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From GNU social to Mastodon

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Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#141

Post by lolikoisuru »

epeus wrote: post #102
oopsman88 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, not everybody you disagree with acts in bad faith. Nazis, communists, anarchists, you name it: most of them believe their views of society will lead to a betterment of it. They don't adhere to their principles just because they want to fuck with others.

Nazi ideology is explicitly about fucking with others. It is about separating people who they disapprove of and killing them. If you're trying to normalise Nazis, you are one of them, and the 88 dogwhistle doesn't look good.

[flagged]

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#142

Post by lolikoisuru »

epeus wrote: post #123
oopsman89 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think all ideas should be discussed in an open forum. If you think some people may become nazis, communists or pastafarians because those ideas appeal to them, it's because you're afraid the ideas you're trying to push on aren't that good to begin with. (Posting from another account because that one has been banned for no reason I can discern.)

[flagged]

There isn't a single comment from the guy that advocated nazism.

Are you really this lacking on self awareness?

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#143

Post by s_kilk »

cyphar wrote: post #15
wetpaws wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you can't and this is a fundamental problem of federated systems.

In Mastodon, I believe you can -- but it's more of a Twitter-dump than something as well-separated as subreddits. Each time a user follows someone from a new server, that server's "federated feed" is added to the homeserver of that user. It's not perfect, but it does mean that federated feeds do spread organically (and it does result in single-user instances spam-following everyone so that you can get a more cohesive…

> Each time a user follows someone from a new server, that server's "federated feed" is added to the homeserver of that user.

Wait, is this a thing? I've been using Mastodon for months and have never seen this in the UI.

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#144

Post by jdeibele »

anderspitman wrote: post #135
foxhop wrote: post #52

I decided to join Mastodon when it first came out. I planned to stand up my own server, but I kept.putting it off... Flash 2 years later, last week I finally got a Mastodon instance up, and I don't host it myself. I'm using https://masto.host They let you used your own domain. My thought process is to not waste my time writing automation to stand up a server until I know I really want to use it. So far I love it even…

I was wondering if they allow export. I poked around the website for a bit and didn't see anything. That's the primary selling point for me. I want to run my own instance eventually but I'd love to start with something hosted.

https://github.com/kensanata/mastodon-backup/ allows you to backup your mastodon data.

It also allows you to expire your toots, boosts, etc. The idea is that you don't want people searching your timeline to find gotcha's.

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#145

Post by throw2016 »

WorldMaker wrote: post #136
throw2016 wrote: post #111

The problem is abuse of power and arbitrary behavior that affects many when they have even a little bit of power. This is what leads to censorship, suppressing views, bubbles and lack of accountability. Mastodon does not solve this in the slightest, just enables thousands of arbitrary admins. At least with Twitter there is one source and its easier to seek some kind of accountability and put a global spotlight on the…

Be your own "arbitrary" admin in that case? The decentralized nature certainly allows for "competition" between "ingroups of admins". Don't like your current admins? Move to an instance elsewhere. If you have friends, encourage them to follow you in the move. Different instances have different transparency/accountability metrics, and the good ones tend to have that posted in the Instance About page/terms. Many of the…

If the solution is to do your own thing, how exactly is this better than Twitter? Any Twitter user can do that right now, doing your own thing can hardly be presented as a solution. Really, what are the benefits for current Twitter users?

This is just replacing the admins of twitter with random others. So you are not solving the problems of Twitter or decentralization, just promoting your own solution on misleading grounds.

For the average users at least it easier to trust the admins of twitter and expect some accountability and standards of transparency than random others with no accountability.

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#146

Post by cyphar »

s_kilk wrote: post #143
cyphar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Mastodon, I believe you can -- but it's more of a Twitter-dump than something as well-separated as subreddits. Each time a user follows someone from a new server, that server's "federated feed" is added to the homeserver of that user. It's not perfect, but it does mean that federated feeds do spread organically (and it does result in single-user instances spam-following everyone so that you can get a more cohesive…

> Each time a user follows someone from a new server, that server's "federated feed" is added to the homeserver of that user. Wait, is this a thing? I've been using Mastodon for months and have never seen this in the UI.

The "federated timeline" tab should be what I'm describing -- though to be honest the last time I talked to any of the mastodon folks about this was more than a year ago (the semantics might have changed).

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#147

Post by AsyncAwait »

lolikoisuru wrote: post #140
AsyncAwait wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're perfectly free to run your own instance and post whatever you like. Others might not want to read it, but that's your problem - you don't inherently deserve an audience, you have to convince people that you're worth following. Luckily for you, there's also https://pleroma.social where they might align with your values[1] a lot more. 1 - I am pro free speech, however many on the right these days seem to think t…

You basically said that you're pro free speech unless you disagree with said speech. It's quite apparent that you actually aren't pro freedom of speech.

