Twitter was a valuable platform for scientific discourse in the past
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Re: Twitter was a valuable platform for scientific discourse in the past
#2This article makes excellent points in a cogent fashion.
I partly disagree with the author that simply pointing at the existence of an alternative is sufficient. One of the reasons I've been very lukewarm about Mastodon is that it really lack the networks effects that make Twitter special; federation is a nice idea but the pragmatic benefits are a lot less clear. Being able to follow, track, and have conversations with individual scientists/scholars on Twitter has been a huge benefit for me, and it's not obvious that federated social networking can reliably deliver that. Another issue is that while Mastodon started well out of the gate 5 years ago (which was when is first signed up for it), very little has happened since then. 'We're not those other guys' is not a sufficient recipe for changing the world.
An excellent point that I do agree with is how 'sticky' Twitter is and how (like many other big tech firms) the tools it gives you when you export your data aren't really that helpful/useful unless you have sufficient programming skills of your own to overcome the quirky formatting issues. It seems like there's an audience for a tool that leverages the Twitter API to scrape your following/follower data into a convenient format and perhaps automate the business of finding and reconnecting with those people on another platform.
I think it's reasonable to say Twitter's utility is rapidly waning, both as described and with each new day's manufactured drama. However, the network effect issue is a big one. If 'science twitter' decamps to 'science.social' it could quickly find itself effectively cut off from its public and derided by antagonists as a 'woke echo chamber populated by high IQ stupid people' to borrow a phrase from what passes for political discourse in 2022.
Re: Twitter was a valuable platform for scientific discourse in the past
#3This article makes excellent points in a cogent fashion. I partly disagree with the author that simply pointing at the existence of an alternative is sufficient. One of the reasons I've been very lukewarm about Mastodon is that it really lack the networks effects that make Twitter special; federation is a nice idea but the pragmatic benefits are a lot less clear. Being able to follow, track, and have conversations wi…
> it's not obvious that federated social networking can reliably deliver that
Why not? It's federated, not isolated. If enough people are available to achieve the network effects you're after, what would you lack? (Content discovery solutions are already being created for people who want to play with them)
> It seems like there's an audience for a tool that leverages the Twitter API to scrape your following/follower data into a convenient format and perhaps automate the business of finding and reconnecting with those people on another platform.
https://twitodon.com/ for mastodon already exists
> If 'science twitter' decamps to 'science.social' it could quickly find itself effectively cut off from its public
Why? What's different from frontend social, infosec exchange, etc.? In the general population is mastodon, I can't imagine science twitter being called out as woke.
Re: Twitter was a valuable platform for scientific discourse in the past
#4This article makes excellent points in a cogent fashion. I partly disagree with the author that simply pointing at the existence of an alternative is sufficient. One of the reasons I've been very lukewarm about Mastodon is that it really lack the networks effects that make Twitter special; federation is a nice idea but the pragmatic benefits are a lot less clear. Being able to follow, track, and have conversations wi…
I haven't used Mastodon and so the impression I get is that it doesn't have an easy way to look up other accounts or discovery of accounts on other instances.
How does user account discovery work? How do you think it could be made better?
Re: Twitter was a valuable platform for scientific discourse in the past
#5This article makes excellent points in a cogent fashion. I partly disagree with the author that simply pointing at the existence of an alternative is sufficient. One of the reasons I've been very lukewarm about Mastodon is that it really lack the networks effects that make Twitter special; federation is a nice idea but the pragmatic benefits are a lot less clear. Being able to follow, track, and have conversations wi…
I haven't used Mastodon and so the impression I get is that it doesn't have an easy way to look up other accounts or discovery of accounts on other instances. How does user account discovery work? How do you think it could be made better?
Two ways: find instances relevant to your interests a la Usenet
If you already know the person's name, use the search field.
[Edit] this is not how to improve it. This is how discoverability in Mastodon currently works.
Re: Twitter was a valuable platform for scientific discourse in the past
#6Twitter is just as bad as it was before Musk took over with one exception: they removed the blatant partisan censorship. If that makes it worse than before for academics there is more at hand than it just being a viral meme-amplifier unsuited for academic discussions.
Re: Twitter was a valuable platform for scientific discourse in the past
#7No post body was provided.
Re: Twitter was a valuable platform for scientific discourse in the past
#8This article makes excellent points in a cogent fashion. I partly disagree with the author that simply pointing at the existence of an alternative is sufficient. One of the reasons I've been very lukewarm about Mastodon is that it really lack the networks effects that make Twitter special; federation is a nice idea but the pragmatic benefits are a lot less clear. Being able to follow, track, and have conversations wi…
>If 'science twitter' decamps to 'science.social'
There's fediscience.org and sciencemastodon.com already (Sean Carroll created account on fediscience.org and James Gleick - on sciencemastodon.com among people I follow on Twitter).
Re: Twitter was a valuable platform for scientific discourse in the past
#9This article makes excellent points in a cogent fashion. I partly disagree with the author that simply pointing at the existence of an alternative is sufficient. One of the reasons I've been very lukewarm about Mastodon is that it really lack the networks effects that make Twitter special; federation is a nice idea but the pragmatic benefits are a lot less clear. Being able to follow, track, and have conversations wi…
One of the things I noticed and immediately liked about Mastodon was that I quickly found curious academic types who are interesting to chat with. And the whole vibe on Mastodon was different because you'll find quirky and idiosyncratic people who pay a lot of attention to a very specific type of intellectually curious conversation, and your more likely to discover that on Mastodon in my experience, so I think it is an excellent fit for academics.
Re: Twitter was a valuable platform for scientific discourse in the past
#10This article makes excellent points in a cogent fashion. I partly disagree with the author that simply pointing at the existence of an alternative is sufficient. One of the reasons I've been very lukewarm about Mastodon is that it really lack the networks effects that make Twitter special; federation is a nice idea but the pragmatic benefits are a lot less clear. Being able to follow, track, and have conversations wi…
I haven't used Mastodon and so the impression I get is that it doesn't have an easy way to look up other accounts or discovery of accounts on other instances. How does user account discovery work? How do you think it could be made better?
I found DeviantOllam's introduction on Mastodon/Fediverse[1] to be quite interesting and useful.
He covers contact discovery/migration from Twitter, and also mentions a fediverse contact search, although I forget what it was.