1/ I'm seeing a lot of talk (still!) of defederating mastodon.social over the recent spam attacks. I have a feeling I'm going to regret this, but as someone on that instance with no current plans to move, I feel like there are some things those who are considering it may not be taking into account. There are loads of patronizing comments that people on this instance are "doing the Fediverse wrong". No, we're not. You can't have a democracy while telling others they can't choose where to be.
2/ I have chosen to remain on mastodon.social precisely because I have seen so much bickering between instance admins and threats of defederating each other, some acted on. I don't like drama. I don't come online for it. I have migrated social platforms far too many times and I hate it. I am at where I'm at because I don't want to play instance hopscotch over issues that should be resolved. Most users here don't. If that becomes too much of a burden most people will nope out. It's a fact.
3/ If this platform continues to grow there will always be a biggest instance and that instance will always have growing pains. I'm not saying dealing with spam from one isn't a PITA but also silencing while they work through it is a perfectly legit way of dealing with it. Maybe you decide to keep it that way. It's your choice and I respect that.
What I don't like is the fact that people seem eager to use the nuclear option bc they think that the folks on that instance are expendable simpletons
@AbandonedAmerica 110% agree with everything! It just seems like just a little bit of a proxy battle on the fediverse generally moving toward the mainstream
4/ In the long run people joining will choose to switch instances if they want to. Trying to guilt, shame, or badger them into doing it is what drives people away. Showing them the benefits, making doing so easier, and offering stable alternatives is what will make it work. If we want Fediverse growth then there are going to be issues like spam and managing differing perspectives without forcing users to switch instances because of them.
@danny@AbandonedAmerica I'd say it's perfectly justified if an instance is harbouring hatemongers who blatantly violate the core rules common to almost all instances, e.g. no racism, homophobia or transphobia. If they don't, that stuff just poisons the larger space.
@danny I mean, there is a responsibility to remove people who are spreading hate speech, for example. But some people don't have the time or resources to live on here 24/7 so that has to be taken into account too
@AbandonedAmerica I wish the folks who have this deep well of anger about m.s would expend 2% of the energy they put into these punitive efforts into making other instances more welcoming and accessible. It is hard for me to come to any other conclusion than that they'd be perfectly fine with folks just noping out if the alternative is m.s growth.
5/ I love you folks. Truly. I am not saying admins don't have valid complaints or that nobody should make their own choices about what they do with their own instances.
I'm saying there are a lot of users who those choices affect and a lot of people who will write off the platform and tell everyone they know it sucks if their first experiences with this place are having to switch instances bc of resolvable dramas. I know a lot of people who did. I want to see more people find a home here.
@AbandonedAmerica
We have this prevailing need for conflict because of the gaslighting infused social media culture that Twitter, Facebook, Etc. are 100% responsible for creating, growing, and promoting. It is growing pains but the main difference is that Everyone is always working toward the betterment of the Fediverse. The transparency and open discussions are amazing. This is self managed social media. I love it. Seriously. I am on mastodon.social also. I have 4 accounts on the Fediverse.
6/ One last thing, passions are high on this. Maybe what I said pisses you off! But it was not said with disrespect to you, admins in general, or the Fediverse as a whole. I appreciate the people here and the admins who make this place vibrant and beautiful. I'm okay with people disagreeing, passionately even, but replies that trend toward abusiveness about it are going to result in a block. We can have different perspectives on this and still be friends, at least that's how I feel.
@noondlyt@Gojira1000@AbandonedAmerica these are exactly the kinds of comments that put the lie to the idea Mastodon is super friendly and welcoming. Y'all really aren't.
@EthanHolmes@Gojira1000@AbandonedAmerica
How does a general comment about a platform do this? It is not a personal attack on users, but an attack on the philosophy of the roll out and continued direction.
I watched this yesterday. It applies to this situation as well.
'Democracy is among the greatest virtues that humankind has evolved over this millennia, a blessing with all its many imperfections.