> You basically said that you're pro free speech unless you disagree with said speech.

Where did I say this? I said I am pro free speech, especially one that I disagree with, that's the whole point. However I do not think me speaking means that people HAVE TO LISTEN to me. I do not want to be banned from speaking, but I do not demand an audience for my speech, therefore if someone blocks me because they find me annoying, that just means I haven't convinced them to be a part of my audience, as long as I can still speak freely, that's their personal choice.

My problem is with people who pretend to be free speech absolutists, but really aren't in that they'll make a fuss if you disrespect the flag, kneel etc. even as those are very clearly protected by freedom of expression. They're free to not watch someone do these things, (akin to blocking on social media), but not to go beyond that, in my opinion.

I am saying two things:

1. If someone blocks you, that does not violate your free speech, they don't have to listen. As long as they don't take action beyond blocking you it's within their right to do so and they do not violate your free speech.

2. That you should only complain about lack of free speech if you yourself respect speech you disagree with. If you think it's free speech to throw your stuff at people's ears, but then disagree with other people saying stuff YOU don't like, then you should not complain about anything free speech related, (see the whole NFL kneeling controversy for an example of what I mean, or people complaining about a statue of Satan, yet wanting to have In God We Trust in public schools etc.)

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#148

Post by wetpaws »

wetpaws wrote: post #14
skybrian wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like it too, but having used it casually for about a week, I'm wondering how you visit different communities without creating multiple accounts? It should be as easy as visiting a different subreddit. (I do know that you can subscribe to individuals in other instances, but haven't done that yet.)

I assume you can't and this is a fundamental problem of federated systems.

People who downvote me without providing any counter-examples, please.

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#149

Post by WorldMaker »

throw2016 wrote: post #145
WorldMaker wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be your own "arbitrary" admin in that case? The decentralized nature certainly allows for "competition" between "ingroups of admins". Don't like your current admins? Move to an instance elsewhere. If you have friends, encourage them to follow you in the move. Different instances have different transparency/accountability metrics, and the good ones tend to have that posted in the Instance About page/terms. Many of the…

If the solution is to do your own thing, how exactly is this better than Twitter? Any Twitter user can do that right now, doing your own thing can hardly be presented as a solution. Really, what are the benefits for current Twitter users? This is just replacing the admins of twitter with random others. So you are not solving the problems of Twitter or decentralization, just promoting your own solution on misleading g…

How is it easier to trust the admins of Twitter for the average user? It's a closed, for profit corporation that intentionally obfuscates its moderation practices and in general distrusts direct engagement with admins/moderators.

Every Mastodon instance lists its admins on its frontpage, including how to @ mention them. Most instance admins respond to feedback directly. As I mentioned in the previous comment, particularly good Mastodon instances list their moderation policies and accountability/transparency standards on their frontpages, too, with many of them linking to GitHub repositories or similar where they conduct their business in the source-controlled open.

It's not "random others", because you have the option to choose your instance(s), and can often form personal bonds with the instance's admin(s). Some good instances like toot.cafe and friend.camp are making that a focus that you know who your friendly neighborhood admin is/are and should have a good relationship with them. Sure, your local admin probably talks to other admins or follows other admins, but at the end of the day the admin accountable to the instance is still the one running the instance. There's no central cabal secretly running the show behind the scenes because the admins are already as diverse as the users.

One of the few ways I can see people trust Twitter better is that at least as a for-profit company, it has a business model, and accountability to shareholders (if really, no one else in modern corporate America). There's nothing stopping Mastodon instances from incorporating and forming "proper" business models/governance models to get that additional level of government-blessed transparency. In fact, I've advocated for just that and think that something like a non-profit/charitable Mastodon Foundation to help instances run the business administrivia would be a good idea.

Re: From GNU social to Mastodon

#150

Post by xj9 »

craftyguy wrote: post #21
xj9 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we're working on it ;) there are a handful of proposals for doing SSO on fediverse, but it isn't super high priority since creating multiple accounts (alts) is a pretty common practice here.

> but it isn't super high priority since creating multiple accounts (alts) is a pretty common practice here. Then you'll only end up with users that are willing to put up with that, and you will not get users that perceive this as a major inconvenience (I'm in this camp, and I suspect many, many others are too.)

growth isn't a huge priority for my fediverse neighborhood/instance cluster. we welcome new people, of course, but it doesn't really matter if you sign up or not.

that said, you don't actually need multiple accounts to join conversations on other servers/topics. any account can talk to any other account on whatever server they happen to be registered on.

alts are more about identity than topics, in any case. in some cases, the topics you interact with are different, but that mostly depends on how much your want to differentiate your various identities.

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