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Exploring Mastodon

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Re: Exploring Mastodon

#71

Post by mxuribe »

kawfey wrote: post #3

I've played around with mastodon for a few years; it never has had the the dopaminergic algorithm-fueled bite to keep me coming back like twitter does. But that's the good part, I guess. I think my #1 issue with it is it's fundamental feature - that spaces/servers/communities/domains (whatever the name is) are self-hosted by anyone. That means if they get disinterested, or the power goes out, or they get frustrated,…

No one should be forced to join any instance, so you are right to think of concerns...But, there are things that can be done to help keep an admin incentivized. For example, if the instance is expected to be run as a community projec,t then admins should committ in a manner that is accepted by the instance community (i guess not so different from open source projects)...Or, maybe have more than a single admin to fend off any single person losing interest...Or, you know, leverage the capitalist mechanism of paying some small fee to a group to help cover hosting, admin fees, etc. I'm sure there are other mechanisms that can be used...Anbd, there's of course the tools to move your stuyff to another instanace anyway...But, yeah, you shoiuld go into this stuff with eyes open - muich like other things on the internet. :-)

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#72

Post by _ph_ »

chris_st wrote: post #12

I'm on a discord server with a lot of non-nerds, and various ones are interested in Mastodon, due to Twitter issues. It's amazing to see how much trouble they're having... "Do I have to create a log in on every Mastodon?" ("No, and it's pretty much impossible"), "Can I follow someone on another server?" ("Yes, but it's incredibly hard -- try to follow them on whatever server you're on, maybe someone else is following…

I consider myself quite a nerd, but honestly, I am struggling with exactly those questions. I do think better introductions for newcomers are needed so the explanations are understandable for people who are thinking in "twitter" terms.

There should be just a page with a quick checklist/cheat sheet for twitter users.

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#73

Post by roywiggins »

vegai_ wrote: post #15
chris_st wrote: post #12

I'm on a discord server with a lot of non-nerds, and various ones are interested in Mastodon, due to Twitter issues. It's amazing to see how much trouble they're having... "Do I have to create a log in on every Mastodon?" ("No, and it's pretty much impossible"), "Can I follow someone on another server?" ("Yes, but it's incredibly hard -- try to follow them on whatever server you're on, maybe someone else is following…

How is following someone on another server with Mastodon difficult? Or is that some sort of a meme now?

It's confusing if someone posts a Mastodon handle on eg Twitter. If it's a link to their profile, you can't follow them on that page. You have to go to your own instance and paste their handle into the search box and follow them that way.

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#74

Post by nr2x »

nimbius wrote: post #30
nr2x wrote: post #10

The fact that one has to pick from many different places to set up an account is a massive barrier to entry. Let alone the complexity of moving an account from one host to another is also woefully complex, so if you choose wrong, you’re in for more pain. I don’t see this platform being able to benefit from the Twitter exodus. I’m putting my hopes on blue sky/AT which appears to solve the above pain points: https://bl…

I understand coming from Twitter --where artificial choices are manufactured in order to extract value from things like outrage and fear-- it might be overwhelming to experience real choice for the first time. We made a tool for that, so lets help find you an instance youll enjoy :) dont worry, you can shop around for the right one, your choice isnt set in stone at all. https://instances.social/

Yes, my problems with data portability are indeed evidence I can’t handle choices in my information diet.

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#75

Post by falkd »

nimbius wrote: post #30
nr2x wrote: post #10

The fact that one has to pick from many different places to set up an account is a massive barrier to entry. Let alone the complexity of moving an account from one host to another is also woefully complex, so if you choose wrong, you’re in for more pain. I don’t see this platform being able to benefit from the Twitter exodus. I’m putting my hopes on blue sky/AT which appears to solve the above pain points: https://bl…

I understand coming from Twitter --where artificial choices are manufactured in order to extract value from things like outrage and fear-- it might be overwhelming to experience real choice for the first time. We made a tool for that, so lets help find you an instance youll enjoy :) dont worry, you can shop around for the right one, your choice isnt set in stone at all. https://instances.social/

It's nice, but I find myself saying "Don't care" to most of the questions, and I've got a huge list of instances as a result. I still can't really say for sure I'd be picking one I wouldn't regret picking later.