But it cannot work in a vacuum of ideas institutions and a larger popular acceptance of what it entails to govern within a democratic but constitutional system.
A successful democracy calls for a deep set patience with its imperfections'
@AbandonedAmerica the idea of defederating instances feels like it’s living in an idealized world where instances have at most a dozen accounts, mostly all knowing each other personally in which case “this instance is all nazis” might literally be true. Maybe some folks wish that was the fediverse world we live in, but we don’t.
@AbandonedAmerica I joined mastodon.social in 2017. It would be fine if they halted signups again and I have an alt account on another cool instance in case this server ever goes down but anyone trying to bully me into switching can eat a bag of dicks
@AbandonedAmerica I just told someone yesterday who was said that people should leave mastodon.social because "so many instances are defederating from it"
I told them that was like starting your own email service and expecting people to join after you tell them you don't federate with Gmail or Hotmail.
I also told them that instead of telling people to leave their instance, why not suggest that they encourage their admis to do better and to listen to the issues that smaller instance bring up?
@AbandonedAmerica Honsetly you're caught up in admin drama. If you are and you don't like it, I suggest using the mute and mute boosts options liberally. Now to the issue. Of course its moronic to defederate from mastodon.social over spam. I'm an instance admin and I've never heard this suggested even even once.
I'm thinking you're caught up in some drama that you need to carve out of your timeline. I also think the danger of any instance of consequence defederating is low to zero.
@AbandonedAmerica Just lucky I guess. I curate my timeline pretty strictly. Anything that annoys me gets muted, and if it was boosted the booster gets three strikes.
@AbandonedAmerica One of the problems is that most mods/admins are volunteers on Mastodon. On our instance, we have suspended over 1000 accounts in spam so far from mastodon.social. And the first 500 were done by hand, one by one. We haven't defederated, but it's tempting sometimes. We neglected work that one morning, it was stressful and awful.
It also feels unfair to smaller instances that people get to automatically subscribe with mastodon.social on the app.
@Pheneatis@AbandonedAmerica yeah this is kind of what makes it tough here. We won't defederate from mastodon.social purely because it has the most real users of any instance. The thing is, before the Twitter migration, mastodon.social was still the largest, but it wasn't comparatively as large. The tool that makes fediverse moderation effective is defederating from the instances which don't comply with the rules, but when those instances get too big then, what do we do?
@TheCoolest@Pheneatis I think what I've been seeing is that people are silencing m.s until they figure this out which seems completely fair. And the app thing - I do hope they add more. The changes just went in place though if I'm not mistaken so maybe with a little time this will have a happier resolution. But the selection of instances was a HUGE turn off for a LOT of people
@AbandonedAmerica@Pheneatis As for the app sign-in, I know a lot of social networks ask for people's interests etc. after joining, so I feel like it might not be too hard on the user to ask those questions before joining instead, so that it will still narrow it down (ideally to 1 so there's no hesitation in choosing), but the ones it selects can be different for each user
@AbandonedAmerica@TheCoolest Yes it's a really good resource that most people don't know about when they join! It would be nice to tell the app where you're from, what are your interests, and it could give you a couple of safe choices :) It would also help mastodon.social not to be targeted like this
@joesabin oh, it would be a total disaster for the platform. I mean, a few instances here and there defederating m.s is manageable, but overall it doesn't inspire confidence that the fediverse is stable enough to invest time into, from an average user perspective
@AbandonedAmerica I felt expendable when I was complaining about what happened to us at mastodon.lol. A lot of folks seemed to think that dogpiling the admin into quitting was a perfectly fine response to a relatively minor decision they didn’t like.
@AbandonedAmerica To clarify, I wasn’t dogpiled personally, the admin was and he quit, forcing 70k of us to move. It would help if migration tools were better and don’t cause data loss. (The fight was over whether he should ban folks who posted positively about the new Harry Potter game. He didn’t agree with banning over that. I still suspect a false flag operation might have been involved.) Glad you’re here and I hope they get those issues sorted fast.
