I swear I must be using a different Mastodon than everyone else. Since I’ve been here I’ve only seen people be generally courteous and friendly to each other. The occasional times when someone has been mean, rude or thoughtless they usually apologize straight away.
Not only that but I’ve seen people go out of their way to help others understand how the service is different from others without being condescending.
It’s strange how vastly different one’s experiences can be on social media. 🤷♂️
@gedeonm I wish people would stop acting like there's something special about Mastodon as a platform that makes it nicer. It's nicer because it isn't reflective of the general population, yet. Once it is, it will be just as nasty, because people are nasty.
This cycle has played out over and over again online, yet because inclusivity has such a halo of positivity around it, people don't see that promoting broad general adoption is the most effective way to get the opposite of what they want.
@gedeonm
I've been here 5 years and on a whole, my own experience has been very positive. I definitely won't say hateful people don't exist here (witnessed it many times), but the ability to have actual moderation and block problem instances makes a BIG difference.
@gedeonm I think a lot of people just gear up for battle the second they receive a reply to anything (this condition is usually for a very good reason), but it's less needed here.
That's not to say it's zero. It depends where and how you post. If your avatar is clearly non-white or non-male, you will be using a different mastodon than those who are white males.
This goes for mastodon as much as the web in general. We do have better tools to control it here, though.
@gedeonm maybe it’s the instance they are on ? Curious to know why toxic people would come here since metawitter and muskitter are safe heavens for them.
@gedeonm I think a big part of it, at least for me and perhaps you, is that our “group” here is mostly Mac/Apple nerds who left Twitter out of principle. The unprincipled members of the iOS developer social web stayed behind and I haven’t joined any new communities here, rude or otherwise.
@adam Yep, no doubt that is a factor. It is also a factor that I have intentionally posted less on topics like politics here than I did there in an attempt to make this place less combative. Maybe others have too. There’s certainly no one thing we can point to for all of this. I do fine it quite fascinating however.
@gedeonm I'm glad your experience has been a good one. And thank you for acknowledging that other people's different experiences are real. It's frustrating to see people popping up in your replies saying things like "yeah, I don't see it either, those other people must be lying!"
@design_law thx! I have no doubt what-so-ever that it is happening, my experience at Twitter & just every day real life is proof enough. It’s that I often can’t reconcile people who say it’s somehow worse here than it was on Twitter given the compartmentalized nature of the Fediverse. You have to really try hard to go looking for trouble here vs there.
Also, I follow a wide variety of people and found them, in general, to be friendly, helpful and very strong advocates for marginalized users.
@gedeonm I got hit really hard on Mastodon a few months ago. I asked a sincere question that was interpreted as making a statement...and all hell broke lose. It's really the only time I had to resort to deleting, blocking, and reporting. It was a depressing few days. While Mastodon remains my favorite, I think it's a disservice to put any platform on a pedestal. They all have pluses and minuses.
@bryanruby Absolutely true. For me, my time here has been nearly joyous. I realize this isn’t the case for many others and it won’t always be the case for me too. But I find the volume of people who are starting to complain Mastodon is somehow worse than Twitter to be something I just cannot reconcile internally.
@gedeonm I think the ability to "keep in your circle" or reach out and discover on Mastodon is important. It's a good balance here and I scratch my head too when others complain about Mastodon isn't for everyone. What really boggles my mind is this claim that it's difficult to join Mastodon instance. I found the opening of an account no different than any other platform.
@bryanruby That might be more true today but I just had an interaction with a college-age person recently and when I asked her if she was on Mastodon her reply was “No, I couldn’t figure it out.” She joined a BlueSky instead. This from an age group that uses confusing stuff like TikTok. Something here also doesn’t square. Just one data point however.
Well I have to say that this is completely wrong and shows your anti-free speech stance towards those who disagree with you. Go hide in your woke snowflake cocoon like all of the other surrender monkeys!* 😡🤬😡🤬😡
I read a bit of forlorn nostalgic in your post, maybe I was mistaken. 🤣
@gedeonm Same here. I don’t doubt bad stuff happens to others but I (luckily) haven’t had much experience with it. And when I have, the Block button is an easy mouse click away.
My Mastodon experience has been 99.9% pleasant, verging on delightful. :)
@KingShawn Yep me too. It makes me very sad indeed that some people’s experience is apparently the exact opposite to the point where it’s somehow even worse than Twitter was. Something doesn’t add up.
@gedeonm Agreed. Marginalized communities seem to have it worse on Mastodon than they did on Twitter, speaking anecdotally. I have no concrete ideas as to why that’s the case.
@gedeonm The only serious issue I’ve had with Mastodon is, paradoxically, the lack of corporate “help desk/tech support.” I often found Twitter tech support for <insert company name here> vastly better than their other lines of communication. That’s non-existent on Mastodon.
@xAD@gedeonm Are you aware that, due to the way the fediverse works you cannot, in fact, see all the replies to every post you see. So this may be happening in #GhostReplies that you can't even see.
@jamesthomson That is undoubtedly true. But I have also seen scores of people defend marginalized users very vigorously too numerous times. I feel like the community here is more protective of these people in general. On Twitter they were mostly on their own.
@gedeonm Perhaps, but I’ve also seen people saying this place is worse than Twitter in some ways, eg for BIPOC folks. I’ve had a good time here too, but I think I’m hesitant to take my own experience of a platform and extrapolate that out.
