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Exploring Mastodon

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Re: Exploring Mastodon

#131

Post by kzrdude »

culi wrote: post #20
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…

> Yes, but it's incredibly hard -- try to follow them on whatever server you're on Confused about this. In my experience it's always just been a matter of adding @personiwannafollow@otherinstance.com Is this not always so simple?

Right, we need the user to figure out what "just adding @personiwannafollow@otherinstance.com" entails.

I think it means going to your home instance, searching for @personiwannafollow@otherinstance.com and clicking the follow button that will show up. But maybe you mean something else? Either way it's not easy to find it.

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#132

Post by insane_dreamer »

> The most important arbiter of content moderation is the reader. My decisions on who I follow should indicate what content I want to see. That control is undermined by commercial services that maximize engagement to sell attention to advertisers.

This is why ad-based social networks are inherently problematic unless/until they switch to an ad-free model, which means paywalled, but I would pay $2/month for a Twitter-like service that wasn't ad-based.

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#133

Post by pwinnski »

I am not sure I can express this enough: the onboarding experience is overwhelmingly confusing.

I've already ended up dumped on a page with a long list of servers, and it's not clear whether this choice matters or not. Half the comments here say it does, half say it doesn't!

But let's see my choices today: ruby.social, todon.eu, hostux.social, Glasgow.social, metalhead.net, socel.net, machteburch.social, activism.openworlds.info, eldritch.cafe, toot.wales, tooting.ch, sfba.social, indieweb.social, tech.lgbt, lor.sh "Yet another server," tilde.zone, ieji.de, is.nota.live, libretooth.gr, mastodonapp.uk, ravenation.club, climatejustice.social, noc.social, maly.io, mastodon.nz, qoto.org, mastodon.ie, and I'm tired of pasting, but literally NONE OF THE ABOVE seem to be for me!

And again, I don't know how much this matters, but it feels overwhelming. Also, a startlingly high percentage of socialist and otherwise left-leaning servers in that initial list, which might be intended, or might just be coincidentally arrayed to drive away people who are offended by such things.

The worst part about this is, I'm pretty sure I signed up with mastodon back when it was first launched, but I can't remember the server, so...

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#134

Post by jszymborski »

radarsat1 wrote: post #56

The thing that surprised me a bit about federation is that it puts instances front and center. You have an account at your "home instance", and that's the first thing you see. When I first read about federation I had thought that the idea was to have one big network of independent but equal instances that just transparently share data under common topics. But instead I discovered that you are identified with your ins…

There are three timelines:

- Home Timeline: The people you follow

- Local Timeline: The people on your instance

- Fed Timeline: The people on the fediverse

You take your pick. Be as siloed as you want. On the fed timeline, block people and instances, or just let the unfiltered hive mind flow over you.

When you want something quieter, go to the local or home timelines.

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#135

Post by riffic »

pwinnski wrote: post #133

I am not sure I can express this enough: the onboarding experience is overwhelmingly confusing. I've already ended up dumped on a page with a long list of servers, and it's not clear whether this choice matters or not. Half the comments here say it does, half say it doesn't! But let's see my choices today: ruby.social, todon.eu, hostux.social, Glasgow.social, metalhead.net, socel.net, machteburch.social, activism.ope…

edited: make a monetary contribution to the project along with your PR

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#136

Post by skybrian »

cyborgx7 wrote: post #18
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…

People just have lost the ability to comprehend the concept of federation because everything in the current internet is walled gardens. There is nothing Mastodon can do to "fix this" without giving up on federation. But people understand how federation works. They see it happen everyday with e-mail. You just need to tell them it works like that and they'll get it.

It's not conceptual, it's UI. The easy way to is copy the address and paste it into the search box on your home instance. Then hit the subscribe button.

This isn't very discoverable at all, though. Hitting the follow button is worse and doesn't tell you the easy way.

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#137

Post by ghostDancer »

wzdd wrote: post #68
culi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, but it's incredibly hard -- try to follow them on whatever server you're on Confused about this. In my experience it's always just been a matter of adding @personiwannafollow@otherinstance.com Is this not always so simple?

"Remote follow" is very unintuitive, particularly for Twitter users. 1. View a user's profile page on another instance. 2. Click "Follow". 3. A "remote follow" window opens with the message "Enter your username@domain you want to act from". 4. ??? How profile pages are displayed changes depending on whether you middle/right click ("open in new tab") or left click on a user's name from your own instance. If you left c…

The problem is that is not centralized server and even can be a different type of server like Pleroma, Misskey or any other that supports ActivityPub so it works different, They have to learn that ActivityPub/Mastodon is different and works different the same they had to learn how Twitter works or just stay in Twitter if it's too hard or too painful for them.

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#138

Post by notacoward »

parasubvert wrote: post #114
notacoward wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a lot less concerned about UX/onboarding issues than about the fact that the simplistic federation model is going to fall apart long before they even reach 1/10 of Twitter's scale. Now, if you're OK with having a lot of smaller communities that only communicate sporadically, forcing people to have ten identities and ten tabs open to participate effectively in each one, that's not a problem. However, if you want t…

The web itself has a proxy/cache layer, what more is needed? I don’t think it’s inherently unavailable as it is, no more than RSS readers were.

HTTP caching doesn't work as well as it could for ActivityPub data patterns as it does for popular single sites, and AFAICT the servers don't do the things necessary to make it even as effective as it could be. There's a reason big Mastodon instances need to devote so many resources to Sidekiq.

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#139

Post by jm4 »

jmathai wrote: post #92
radarsat1 wrote: post #56

The thing that surprised me a bit about federation is that it puts instances front and center. You have an account at your "home instance", and that's the first thing you see. When I first read about federation I had thought that the idea was to have one big network of independent but equal instances that just transparently share data under common topics. But instead I discovered that you are identified with your ins…

I think the opportunity is to foster a new kind of social interaction and smaller niche groups seems like a really interesting angle that centralized services gravitate away from. I haven't used Mastadon but I could see this being a positive if you replace "home instance" with "local community" or "interest group foo". The truth is that you only need to find a small group of people with similar interests. You don't n…

I think you have the right idea. An large instance may help in the first day or two until you find some people to follow and then it's not so important as far as seeing the rest of the world. The federated timeline has plenty and it will keep growing as the number of people on the instance and the number of people they follow grows. You can also search hashtags to follow topics across the fediverse. But it's nice to have that community with some core shared interests to come back to. Part of that is a shared code of conduct. You want to associate with people who have the same idea about how to interact with others and that really sets the tone for the whole experience. I've mostly interacted with fosstodon.org and hachyderm.io and both are made up of people who are positive and respectful of others.

Re: Exploring Mastodon

#140

Post by ghostDancer »

Vaslo wrote: post #48
culi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, but it's incredibly hard -- try to follow them on whatever server you're on Confused about this. In my experience it's always just been a matter of adding @personiwannafollow@otherinstance.com Is this not always so simple?

This is like when computer geeks don’t get why people won’t switch from windows to Linux. If you don’t understand why they don’t want to, or why there will never be a massive shift to Mastodon you’ll never fix the issue. Your suggestion is not “simple”. My non tech wife doesn’t care about instances and this and that. She goes to Twitter, she types in her favorite people, finds and follows. Done.

It's exactly the same you don't like it you stay with Windows or Twitter oar Facebook . Why do people have to jump to the Fediverse now. They don't like it they just can stay where they are , everybody happier.
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