@lucybeahere@corbden right? When the process of migrating is more user friendly and doesn't lose your posts it'll be less of a big deal but right now? No thanks.
@AbandonedAmerica@lucybeahere The anarchist theory behind federation governance is certainly interesting but not without its flaws. If migration were easy and moved 99% of your data, many of those flaws would be resolved. But at this stage, you can't just say "well move to another instance." It isn't feasible and is almost like telling people in Florida or even America to "just move."
@corbden ah right, thanks for the clarification and glad you stuck it out. But yes, the migration thing needs a fix. If that was why I had to port my account I'd seriously consider just calling it quits. I'd really love to see the migration tools improved and think this would solve a lot of the interinstance issues for users
@AbandonedAmerica I did seriously consider calling it quits. And it happened around the time my Dad died, so on top of all the extra work and emotions related to resolving his estate, etc., I had 90 days to switch instances. It freaking sucked. And a lot of people were unsympathetic because I guess pretending to stick it to Rowling is much better than negatively impacting actual trans lives? 😑 Anyway, thanks for listening.
@corbden aaaagh that's so awful. I'm so so sorry, for the loss, your added stress, and the callous response. The holier than thou crowd definitely has a base here. Also a reason interinstance drama is something I want no part of unless it's really important (and honestly I hate JK Rowling but whether you like the game, to me, is not)
@AbandonedAmerica Not that silencing is ideal, either. Because my instance has silenced mastodon.social, I couldn't read your whole thread without navigating to your profile and insisting that I did, in fact, want to look at it. All I could see was the one post that was boosted by someone I follow.
@AbandonedAmerica Following on to @KeithAmmann’s comment, dice.camp did defederate from m.s a while back & it broke a lot of my follow relationships. I’m still finding people that I thought I was following but it turns out I’m not because defederation unfollowed them
Which means it’s not just a hassle for m.s members, but everyone following/followed by them. The only reason I didn’t switch instances out of annoyance at the time was that I have this idea that I’ll set up my own at some point
@AbandonedAmerica I was pleased that my instance silenced mastodon.social for one day until the latest spam thing got worked out, and then they put things back to normal. They told us what they were doing and there was no drama.
@AbandonedAmerica They’re making a compelling argument for being on mastodon.social. Because if small instances are going to be defederating each other, I’d prefer to be on the biggest one, where there’s still a robust community on that server alone, even if a bunch of smaller instances leave.
@AbandonedAmerica I have moved away from mastodon.social to wandering.shop, but that's at least 50% due to thinking that since that's an SF/F instance and I'm an SF/F author, it might be more suited to me.
Like, it might now be worth looking at the Local feed, whereas on a big, unspecialised server that's basically just a random firehouse. (On mastodon.social, I only ever looked at my Home feed, as though it were Twitter).
@AbandonedAmerica I'm with you there! I've seen small instances also be hit by the bots and also other instances be a source of drama and I don't really care. I just like .social for its generality. I am cozy where I am. I think it's funny how much policing goes on from regular ppl on the Fediverse like just, wow LOL
@MissingThePt yes exactly. Sometimes people want to go with the easy route rather than doing hours of research which they really kind of need an account to do anyway
@AbandonedAmerica@MissingThePt This right here is an excellent point. If you want to make an informed decision, you need an account, and you need to read a lot.
Just one example: Just from the rules on a server's page, you won't know whether they're there just to have them when necessary, or whether their very letter is going to be enforced with an iron fist.
While it was a slow start, I'm pretty happy now that "ooooh, I can selfhost my own social media!" was my entry into Fedi.
@AbandonedAmerica Spam is and will always be a problem. I'm an instance admin and I suspect as more people move to Mastodon that more instances will be targeted. The best solution is to develop tools and to continue to fight spam the way we always has.
