For all the people who say ”I had to select a server, it was so complicated to sign up to Mastodon. On Bluesky it was easy” - how are these two different logic-wise? I mean what the hell?
@rolle I also found this really confusing. Like, do people have something against elephants, is that the reason for preferring Bluesky? Man, I like elephants! Just look at those cute fellows. Oh, there's a non-profit microblog application that doesn't steal your personal data attached to them? Heck, I'm going to try it. Because it's not just elephants I like: I also like small-scale interaction without excessive toxic bias and data mining. And those elephants, boy they are sweet!
@rolle I have an account over on Bluesky and I find that the attitude towards Mastodon is weirdly emotional. I gather that a number of people had an unpleasant experience with the UI and certain rude users almost a year ago and now hate it forever.
@rolle So far as I can tell, the capitalists that run Bluesky have similar plans as Musk so I expect that Mastodon will eventually see a wave of BS migrants who have realized their mistake.
@kevinjardine@rolle I’ve seen a few reports of Mastodon users being hostile. A number that I’ve seen are from people of color. I have not seen the same from other groups that have often faced online hostility elsewhere.
My experience has been universally positive, but I took care when joining in picking my instance and curating my feed.
I wonder why the variation in onboarding experience, and how to address it?
@Dogzilla@rolle I think some people have thinner skins than others.
When I first got active myself with Mastodon last year, a wave of people who I personally ignored and viewed as self righteous pricks appeared, especially around November, who wanted to lecture people on "Mastodon etiquette".
They recommended that people choose obscure specialized Mastodon instances, put content warnings on all posts that seemed vaguely off topic, add alt texts for all images no matter how obvious and so on.
@Dogzilla@rolle These pricks also heavily criticized people who wanted improved search, the ability to quote posts, etc. There was a debate to be had on some of these features, but definitely not the way they were doing it.
Instead of running away disgusted, I just blocked these people and found that the vast majority of Mastodon users were actually congenial, supportive and helpful.
@kevinjardine@Dogzilla I remember this all too well. Implemented a full text search on my instance before it got implemented to the official repo and people were furious about it. Also many times the wrath was unleashed upon me for not putting content warnings to fruit or Twitter related posts. I usually mute or block people for this, I don’t need that patronising shit.
@rolle@kevinjardine Blocking and muting is my approach as well, and like you I find it quite effective.
I realize I may be walking into a minefield here, but I honestly don’t understand why some folks on the fediverse are demanding others change their habits to align with personal expectations, given it’s incredibly simple to just filter that out. Is it a lack of knowledge or something else?
Yea.. like I can read your toots here right now in the public. And bc of that there is less difference to #Bluesky if you think about it, but regarding the #atprotocol accessing them by firehose endpoint allows much more like building your own feed (algorithm) that extracts network-wide skeets for you... combine this with AI and you can read the things you're interested in... your own personal bubble. This and the global FTS is a killer feature for me over #Mastadon.
@rolle I didn’t find #mastodon that complicated. I researched a bit on servers, I love being on one with Sauropods on it and boom done. And we got cute colourful lil Mastodons how can ya not love that? As opposed to…..a Blue Sky…..wiiiiiii…….lol I want some Mastodon merch too 😸
@rolle Might be more instruction than UI problem. I don't know what they are like now, but when I made my first account in last Nov, most of the instructions started with a long text about what are instances and how important it is to select the right one. I'd assume that is too much to many who just wanted to create an account and find people.
I also still sometimes see people assuming that you can only interact with people on the same instance.
@rolle It used to be more difficult just a few months ago when there was no default and mastodon.social was full. So that might be what people are referring to?
@rolle you probably know the answer already, but I'll risk telling it anyway: I bet that most people creating a mastodon account know that there actually are multiple instances and that it makes sense to pick one; so there is some hesitation/friction. Meanwhile they know that there is only one option for bluesky, in spite of what the login screen shows (at least back when I tried bsky).
@rolle@tinyfluffs i think the difference is bluesky’s doesn’t actually currently work - though yeah, i am very curious of what happens if they ever actually federate, because a lot of that “simplicity” argument goes out of the window immediately
@rolle can only assume their experience was not recent. I signed up in the great migration of November 2022 and was presented many server, some buckling under load. This looks nice now
@rolle the problem is not at the point of sign up but earlier in the funnel.
Mastodon or fediverse presents a potential new user with a bunch of things they never needed to care about before like what server to sign up on and so on. It all sounds very complicated since it is unfamiliar.
Bluesky just says “sign up, the same way you are used to”
@rolle
I suspect that is an impression hanging on from last November even though our signon experience has improved. Which is why first impressions are so important. They can get embedded.
@rolle Mastodon.social have been closed for signups several times
And everyones' techie uncle always tell them that they should find the right server and all the stuffs.
Back in the olden days you were actively encouraged to spread out over different servers, which sucked when mastodon.rocks just fell off the interwebs along with my account.
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