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From GNU social to Mastodon

thomask.sdf.org

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Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#31

Post by [deleted] »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #29
oopsman88 wrote: post #3

With all of its faults, I'll take Twitter and its almost free speech over Mastodon any day. Many people say they are quitting Twitter because of the algorithmic timeline and so on, and they are going to Mastodon where a cabal of people choose to ban opinions that are perfectly legal.

I can't help but notice that you, complaining about “free speech”, have “88” at the end of your name. Wonder what kind of speech (which you only defend by its supposed legality) you're concerned about being banned.

[deleted]

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#32

Post by oopsman88 »

freeone3000 wrote: post #18
oopsman88 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I get your point. But mine is: Mastodon shouldn't be publicised as an alternative to Twitter because it's not. It would be like publicising HN as an alternative to Reddit. HN only works as an alternative to Reddit for a very, very reduced group of people. People who share the same interests more or less, and with similar ideas about what flies in tech, politics, social movements, etc.

Mastodon isn't a monolithic thing. That's the entire point. The moderation policy of the server at mastodon.social has no bearing on the moderation policy of social.wxcafe.net or switter.net. Your complaint of "it's like irc" isn't quite true, because of a number of obvious technical and user experience differences. "Everyone should be able to reach everyone else" is proving to be less and less desirable.

Moderators of highly restrictive instances (the most populous ones) blacklist all the instances they don't like. In fact most of those instances use a shared blacklist. So you have to make a choice: either you choose a restrictive instance and you can't talk about whatever you want (because with so many rules, where are they even drawing the line), or you go to a free instance and can't talk to anybody in the most populous instances (most of the network).

Or you simply get the best of both worlds and stay on Twitter.

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#33

Post by egypturnash »

oopsman88 wrote: post #6
phaedryx wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just join an instance that matches your needs or start your own instance and make it whatever you want?

Because most of the bigger instances have shared blocklists. I am not interested in Mastodon as a tech stack, I am interested in joining a social network. But the truth is that it's all aligned to the political left. And I'm sad because I think Twitter is very politically charged and its alternative should be neutral. You can create your own instance or join a small instance you like, but that would be like IRC. I al…

I run a Mastodon instance. And to be honest the reason a lot of us tend to block right-wing instances is because there is a heavy crossover with trolling behavior. Or at least that’s mine.

If a right-leaning instance showed up that actively cracked down on people who hang out on the federated timeline looking for people to argue with, and other trolling behavior, I wouldn’t block it. But I haven’t seen such a thing. It’s just an endless sea of Pleroma installations with an admin who has an anime girl avatar and posts shit like “watch me get blocked by twenty more instances: [ethnic slur]”.

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#34

Post by egypturnash »

CharlesW wrote: post #16
Barrin92 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people have the freedom to associate in communities that censor if they are okay with it. You don't curse in a church, yet plenty of people find them pleasant to visit. People definitely should have the ability to put restrictive rules in place in place if the association with that community is voluntary, and nobody forces you to use mastodon. I find strictly moderated communities very pleasant because I have no inte…

> people have the freedom to associate in communities that censor if they are okay with it. You'd think, but no. Some instances are run by "free speech absolutists" (in quotes, because they're really not) who block instances which, in their opinion, are "too aggressive" about blocking spam and bad actors. For example, mastodon.social blocks counter.social, preventing all counter.social users from federating with mast…

Uh no. Counter.social broke themselves off of the federation.

Also: your Mastodon admin could well be someone you know personally, rather than @jack.

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#35

Post by ifur »

For the social part to really work, you need a community to adopt it. Not just an internet community. Good to see alternatives to Twitter however.

Generally don't like AJAX, it's JS and XML, and in the latter case Twitter services don't require Stylesheets or XLS as it's called -- without -- XML is bloated and creates metadata for sale. In addition to AJAX allowing Orwellian advertisement influence.

Edit: this gets downvoted? reasonable technical criticism or dialogue.

