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Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

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Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#331

Post by s73v3r_ »

tomohawk wrote: post #320
s73v3r_ wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The big social media sites are in the process of evicting everyone who doesn't 100% agree with them” That is a flat-out lie, unless you disagree with the terms of service. Find me one person that was booted that wasn’t booted for violating the ToS.

You might want to get outside of your bubble a little instead of making accusations like that. Perhaps you could explain the case of Elizabeth Heng, a candidate in CA of the US Congress?

I think you might need to get out of your bubble, if you think that most of these people are just "disagreeing".

As for your example, she violated the ToS. They then changed their minds. I'm not seeing the grave injustice you're claiming.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#332

Post by s73v3r_ »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #281
s73v3r_ wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely and utterly disagree with your “work out fine” sentiment. It is embarrassing that something set up like Mastodon was from the beginning did not plan for people to move between instances from the start.

Oh hush. What's the Most Important Killer Embarssing-Not-To-Have feature to one person isn't a priority for someone else. If you want it, add it. Mastodon is open source.

That's not my job, and that dismissive, terrible attitude is exactly why open source has such a bad reputation. When the people you're trying to recruit to use your service are saying there's a problem, saying, "Then you go do something about it!" is not going to endear you to users.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#333

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #332
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh hush. What's the Most Important Killer Embarssing-Not-To-Have feature to one person isn't a priority for someone else. If you want it, add it. Mastodon is open source.

That's not my job, and that dismissive, terrible attitude is exactly why open source has such a bad reputation. When the people you're trying to recruit to use your service are saying there's a problem, saying, "Then you go do something about it!" is not going to endear you to users.

I don't feel the need to endear myself to users. It's not my job, either, nor is it anyone else's but yours. If you want something, you need to make it happen. What arrogance of yours to think that someone else should volunteer their time to accomodate for your whims!

If Mastodon doesn't suit your needs, then fix it or don't use it. Either way that doesn't make it "embarassing" or otherwise bad. It works great for millions of users.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#334

Post by chris_wot »

bilbo0s wrote: post #112

OK, here's the problem in a nutshell: no one among regular people cares. You guys are splitting hairs right now when talking about the difference between tweeting and boosting or public companies vs open source or what have you. None of that attracts users. If you have no users, then for regular people, your product is useless. Even the article is not really making a pitch for mastodon that indicates any features at…

No "regular" person liked Twitter, at least not until it got critical mass.

The entire point of Mastodon is to ensure there is no single instance that can control every other instance. Twitter has real issues. For instance, due to their inability to police truly awful behaviour (in the name of freedom of expression) there is no way of limiting the very worst excesses of the medium.

However, if you localize instances, then you allow people to gravitate to those instances they feel most free to join. It also allows instances to reject other instances they really don't want anything to do with - so Fosstodon would presumably block anything from Stormfront.

Frankly though, your idea of "fringe groups" is wrong - it will probably allow for SIGs. In fact, I'd say that Mastodon in that regard seems to be more like a distributed reddit than Twitter, only it basically emulates Twitter features and UI.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#335

Post by throwaway2048 »

bilbo0s wrote: post #112

OK, here's the problem in a nutshell: no one among regular people cares. You guys are splitting hairs right now when talking about the difference between tweeting and boosting or public companies vs open source or what have you. None of that attracts users. If you have no users, then for regular people, your product is useless. Even the article is not really making a pitch for mastodon that indicates any features at…

Nobody among regular people cared about twitter at first either, and it was far from the first social media site.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#336

Post by newsbinator »

TillE wrote: post #117
bilbo0s wrote: post #112

OK, here's the problem in a nutshell: no one among regular people cares. You guys are splitting hairs right now when talking about the difference between tweeting and boosting or public companies vs open source or what have you. None of that attracts users. If you have no users, then for regular people, your product is useless. Even the article is not really making a pitch for mastodon that indicates any features at…

You say problem, I say advantage. Not everything has to be a massive public square! It's okay to be niche. Until the mid/late 2000s, the internet was far more decentralized and often much the better for it. In other words: https://mastodon.social/@helldude/100572161034726032

`We're sorry, but something went wrong on our end.`

Reloaded.

Ah, there it is.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#337

Post by phreack »

ohtwenty wrote: post #128
phreack wrote: post #118

So instances are like subreddits? Having never used Mastodon I'm not entirely sure I understood what an instance is, but if they are just like subreddits then I'd say that's a way better elevator pitch than trying to define them, and it also helps to show that people do like to congregate on a large platform around topics.

Kiiiind of, but there's quite some general instances. Most of them are more like a "here's some people interested in the same subjects as you". So yes, on my (politically motivated, I guess) instance I find quite some people with the same political slant (and some commentary on that), but many cats, daily stories, etc. Just like twitter or other platforms. It's worth a try seeing what joinmastodon.org tells you, and…

Now I see. I looked around and it seemed hard to choose 'the right instance' to begin, knowing nothing about the platform. Most had esoteric names, like clubs. It might be a nice idea for Mastodon advocates to create general topic instances, that may feel more approachable for newcomers.

In any case, it does seem like a great platform and might blow up in time with few changes in the onboarding process

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#338

Post by nradov »

tomjen3 wrote: post #218
teaneedz wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you nailed the USP of Mastodon. Keeping out the marketers, advertisers, vanity metric chasing or fandom makes Mastodon that peaceful scenic beach where your fellow beach goers say hello and share some of their food with you. I'll take Mastodon fringe over obnoxious Twitter or Facebook anytime.

That is kind of funny, because Twitter can totally be that, if you want it. You have to be liberal in your usage of the block button, but the advantage is that you have so many genuinely interesting people to follow and learn from. I wouldn't have 1 in 1000 of those on Masterdon, and with their doubling of tweet size, I don't see the problem with arguments. Before anybody goes about the ecochamber: I ban obnoxious pe…

I tried that, but I failed to learn anything interesting in 140 (or even 280) characters.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#339

Post by iamdave »

cabalamat wrote: post #317
iamdave wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been my same approach lately. I'm noticing certain friends are constantly the ones either starting arguments, or their posts are the ones that frequently get bumped back up to the top of whatever the hell Facebook's "timeline" thinks its doing-because there's a small arms conflict going on in the comment section. Even though in many cases, I would otherwise be in complete agreement with the core argument bei…

> "($CONSERVATIVE_PERSON| $LIBERAL_PERSON | $GROUP | $PARTY ) DID A THING, I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT IT, AND YOU'RE GOING TO HEAR ABOUT IT". This phenomenon is more concisely expressesd as "boo outgroup".

I suppose if you are beholden to oversimplifications, sure.
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