I think the biggest questions I'd have are: - How do I know an instance is trustworthy and the mods behave professionally? - How do I know an instance isn't going to go down and lose my account?

It seems like there's this "local community" idea where when you join a server, it's like a mini-twitter in its own right. It's a cool idea, but then it seems like part of the decision of which instance to join should be whether you feel like that local community is a good fit for you?

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#76

Post by jayknight »

happymellon wrote: post #40
bioemerl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment you're manually typing a username it's game over. It should be rare to never that you need a specific user id, let alone a specific server. You should just have to see a user and click follow.

Can you not do that?

Imagine I'm on hacker news and there's someone on mastodon I think someone should follow and their mastodon handle is @cooldude@cooldude.example.com (because they are so cool they run their own instance).

You definitely can't click that handle and add follow them, I could put https://cooldude.example.com/@cooldude and you could click to their profile on their instance, but there would be no way to follow them directly from there on your mastodon.social (or whatever) account, you have to go to your instance and type/paste in their handle and then click follow.

Edit: There is a remote-follow workflow that involves clicking a link and entering your full handle to get redirected to a page where you can follow them. Maybe slightly better, but still not great.

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#77

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

stewbrew wrote: post #46
KindAndFriendly wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I politely disagree: you just pick an "entry node", similar to picking an ISP or an email provider. You can interact with everyone in the Fediverse just fine. Having a newsfeed for your chosen "entry node" is an additional nice-to-have imho but not the defining criteria.

No, it's more like picking your community. Compare an account on mastodon.social vs an instance localated in your hometown to see the difference.

What is the difference? From my limited exposure to Mastodon at the moment I don't actually interact with "my instance", i just follow a bunch of people most of which are not actually on my instance. Not sure what I would be missing out on.

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#78

Post by Finnucane »

bombcar wrote: post #23

I saw a good quote - something along the lines that Mastodon replacing Twitter has serious "year of linux on the desktop vibes". I think there's value in Mastodon, but it's not a drop-in twitter replacement. Perhaps a valuable thing would be helping set it up as a POSSE tool: https://indieweb.org/POSSE - post to your Mastodon and it automatically posts to Twitter for you.

Mastadon doesn't really promise to be a drop-in Twitter replacement. Some of the differences that people perceive as friction are deliberate choices to keep it from being that. To avoid some of the problems that are driving people away from Twitter.

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#79

Post by marginalia_nu »

chris_st wrote: post #12

I'm on a discord server with a lot of non-nerds, and various ones are interested in Mastodon, due to Twitter issues. It's amazing to see how much trouble they're having... "Do I have to create a log in on every Mastodon?" ("No, and it's pretty much impossible"), "Can I follow someone on another server?" ("Yes, but it's incredibly hard -- try to follow them on whatever server you're on, maybe someone else is following…

> It's just not ready for prime-time, even (IMHO) among nerds, but wow, are normal folks having a hard time.

Yeah.

I've taken a look at it a couple of times but never actually jumped on because whenever I try I'm faced with the same sort of creeping dread I face when reading the how-to for reverting a fauly git merge[1], where like... why do I need to understand this much low level plumbing to do this very basic thing. The Feynman diagrams help but it's still insane.

[1] https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/howto/r...

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#80

Post by ryukafalz »

nr2x wrote: post #10

The fact that one has to pick from many different places to set up an account is a massive barrier to entry. Let alone the complexity of moving an account from one host to another is also woefully complex, so if you choose wrong, you’re in for more pain. I don’t see this platform being able to benefit from the Twitter exodus. I’m putting my hopes on blue sky/AT which appears to solve the above pain points: https://bl…

I'm more interested in what the Spritely project is doing along these lines: https://spritely.institute/

...but agreed that ultimately being strongly tied to an instance run by someone else is not ideal. I'm glad there are people working on it!

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