@jamesthomson Again, I agree. Finally I will say I was just as white and just as male on Twitter as I was here and got dog piled and hated on orders of magnitudes more there than here.
@jamesthomson@gedeonm I would have a hard time believing that social media space is worse than Twitter, sorry X, right now.
But is there a space on the interwebs that's really safe for everyone? I've always been careful to curate my feeds anywhere I spend time… and I'm not even in a targeted group. As you said, James, it's nearly impossible to comment on the experience of someone else.
@jamesthomson@gedeonm I have heard this too. I don’t know what it is specifically about Mastodon that enables (in addition to the assholes), because I never see it. But it surely exists, because everyone who could be a target says it happens.
@gedeonm@jamesthomson From what I heard there’s a lot that happens in the dark and is just invisible to many of us. Either because it happens on DMs or specific (larger) instances.
Pretty much the only times I got people angry at me over here was after saying I had never witnessed anything bad. (Which is still true from my perspective but I understand it’s my comfy bubble where I approve even my followers).
@jamesthomson@gedeonm agree. I have the same experience of a generally very nice #fediverse experience. My guess is ones experience differs depending on on a multitude of aspects of communication, in a complex mix, such as what bias and stereotypes others have towards you, how you express yourself, how others perceive how you write, as well as what you write about, what topics you cover, what instance you are on, who your followers are and how you extend reach with hashtags, for starters.
@carl@jamesthomson Yep, I agree with all of that. Just seems odd when some people complain that Mastodon is far far worse than Twitter “all the time”. I don’t see that in my experience.
@gedeonm@jamesthomson I agree that its a bit hard to understand how the experience of X could possibly be better than the Fediverse. I cant see that, from my perspective, and I would be very interested to understand what this might look like here. On the other hand, there are aspects of the Fediverse, such as moderation, that still have ways to go to really manage the complexity of the growing space. So its not at all unreasonable.
@jamesthomson@gedeonm had to scroll through far too many "I totally agree!!!" replies before seeing someone point out why, exactly, that might be happening, sheesh
One more thing: on Mastodon I never have strangers come into my mentions complaining about stuff I say like I did on Twitter. Most likely because you cannot search for words or terms and then jump on them. It simply has not happened here. Happened there all the time.
So I don’t really understand how this apparently happens “all the time” to some folks. Unless of course their followers are generally assholes. Again 🤷♂️
@gedeonm
I'm jumping in the conversation well aware of the irony of it.
I do it because:
I agree that discourse here is usually very civil (and you could probably do without my opinion, sorry)
I want to defend (most) drive-by replies to hashtags. That's what they are for. Being searchable.
Point out that your post was neither about star trek nor Zelda, and I would not have seen it if you didn't tag. You could say "the startrek hashtag". I've also seen adding "meta" but 🤷♂️ .
@signaleleven unlike some, I welcome other’s opinions even when they do not agree with mine (for the most part). So it’s all good unless someone starts spouting MAGA bullshit or is a racist, fascist asshole. Then I simply block them. So I’m fascinated by your reply. Thx!
@gedeonm I think we agree on most things (including the happy block trigger for Magas and such) then 😅
I wouldn't even have a strong opinion of an hashtag used to talk about itself, usually, but that fact that I was compelled to reply, on a thread about strangers dropping in replies was just too irresistible 😅
@gedeonm I have this theory that a good number of posts we see of people complaining are trying to spread FUD or looking for attention. One common one I saw early on (in my time here since a bit less than a year ago) is posts saying “artists aren’t welcome here please help me gain followers”. One thing getting off of insta and twitter has done for me is make influencer BS much more obvious.
@dustinrue Yeah I saw a lot of that early on too, not so much now. I have no doubt what-so-ever that some of the complaining is clickbait. The problems of POC, women, LGBTQ+ fall into a different category obviously. Just trying to understand what’s going on as best I can. It’s perplexing.
@dustinrue Also, how are you enjoying #Pikmin4? How does it compare to 3? I haven’t let myself buy it yet since I’m not even close to finishing Zelda. I’m curious since Pikmin is one of my all-time favorite game series.
@dustinrue That’s very interesting, very cool. Thank you! Hope you continue to enjoy it. Good to know I have something to look forward to after Zelda. Poor Splatoon….
@gedeonm There are a few variables here. One is the quality of the followers of your followers. My posts usually only start to attract bullshit replies if they get boosted out of my network
Another is that so so so many guys here on mastodon are only polite and reasonable if they think you’re a straight white dude
A third variable is the instance your post gets boosted into. My guess is that many of the ruder “reply guys” follow the local timeline of their instance and respond to boosts there
@gedeonm It hadn’t occurred to me that you couldn’t search. Maybe because I don’t have much of a following, but it seems like most interactions I have are from hashtags I’ve used. And all positive.
@dldnh yeah, it’s a blessing and a curse at the same time. Some aspects like discouraging dog piles are great but it also frustrates me no end that I can’t even really search my own timeline properly. There’s a balance there that Mastodon as yet to achieve I think.
@gedeonm
On mstdn.ca we can search our own posts by both hashtags and words within our own posts. It should be like that across all Instances as it is a wonderful tool to have.
@gedeonm
IMO being able to search through my own posts is good to have.
But I'm also grateful that it stops there. After being attacked via a word search in my post on birdbrain, I quite like that people can't do it here.
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