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Mastodon – A Federated Twitter Alternative

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21–30 of 131 posts

Re: Mastodon – A Federated Twitter Alternative

#21

I'm curious to know why there aren't more conservative or libertarian mastodon sites. Seems like a good fit.

Most Conservatives have instead gone to platforms that actively advertise for their specific niche. Especially places like Gab and Parlar. Although Telegram has been a very popular gathering place as well. Libertarian Tech folks are actually a small minority in the grand scheme of things, and any I know are definitely in favor of Mastadon. But non-tech folks have a much harder time understanding and building out the…

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Re: Mastodon – A Federated Twitter Alternative

#22
post #9

Quoted post unavailable.

> "Here's a much better alternative to Twitter.

It's called 'Outside'. Try meeting some people in it. They tend to be sane, and friendly. Usually."

1. These are not mutually exclusive

2. Very condescending tone

Yes being outside is great, but there are parts of the world where you spend half the year inside because of the cold(outside). There's also been a pandemic going on for quite awhile where in many parts of the world the "outside" has been severely restricted.

People outside might not be discussing topics that you're interested in.

I'm indifferent to both Mastodon and Twitter, but they both have their place in the world.

Re: Mastodon – A Federated Twitter Alternative

#23

I'm curious to know why there aren't more conservative or libertarian mastodon sites. Seems like a good fit.

Requires pretty big buy in. Having to run your own instance is a big ask for most people and since whole idea of Mastodon revolves around the operator censoring discourse on their instance you pretty much have to run your own instance unless you want some random Joe deciding what you see and can post about.

Idea here is good, but I cringe at the main selling point being able to censor topics you don't like.

Re: Mastodon – A Federated Twitter Alternative

#24

I'm in an instance with a couple thousand users, it's not very active. I think network effects are extremely important and eventually you have most people going into the biggest instances anyway. Though obviously this is still a preferable situation, mastodon's reach is still not good enough. People don't just want to say things, they want to say things and have others engage with them. But I mean, I would still enco…

The accumulation on one instance is not necessary, because there is almost no difference in the user experience between a local use and a Federated user.

Also you can cross post to Twitter. This is what I opted to use.

Just use the reach from Twitter, but the main thing is mastodon

Re: Mastodon – A Federated Twitter Alternative

#25

I'm in an instance with a couple thousand users, it's not very active. I think network effects are extremely important and eventually you have most people going into the biggest instances anyway. Though obviously this is still a preferable situation, mastodon's reach is still not good enough. People don't just want to say things, they want to say things and have others engage with them. But I mean, I would still enco…

Where do you measure activity? I'm a small instance admin that has chosen to focus only on one particular type of user to grow slowly, and thanks to 10+ AP relays our federated timeline is very active. It does wonders for discoverability to see one message every second show up from all over the world.

Re: Mastodon – A Federated Twitter Alternative

#26
My favorite Mastodon feature is the ability to subscribe to hashtags [1] which makes discovering people to connect with super easy and you don't feel like a victim to some magic algorithm.

Another thing I love about it is the small niche little community instances like this photographer [2] community. Themed instances make a huge difference in organizing your social media time - it feels less of a distraction and more of a purposeful exchange. I talk photos, close the browser tab and it feels like I've done what I set out to do, whereas whole purpose of Twitter is to steal your attention for the sake of ad revenue - so you start with a purpose and end up feeling like you've done free work for someone. Like one of those early internet gigs that made you to surf semi-random ads for few pennies.

1 - https://i.imgur.com/gXhLLPG.png

2 - https://photog.social/

Re: Mastodon – A Federated Twitter Alternative

#27

Folks, What are your recommendations for some Mastodon communities which might be of interest to typical HN audience and are 'absolutely legal'?

I recommend https://fosstodon.org/

I'm curious, is there any reason to sign up here if one is already on another tech instance?

Re: Mastodon – A Federated Twitter Alternative

#28

I'm curious to know why there aren't more conservative or libertarian mastodon sites. Seems like a good fit.

Most Conservatives have instead gone to platforms that actively advertise for their specific niche. Especially places like Gab and Parlar. Although Telegram has been a very popular gathering place as well. Libertarian Tech folks are actually a small minority in the grand scheme of things, and any I know are definitely in favor of Mastadon. But non-tech folks have a much harder time understanding and building out the…

> Especially places like Gab

Gab runs on a Mastodon fork: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2019/07/statement-on-gabs-fork...

Re: Mastodon – A Federated Twitter Alternative

#29
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Conservatives have instead gone to platforms that actively advertise for their specific niche. Especially places like Gab and Parlar. Although Telegram has been a very popular gathering place as well. Libertarian Tech folks are actually a small minority in the grand scheme of things, and any I know are definitely in favor of Mastadon. But non-tech folks have a much harder time understanding and building out the…

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No post body was provided.

Re: Mastodon – A Federated Twitter Alternative

#30
post #9

Quoted post unavailable.

> "Here's a much better alternative to Twitter. It's called 'Outside'. Try meeting some people in it. They tend to be sane, and friendly. Usually." 1. These are not mutually exclusive 2. Very condescending tone Yes being outside is great, but there are parts of the world where you spend half the year inside because of the cold(outside). There's also been a pandemic going on for quite awhile where in many parts of the…

No post body was provided.
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