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#36

Post by crooked-v »

ifur wrote: post #35

For the social part to really work, you need a community to adopt it. Not just an internet community. Good to see alternatives to Twitter however. Generally don't like AJAX, it's JS and XML, and in the latter case Twitter services don't require Stylesheets or XLS as it's called -- without -- XML is bloated and creates metadata for sale. In addition to AJAX allowing Orwellian advertisement influence. Edit: this gets d…

> Generally don't like AJAX, it's JS and XML, and in the latter case Twitter services don't require Stylesheets or XLS as it's called -- without -- XML is bloated and creates metadata for sale. In addition to AJAX allowing Orwellian advertisement influence.

...what?

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#37

Post by elago »

craftyguy wrote: post #21
xj9 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we're working on it ;) there are a handful of proposals for doing SSO on fediverse, but it isn't super high priority since creating multiple accounts (alts) is a pretty common practice here.

> but it isn't super high priority since creating multiple accounts (alts) is a pretty common practice here. Then you'll only end up with users that are willing to put up with that, and you will not get users that perceive this as a major inconvenience (I'm in this camp, and I suspect many, many others are too.)

On the android app I use, switching between accounts is as simple UI wise as switching to different instances (or spaces or whatever the top level division is called) in Slack. In two taps I can switch between tech themed and social themed for example.

I agree some platforms make multiple accounts hard to the point where you're registering multiple free email accounts, installing multiple browsers and using incognito mode, etc.

That is not inherently the case, and can be quite the opposite when allowing users to control multiple accounts is part of the software's design.

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#38

Post by ifur »

crooked-v wrote: post #36
ifur wrote: post #35

For the social part to really work, you need a community to adopt it. Not just an internet community. Good to see alternatives to Twitter however. Generally don't like AJAX, it's JS and XML, and in the latter case Twitter services don't require Stylesheets or XLS as it's called -- without -- XML is bloated and creates metadata for sale. In addition to AJAX allowing Orwellian advertisement influence. Edit: this gets d…

> Generally don't like AJAX, it's JS and XML, and in the latter case Twitter services don't require Stylesheets or XLS as it's called -- without -- XML is bloated and creates metadata for sale. In addition to AJAX allowing Orwellian advertisement influence. ...what?

In addition to tagging data with XML, I wont go into the misguided use of it in configuration files as its not really quicker creating checks using XML and XLS as a programmer in the "zone" :)

Point is that albeit nice, there is no need for something like this to even be in a browser. But by using AJAX it kind of have to be. In addition to advertisers being able to know due to Javascript that the user is present. And since the data is tagged arbitrarily in XML in addition to hashtags and the like, it's a lot less hit and miss for suggestions and advertisement.

For example getting flooded with bad things about people working or the US state just because they're in the vicinity of Trump to either reinforce or encourage guilt by association. After you've made a Trump pun for additional effect.

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#39

Post by unimpressive »

stesch wrote: post #25

What I don't understand: Why do they promote the software instead of the protocols? News and e-mail had different server software and clients and were both used around the world. Mastodon uses standard protocols, too.

People use software, the value add Mastodon has over GnuSocial is that it's software that advertises itself to users on its own merits. (Well that and a moderation policy that's stricter than Twitter's, supposedly.)

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#40

Post by crooked-v »

ifur wrote: post #38
crooked-v wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Generally don't like AJAX, it's JS and XML, and in the latter case Twitter services don't require Stylesheets or XLS as it's called -- without -- XML is bloated and creates metadata for sale. In addition to AJAX allowing Orwellian advertisement influence. ...what?

In addition to tagging data with XML, I wont go into the misguided use of it in configuration files as its not really quicker creating checks using XML and XLS as a programmer in the "zone" :) Point is that albeit nice, there is no need for something like this to even be in a browser. But by using AJAX it kind of have to be. In addition to advertisers being able to know due to Javascript that the user is present. And…

What are you even talking about? Modern web apps don't even use XML anymore, barring a few outliers.
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