Defederating is a using a bazooka to kill a fly. Is spam annoying? Yes. At worst we may need to limit other instances who have spam waves temporarily until that instance gets it under control. We've had pretty good luck so far in dealing with it, and I trust the admins of mastodon.social to fix the issue and continue to keep us all informed.
As someone who's moderated forums since the late 90's spam will always ben an issue. We can't let spammers win and shut down conversation.
@BatsInLavender@AbandonedAmerica there are simple solutions available to m.s, namely closing registrations or turning on moderator approval for new accounts. eugen is simply unwilling to do this because he values centralizing a decentralized network more than he does user safety
@operand@BatsInLavender I mean someone pointed out he's about to go on his honeymoon (or is in it already) so he's probably swamped but yes, let's assume the worst of everybody in all scenarios
@AbandonedAmerica On our instance we have a team so that if one person is out there are others who can intervene. I'd expect no less on that instance. operand@todon.nl
@BatsInLavender I'm sure they do. But this also seems like more than just a block and delete issue, that's just a patch and it's reactive rather than proactive
@AbandonedAmerica Yeah it is. The issue is that it can take time to find the right solution and spammers are hella innovative. I'll give them that. They find all kinds of holes and ways to continue to spam. It really is like playing whack-a-mole.
@AbandonedAmerica@BatsInLavender i have seen eugen do enough shit and ignore enough asks from the community for better moderation tools to come to the conclusion that one should, in fact, assume the worst about him.
him being on a honeymoon doesn't make spam less spammy, and again, he could just close registrations and solve this issue.
@operand@BatsInLavender I'm not here to try to negate your experience, but I do think closing registrations after launching a major update would be bad. Bad for him, bad for new users, bad for the greater perspective on the fediverse in the public as a whole. It would look like a clown show, to be frank.
@operand@BatsInLavender I'm not really in a position to debate that nor would I really want to. All I can say is that there have been benefits to new users too that perhaps aren't visible as much to people who have been around for a while
@AbandonedAmerica@BatsInLavender I guess its a difference in vision on the fediverse. A lot of people on m.s are mainly looking for Twitter 2, I feel, whereas a lot of people that have been around here longer have disliked twitter for much longer and simply dont want the fediverse to be anything like twitter.
And the developer of the Mastodon software and admin of m.s also seems to prefer the twitter 2 model.
Nobody is looking for or even needs an "excuse" to block m.s. The people that hate the instance already blocked it long ago. For many others this is simply the thing that tips the scales from "worth keeping around" to "not worth keeping around" as Eugens view of fedi goes further towards Twitter 2 while others drift away from that model.
@AbandonedAmerica I know the feeling, having been on mastodon.social for 5 years before my recent move. I wasn't happy about being perceived as "part of the problem" through no fault of my own.
It's a personal decision and I respect everyone's right to make their own call.
Mine was based on a belief that it's not going to self-correct and I'd end up moving anyway. But it might sort itself out. Dunno yet.
@OutOnTheMoors with better migration tools it would be a non-issue. But being told you're "part of the problem" is exactly why people flip this platform the finger and go somewhere else to write a widely shared thinkpiece about why Mastodon sucks
@Hey_Beth yep. I told people it is easy and you can switch later but that has not been the case. I was wrong there and it really was a hurdle for a lot of people and I regret that.
@AbandonedAmerica@Hey_Beth for an account like mine, abandoning my old posts isn't a big deal.
Much different for an account like yours. So, even if you carried followers along, it would suck to leave all your content behind.
@Hey_Beth@AbandonedAmerica I think that a whole lot of people are conflating joining an instance which is relatively simple and choosing an instance which is fraught.
@AbandonedAmerica Preach. This has been going on my nerves for some time now. It won't end well, if we start to in-fight amongst our selves, just because one instance gets targeted by spammers more often than others.
