41–50 of 85 posts
As someone whose first “social media” was USENET of the early 90s, and I suppose FidoNet before then, I don’t really consider the bulk of mainstream Internet users today to be in any way “my people”. The herd is endlessly mindless, shallow, bought with bread, and hungry for the circus.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well that's kind of understandable, isn't it? In the USENET era, internet users were a subculture. In 2026, almost everyone is an internet user. It's kind of like saying "As someone whose first car was a Model T, I don't really consider the bulk of mainstream drivers today to be in any way 'my people'".
Exactly. If you were on USENET way back, you were a fucking nerd (lovingly). People romanticize that because it was very likely with any given group of people, they could strike up some kind of conversation, and they likely shared at least a few central values. Now the Internet is just outside with better moderation tools and curation. I will say though the GP's comment: > The herd is endlessly mindless, shallow, bou…
> More importantly, I don’t enjoy how people interact on social media anymore I'm really just not convinced social media is very useful. The main use I can see is very fast dispersal of information, but anything truly important will be distributed by mainstream media, and less important things will travel between small communities at a slower rate. So what are we left with exactly? I think small communities where peo…
>Please note that Mastodon can move your followers, but it can’t transfer your old posts or uploaded media to your new account. If you want to keep a copy, download an archive I'm sure there is some technical excuse to why this is the case but just seems entirely broken that it can't just have the owner of the account provably broadcast they control both the original and the destinations and to redirect all posts. I…
The posts, when posted live on the host. The user can download their posts. When a host goes away, where do you propose the posts previously hosted there now get hosted? One option is for the poster's new host to have all the old posts uploaded ... how then to previous other posts that point at them, or reply to them, get updated? I'd genuinely be interested to hear your suggestions for how these technical issues cou…
When a server stops federating, the federated posts still exist in the DB of all the remote instances that recieved it. They're still indexed and searchable from there. You could move those posts into the DB of a new server, but they'll still "originate" from the old one. But you can carry on and interact with old threads.
There's no real foolproof mechanism for updating posts, although there is an AP Update activity, much like deletes there's nothing forcing an instance to respect it.
Question: Is there some kind of official protocol for Mastodon? Reason I ask, is if whoever is in charge have considered to support moving posts and interactions from one server to another.
The protocol is ActivityPub and the feature you suggest is being considered as FEP 1580. https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/1580/...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The author doesn't sound like they are pitching a fit to me.
maybe i read more into it. i got put off by his refusal to hand it off. he can quit, no qualms there. but not handing it over? that seems petty, imo.
If it were a forum, then asking long-term contributors and moderators if they're interested in taking over is certainly an option. But it's not, there's likely no natural "hierarchy" that develops on a mastodon instance.
They could conceivably ask another established instance if they'd like to take over the old domain, though.
don't forget to `tootctl self-destruct` https://docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/tootctl/#self-destruct EDIT: Once the server disappears, users who did nothing will lose the ability to delete their accounts later. Without self-destruct, remote servers may retain cached profiles and posts indefinitely, but the original users will no longer control those objects. Mastodon created the command specifically to broadcast accoun…
>Please note that Mastodon can move your followers, but it can’t transfer your old posts or uploaded media to your new account. If you want to keep a copy, download an archive I'm sure there is some technical excuse to why this is the case but just seems entirely broken that it can't just have the owner of the account provably broadcast they control both the original and the destinations and to redirect all posts. I…
The posts, when posted live on the host. The user can download their posts. When a host goes away, where do you propose the posts previously hosted there now get hosted? One option is for the poster's new host to have all the old posts uploaded ... how then to previous other posts that point at them, or reply to them, get updated? I'd genuinely be interested to hear your suggestions for how these technical issues cou…
Not pretending to know anything about the system feel free to point out why this wouldn't work. I'm just approaching it from a user perspective that having to lose posts to move server is bad for users and having to choose to nuke all posts in the case of shutting down a server is bad for admins.
That's a shame. It seems to me that we are in a frustrating situation where there are probably clever ways to solve the problems created by social media. But because launching new social platforms requires solving a difficult chicken-and-egg problem, we don't get very many chances to try anything new or innovative.
Another way of putting it is: Occasionally people will speculate about ways to fix issues with Twitter, reddit, etc. Such speculation feels fairly pointless, because there is little evidence that the moderators of those platforms are listening to suggestions, or even care about anything besides profit maximization. Without much demand for improvement ideas, the supply of such ideas tends to dry up as well.
If anyone else is in this situation of desiring to sunset a social platform, I would encourage them to run a contest. People can enter your contest by submitting plans for how to revitalize the platform / a genuinely new direction for social media. You judge the entries, pick a winner, and the winner takes over administration of your platform so they can try out their proposed new direction.
As someone whose first “social media” was USENET of the early 90s, and I suppose FidoNet before then, I don’t really consider the bulk of mainstream Internet users today to be in any way “my people”. The herd is endlessly mindless, shallow, bought with bread, and hungry for the circus.
that's because mainstream internet users today are everyone... I don't go for a walk and expect the world to be filled with "my people" either.
Then I go online, and there's a high likelihood I encounter people from other countries; worse is when you don't even enjoy a little bit of multiculturalism, but all you experience is a majority of people from one country which isn't even yours - like being on this site or Reddit or Twitter and being bombarded by the US perspective of US matters.
It's easy for terminally online people like me to forget who even are your people.