't like the moderation policies or culture of a particular instance, you're always free to pick up and move to a different one.
Last I heard, Mastodon didn't support migration between instances while still keeping followers, etc. Instead, you have to essentially start from scratch with a new account on a new instance. This is a serious problem because it strongly discourages exodus; Twitter itself shows that people will put up with a lot of nonsense before leaving to alternatives because they've cultivated a brand and a following and don't want to lose it all. Moderators of instances are not a static thing; like any political system it shifts with whoever is in charge over time. An instance that seemed friendly to a user initially can over time become more oppressive to them, but the user has invested so much into that instance that they would have to leave behind that they'd put up with it when they shouldn't have to.
Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch
#6Who names these things - cumbersome, heavy, ancient ... doesn't look like they did even a cursory test.
I'm as anti-marketing as the next person but that doesn't mean I'd call my child Shithead.
Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch
#7>Finally, with instances, you keep control: if you find that you don't like the moderation policies or culture of a particular instance, you're always free to pick up and move to a different one. Last I heard, Mastodon didn't support migration between instances while still keeping followers, etc. Instead, you have to essentially start from scratch with a new account on a new instance. This is a serious problem becaus…
You can export the lists of people you follow, block, or mute, and then import them into your new account at your new instance.
With regards people that follow you, you can mark an account as migrated and leave a forwarding address. People are starting to do this, and it seems to be working reasonably well, although it's obviously not ideal.
This is a difficult problem to solve and people are actively working on it. If you have a suggestion as to how one could create and sustain a presence on one instance, gain a body of followers, and then migrate all that to another instance, then I'm sure people would be interested to hear your thoughts and suggestions.
Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch
#8>Finally, with instances, you keep control: if you find that you don't like the moderation policies or culture of a particular instance, you're always free to pick up and move to a different one. Last I heard, Mastodon didn't support migration between instances while still keeping followers, etc. Instead, you have to essentially start from scratch with a new account on a new instance. This is a serious problem becaus…
It also discourages from joining smaller instances in the fear that they might go away.
Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch
#9Worse UI and fewer users, can't recommend.
Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch
#10>Finally, with instances, you keep control: if you find that you don't like the moderation policies or culture of a particular instance, you're always free to pick up and move to a different one. Last I heard, Mastodon didn't support migration between instances while still keeping followers, etc. Instead, you have to essentially start from scratch with a new account on a new instance. This is a serious problem becaus…
You can export the lists of people you follow, block, or mute, and then import them into your new account at your new instance. With regards people that follow you, you can mark an account as migrated and leave a forwarding address. People are starting to do this, and it seems to be working reasonably well, although it's obviously not ideal. This is a difficult problem to solve and people are actively working on it.…
Would it be interesting to have sort of a signed "302 moved permanently" message that signals to other clients to automatically follow the other account?