@Ductos thanks! I just don't see a single path where it ends well, except for people who want to keep their instances tiny and - this is critical - were absolutely able to do so beforehand anyway
it makes no sense to defederate mastodon.social over spam. This is an inherent problem with social media, any instance that gets big enough Is susceptible
If people want Mastodon to grow as a global platform, we have to figure out spam, which is going to probably involve full time moderators and all the other corporate trappings that entails
@AbandonedAmerica
My growing concern with mastodon.social is it becoming an albatross for the platform at large. Like others have said, you can only expect so much in terms of volunteer community moderation, so it's hard to fault them for not locking down a wave of spambots instantly.
But dealing with spam is just ONE of the table stakes of moderation responsibility, and this isn't the first time I've seen instances defederate or limit mastodon.social for insufficient moderation.
@AbandonedAmerica
Previous examples weren't just because of spam, but because instance admins were finding their users harassed, and the moderation was dealt with so poorly that the admins were left to assume there was no active moderation in place. While I'm sure that wasn't the case, it goes to show that moderation of any SM platform is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT.
@AbandonedAmerica
Mastodon.social being the largest means it will have the largest challenges in moderation responsibilities. If that was the case months before now, what's it going to look like going forward now that Gargron has set up mastodon.social as the default instance for new signups?
@AbandonedAmerica
I don't have any easy answer for that, and I'm not saying where you should or shouldn't make your account, but as someone who grew up in small online community cultures and have seen the breaking points before, what I can say is that moderation not being taken seriously as the platform grows could be Mastodon's biggest threat. Any SM platform that doesn't take seriously the table stakes of Trust & Safety established by more mature outlets risks serious harm to their users.
@AbandonedAmerica We are free to choose, and celebrate/critique/ignore/block the actions of others. I migrated from mastodon.social after several years. For me I wanted a community of people who pitch in financially to support their instance administration, one run on a more open/cooperative model and that emphasizes being kind and non discriminatory. Social.coop has been a great fit for me. I love your book btw :)
Actions have consequences and just because you may not have participated in them, doesn't mean that those consequences should be ignored to spare some.
Likewise, ignoring those actions of others on your own instance, out of complacency because they don't specifically affect you... Both enables and facilitates them.
Then you feel like you're being attacked because of the consequences of others actions... and instead of doing something, decide to complain about 'democracy'
@AbandonedAmerica To be fair, the spam stuff has been an ongoing issue from Mastodon.social for a while so I don't blame them for getting frustrated. The instance simply is just too big for their moderation team to handle, plus the large size attracts the spam bots. I'm seeing none of this drama from the smaller instances I'm on, where the response is simply to put Mastodon.social on mute, which does not disrupt connections between Mastodon.social users and those on other instances.
@AbandonedAmerica I can't imagine a way in which defederating from mastodon.social would make the fediverse better. The more fractured it gets, the harder it is to use and the less value it has. Of course defederating genuinely hateful and spammy servers is good, but mastodon.social isn't a spam server first and foremost. Spam just happens sometimes.
@AbandonedAmerica This is a prime example of why I am using interest in the #Fediverse. There is so much hand wringing and pettiness over "the rules" that it turns off many of the potential new users. #Bluesky is growing on me exactly because it isn't like that. I can block out those I don't want to see or hear from and have found that it is much more enjoyable without neighbors worrying that the other neighbors are violating "the rules".
@AbandonedAmerica Agreed! I posted something similar a few days ago, pointing out the contrast between Mastodon's openness and the policing tone of some users.
It's legit to disagree with having the "official" mastodon app direct people to m.s. by default. I'm honestly not sure myself that's the best way to solve the (very real) issues with onboarding. But I've read folks saying it's good that onboarding isn't straightforward because that way only "smart" people can join and... wow, just wow.
This is really a difficult one, perhaps we need to make it clearer people can download all their data and then upload to a new instance and carry on. This is really important for a number of other reasons.
While interacting you may find an instance that better reflects your interests so decide to move
New users may want to explore and try things out first.
