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Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

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Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#281

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #280
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can export most of your data and move to another instance. It's not the most elegant process, but it seems to work out fine in the long run. You just tell people where you went.

I completely and utterly disagree with your “work out fine” sentiment. It is embarrassing that something set up like Mastodon was from the beginning did not plan for people to move between instances from the start.

Oh hush. What's the Most Important Killer Embarssing-Not-To-Have feature to one person isn't a priority for someone else. If you want it, add it. Mastodon is open source.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#282

Post by s73v3r_ »

boyce wrote: post #270
s73v3r_ wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do my followers know to follow me to the new instance? How do they know it’s actually me?

You can mark an account as having moved and specify to where.

Not reliably, and unless your followers are watching for it, they might miss it.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#283

Post by egypturnash »

twblalock wrote: post #216
teleclimber wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine, that was technical. But regular people care about being threatened and hateful conduct. On twitter countless reports go unanswered, and it's pretty clear at this point that there is no intent to make the situation better. On Masto when you report someone or a post for being abusive you've got an actual human (your instance admin) who will look at it and actually do something about it (like blocking that user fo…

If the instance admin becomes abusive, or treats the server like his own petty little fiefdom, what can be done about it? Why should I trust an instance admin?

Hi, I run an instance.

If I start acting like a jerk, them my users will start leaving. Pretty soon I don't have anyone left except people who like being treated like that. In my experience that will probably mean they're jerks too.

And thus pretty soon my instance is "that instance run by that jerk who lets her users be jerks". At that point, admins on other instances stop federating with my instance. Eventually the only other instances who are willing to talk to mine are also run by and full of jerks, and I am amidst a hell of my own creation.

So that is, as I see it, the external forces acting on me to try and be a chill admin who's nice to her users. It's a lot easier for them to leave my server and stay in contact with people elsewhere than it is to leave Twitter.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#284

Post by [deleted] »

bilbo0s wrote: post #112

OK, here's the problem in a nutshell: no one among regular people cares. You guys are splitting hairs right now when talking about the difference between tweeting and boosting or public companies vs open source or what have you. None of that attracts users. If you have no users, then for regular people, your product is useless. Even the article is not really making a pitch for mastodon that indicates any features at…

[deleted]

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#285

Post by egypturnash »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #267
Barrin92 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the point of mastodon communities is that they are not anarchic. The fact that they're human scaled and moderated is what allows them to impose sets of rules that actually make spending a few hours there palatable. (The same advantage that say, the smaller hackernews community has over a 500k population subreddit) That's the advantage they have over twitter, they're able to set community rules that fit to the respect…

Can you give an example of mastodon community with clearly defined and legally binding policy, that protects rights of regular users? I could not find any (doesn't mean that they don't or cannot exist, of course) and highly doubt that any admin there has motivation or resources to develop it and properly implement. Pure declarations like "we are good fellas and don't allow abuse" mean nothing - they are not enforceab…

As a Mastodon instance admin, you just made an argument for me to never have a clearly-defined and legally-binding policy. Thanks.

The main thrust of my user agreement is "hi I am queer lady who is out of patience with people being jerks and wants a nice place to talk, if you piss me off you can go find a new instance or start your own". It's not much more formal than that, either.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#286

Post by zazen »

asntbqjkwbucaa wrote: post #277
zazen wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A company is not legally obligated to maximize profit. Well, if we agree on that core point - which I think is all the point that wool_gather was trying to make - then that's great! And I think there's no point in the two of us investing any more time in picking over quadrangle's slightly confused reply. I'm afraid I can't resist pulling on one more little thread, though :-) You've sort of hand-waved "legal or fina…

Well I think taken literally, "not maximizing profit" can't possibly be sufficient grounds for an action. Nobody really has any idea of whether any particular strategy is profit-maximizing, so it's hard to believe a company can be sued for not following a profit-maximizing strategy. But shareholders can sue over alleged harm to a corporation. I'm not a lawyer, so I really have no idea what the standard is here. But p…

Ah, I finally begin to see what you mean. Sorry if I've been a bit boneheaded in this thread. I finally started googling instead of speculating, and I found this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/3pv8bh/is_it_really_tr... which seems to confirm your ideas about the significance of benefit corporations. It looks like the key legal case happened surprisingly recently - 2010.

Apologies again: you were right and I was blinkeredly literal.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#287

Post by papaf »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #263
papaf wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when the www was the same and the CompuServe users said the same thing. Mastodon has a similar feel in that the content is amateurish and free. As an anecdote, I use chaos.social and they are throttling signups because there are too many new signups. Maybe you will be surprised.

Yeah, but I remember when the same thing was said about Diaspora. I remember when the same thing was said about various indie game consoles. I remember when the same thing was said about a whole bunch of social network alternatives that never went anywhere.

But you can hope right? Or are you happy with your communication, content, attention and ideas controlled for profit?

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#288

Post by egypturnash »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #158
ohtwenty wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>who in their right mind thinks about "servers" outside of tech circles? the way a lot of subreddits are used, for example, is intuitive enough to people who get used to the concept. 'servers' or 'instances' as a word might be too technical, but the concept of different groups you join, while still being able to talk to others? Of course my experience is 99% people who have persisted and joined, but they seem to enjo…

But you can only create your account on one server. It feels limiting compared to subreddits, which you use a centralized account to subscribe to several.

You can have multiple accounts on multiple servers.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#289

Post by egypturnash »

simula67 wrote: post #52

> One of the most pernicious parts of Twitter is how people will retweet something dumb, offensive, or awful that an opponent said, along with a message mocking that opponent. Over time, this leads people on all sides of an issue to see only a distorted caricature of their opponents, comprised of an amalgam of all the worst features of that group. > How does Mastodon solve this issue? Well, Mastodon doesn't have retw…

Mastodon defaults to a character limit of 500. Instance maintainers may change this - mine's got the highest limit of any I know at 7777, for instance. (And mechanisms I won't get into to make it so that you can't spam someone with really long toots.)

You can talk about bad ideas without retweeting them, too, you know.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#290

Post by ChildOfChaos »

bilbo0s wrote: post #112

OK, here's the problem in a nutshell: no one among regular people cares. You guys are splitting hairs right now when talking about the difference between tweeting and boosting or public companies vs open source or what have you. None of that attracts users. If you have no users, then for regular people, your product is useless. Even the article is not really making a pitch for mastodon that indicates any features at…

Yea, nobody cares about mastodon and they really need to change the name, all anyone is going to think of is the band when they hear this.
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