waltmossberg

waltmossberg, 1 month ago

@mike @gaberivera @imdavidpierce

Thanks, Mike.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@brianstorms Wow!

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@dangillmor I agree. Saving our democracy is the only issue that matters. Covering this like a typical election, especially in the wake of the 1/6 attempted coup, is journalistic malpractice.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@dangillmor Same.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@dangillmor Yeah, when I joined Mastodon it wouldn’t let me join the journalists instance or social instance. I tried again and got an account on social, but by then my account on World was established, so that’s the one I overwhelmingly used. On the default app, I could switch. But on Mona, I have to be logged onto social to add it. This was all part of my frustration with Mastodon.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@jkohlmann @MonaApp Thanks. I know where to find it. But it won’t actually let me add my account in the other instance without logging in there first. I think.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@millions @MonaApp Yes.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@millions @MonaApp Yes.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@jkohlmann @MonaApp I know how to find the setting. Just not how to make it work.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@MonaApp I must have set up an account on Social, but can’t remember the credentials.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@mike @Gargron @Mastodon Thanks, Mike. I’ve been on Mastodon quite awhile, as you know. But I rarely used it, because (a) it can be confounding to use (yes, I can figure it all out, but you know I favor things average folks can grok quickly) and (b) content moderation matters hugely to me and I need to know what the policies are for multiple servers and who is responsible….

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@mike @Gargron @Mastodon …here’s an example of the complexity here: I just tried to react to a post about my leaving Twitter, and was met with a big notice saying I couldn’t do that because I wasn’t logged into the server where it lived. I thought all the posts and replies were interchangeable among servers.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@Gargron @mike @Mastodon I’ll let you know what I think when I see it. I don’t use betas. But, just by your description, it sounds like a chore. Please understand I’m not denigrating all your hard work here, but after 27 years of reviewing tech products for average people, I react poorly to requiring instructions for simple tasks. Are conversations and reactions here between people on different servers interchangeable or not?

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@Gargron @mike @Mastodon So then why did I get that big ugly notice before? I can’t recall to whom I was trying to respond or what server they were on. As you can imagine, I’m getting a lot of traffic from people I don’t know or follow because of my decision to ditch Twitter. I assume I can easily respond to any of them.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@joe @mike @Gargron @Mastodon Great. But you shouldn’t have to use a browser extension to do that.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@Gargron @nnscott I appreciate all the advice about third-party apps for Mastodon that smooth over its complexities. But why should they be necessary? I’m on an iPad, using the app named “Mastodon for iPhone and iPad”, just like I use the app named, say, “LinkedIn”. I am sure that most mainstream folks would do the same. Is this not the official, default app? If so, it should support all features seamlessly. Alternate apps should be an option, not a necessity.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@StanWonn @Gargron @nnscott I get the comparison to Tweetdeck. But the official (pre-Musk) Twitter app handled everything you’d want to do, just not at the speed or scale of Tweetdeck. The helpful folks here who are recommending third party apps seem to be saying they overcome basic problems with using the default app, if I understand correctly.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@yannikbloscheck @Gargron @nnscott Thanks for the explanation.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@dsilverman @Gargron @nnscott Yes, Tweetdeck when I was at the height of my career handling high volumes of Tweets. But that was a matter of scale and speed, not hiding confusing interconnection issues.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@MrLee Thanks.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@gpollara @mike @Gargron I intend to try one of the third party apps.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@Raccoon @quinta No, not in my book. Every post there, regardless of content, is contributing something to the Nazis, bigots, conspiracy theorists, anti-semites, pro-insurrections and so forth. But you have to decide for yourself what’s ethical or moral for you.

waltmossberg, 8 months ago

@mnutty Both. But many journalists have now set up accounts on Threads. They’re not as active there as on Twitter, but they are increasingly branching out.