You may want to back up your data generally in case there is a problem with the server
You may be on a smaller instance, and get notification from the owner, that life has got in the way and they can't run the instance for much longer, so you then find a new instance and take content with you.
I think from a teaching digital skills to people who may not be confident with tech perspective, just suggesting people accept the default and sign them up, is probably easier for them to do, and easier for you to support.
@AbandonedAmerica I think the talk of defederating from Mastodon Social is a bunch of hollow sabre rattling. They're well aware that Mastodon Social is too big to defederate from.
They have to realize that the average user will not migrate to smaller instances if the account transfer process remains as is. The only way your average user will even consider migrating to a smaller instance is if the process is made as easy and lossless as possible.
@Hika ha! I was reading that right before posting this. If you read the comments a lot of people are really amped up to defederate and telling OP they're wrong though
@AbandonedAmerica I saw! But I guess I just.. don't really care? I was like OK man you do you.. Do I care about hearing more from ppl who are quick to demand defederation? They're not the mod or admin, and honestly if they were I probably wasn't that interested in their instance. It would suck if an instance I follow many people from did defederate but I won't know until it happens.
@AbandonedAmerica open DMs means spam, that's the same on birdsite where people complained. I never received such stuff myself though, because I didn't say I'm from the EU or US so that means I ain't got no money
@AbandonedAmerica I suspect some instance admins and moderators underestimated how much work is involved. m.s has been pretty good at shutting down the spam attacks quickly. I started on m.s but then moved because I wanted to be on a more specialized server (so am now on two more specialized instances, one for sociopolitical/linguistic reasons, one for geographical and social reasons).
@AbandonedAmerica I originally joined and migrated via 4ish other instances before seeing other people on m.s and and joining here. I like the feed better here. Probably by virtue of the fact it’s busier? Maybe I am doing it wrong tho
@AbandonedAmerica
Mastodon.social killed my account without explanation. So screw 'em. The exodus of Twitter users to Mastodon has done exactly what I said it would. Overwhelmed typically solo (or duo) admins/mods with complaints about anything the new users who can't take critique don't like and the overwhelmed mods 'grease the squeaky wheel' by killing accounts that 'cause problems' as opposed to violations of TOS. It's called "Report Button Bullying". It WILL destroy free speech on Mastodon
@AbandonedAmerica Almost no one is going to defederate .social, the tone of the sabre-rattling is because admins are annoyed that in practice it's not really possible for them to do that without breaking too much stuff for their users
@tomw I hope not. I mean, I get that something needs to be done but to a user this looks not good. Still the best platform out there by far but looking at the Fediverse as a whole if people get pissed and actually defederate every time an instance gets too big this is not a viable alternative to any other platform out there
@AbandonedAmerica I mean OK yeah, but we can't really stop people from saying stuff, especially when they are frustrated. My point is: understand the root of the frustration but also understand that this is not a crisis to panic about.
@tomw honestly, not really panicking, mostly feeling a little frustrated that this is even a major topic right now because I feel like it's a really bad look for the community
@AbandonedAmerica This is a little circular? I don't think it is a "major topic", any more than the original spam incidents were. On any other platform it would be just another Tuesday, it's just that the baseline level of spam on here is very, very low.
@tomw it is a little circular, I agree - and I think we're in agreement here anyway. I do think it's overblown also, which is why seeing so much talk about it, threats, etc is not great. Spam's a thing. It's been for a while.
@AbandonedAmerica My assumption is it's too big to be permanently blocked by any other servers trying to offer a general purpose experience. Maybe smaller servers targeted for a spam campaign need to briefly lock down until they ID all the spam accounts (and the big server shuts them, blocks IP, etc).
@NIH_LLAMAS I'm all for that. Do what you need to do. But the nukes should not be the first option, so to speak. Not even the second or third. And you know what? I feel that way about smaller instances too. They shouldn't be cut off without an agreed on grievance process. Maybe there is one, idk.
@AbandonedAmerica It's simple. They are wrong. They are the extremists. With a federated system you get the freedom of an open environment without succumbing to a mega-billionaires whims. At the cost of needing to perform a little self-moderating. These people screaming about defederating the largest mastodon instance are only accomplishing one goal - the destruction of mastodon and the creation of micro echo chambers divorced from reality.
@sboger@AbandonedAmerica I think maybe we're trained to expect that a free service will provide pro moderation. We really don't get the concept of TANSTAAFL.
In exchange for having no ads and no algorithm, we might need to gasp wait for volunteers to catch up with a spambot. No one is being paid; we can't expect a paid level of service.
A concern of mine is that this exposes a vector of attack. Bad actors triggering defeds until there's no effective Fediverse left.
@AbandonedAmerica Stop complaining about what other people are saying and instead start complaining about the terrible admins that were apparently not prepared for the massive influx of spambots that being the default instance would inevitably create.
And yes, democracy includes telling other people they're wrong. Being able to do that is kind of the whole fucking point. Despite what sexist egotistical lying hypocritical bigots want you to believe you can, in fact, tell people to fuck right off in a democracy. Because... you know... that's how fucking voting works.
Mastodon.social is not special. If the admin can't get their shit together and get the spam under control after making themselves the default, they absolutely deserve to be quarantined until they can unfuck the instance.
That's one of the reasons why defederation exists in the first place.
@AbandonedAmerica
I don't understand why so many people on Mastodon think it is all up to the administrators and moderators to solve everything for them. It only takes a few seconds to report and to block and move on and forget the cryptoscammers or in my case the Libertarian Party members that swarming me lately.
@tsiolkovsky@AbandonedAmerica@GreenFire so I think the argument is: yes we can do it but a) some people get targeted a lot more than others and it is beyond tiring. If the space isn’t safe they won’t be here - see #BlackMastodon for a bazillion examples and b) Mastodon.social looks like it’s being set up to be sold and made commercial at which point the whole point (for some - myself included) is gone.
@JimmyB@tsiolkovsky@GreenFire if mastodon.social were sold that would be a real disappointment, but users could at least migrate if they chose. However I have seen no indication that is the intent. I could be wrong.
@AbandonedAmerica@tsiolkovsky@GreenFire yes - I’m no expert at all and just been following. I understand the reaction to the bullying tone and the imperative to ‘do something’ if the sale piece has legs. I’m not close enough to comment but it would be great to get absolute certainty. I’ve never joined a big social media platform before but I have wasted time invested in online forums that went south and that was pretty sad
@JimmyB@tsiolkovsky@GreenFire Eugen has said before he doesn't plan on selling but people do change so it's possible. But a lot of things that are possible don't happen too
@Lucinda@JimmyB@tsiolkovsky@GreenFire I have to agree. I mean just because someone hypothetically can do something doesn't mean we should assume they will if there's been no indication they will
@AbandonedAmerica Yeah - as I said: I have no idea. I read a detailed piece setting out what the author felt was a lead up to a sale situation, but who knows? I suppose it could be cleared up in 2 seconds with a public statement saying: 'Mastodon will always be federated and in public ownership' or something?
The nagging tone is quite irritating sometimes. On the other hand, if Mastodon is somehow commercialised the tone wil be the least of our problems. No idea how to navigate that one.
@AbandonedAmerica Yeah! A good search here would be fantastic. And it's a fair point: might have been saying it every day for years and just have been ignored.
@GreenFire good lord, maybe I'm just a bit jaded because the amount of spam and blocking I have had to do elsewhere eclipses this platform by so much. Pruning a bit here feels like nothing. And I don't need an admin for that unless it's really outlandish
@AbandonedAmerica
I've had two or three crypto spam bots messaging me. One was already removed before I could report it. I call that pretty good service! @GreenFire
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