Hello new citizens of the #Fediverse! Here's the only advice you need, IMHO. Learn to block and mute. Share what you like. Block the naysayers and "yes, but" and "Here's how to fediverse and you are doing it wrong" people. There is no algorithm, so it's Your timeline, Your decision. Just be friendly and open and accepting and add them ALT texts to all pix you post, deal? Enjoy!
is creating an echochamber by blocking or muting people [...] ?
Yes, but that's 100% your right on the Fediverse. If you want an echochamber, that's an option for you. If you don't want that, then you don't have to create one. It's not the default option, but it's an available one. Some people don't want to have their beliefs challenged online; maybe they get enough of that in their personal lives and just want a place that's less antagonizing toward them when they're spending their time on their phone or whatever. Or maybe they're not here for discussion in the first place, and they're just here for caturday pics.
It's not for me, but I can understand the appeal of it. Personally, I start to get a little irritated when I keep seeing the same things over and over, so I try not to block people unless they're actively being a nuisance.
@br00t4c Yoo, this is awesome news! I actually worked as a contractor with the Waymo team for a while a few years back, helping them test new builds of the software for the fleet in Phoenix.
I'm honestly surprised that they're coming back to Austin. They stopped testing in Austin originally because the roads are so convoluted and in poor condition here, and Phoenix is an almost perfect grid of streets. Interesting to see them come back, though!
@thecalchemist The API is coming out soon, though I don't think there's an official date yet. In the meantime, Artemis is in early development and should be going into open beta shortly.
@cjammet I haven't watched the second half of the new season yet, but the first half really had me wondering what the hell is even supposed to be going on anymore. I feel like they've really lost track of where the story is supposed to be going.
I'm sure the new episodes will clear that up. But that was such an awkward place to leave the story at for a few weeks. No clue why they decided to do it this way.
@cjammet It's a real shame that the writing is getting so sloppy, because the actors are all still doing an amazing performance, and the action sequences are still visually impressive. They're just doing a really bad job at making me care about why anything is actually happening right now.
Sadly, it's giving me similar feelings to the later seasons of Game of Thrones, where everybody but the writers were giving 120% and started phoning it in near the end of things.
@cytechlaw Has Marques commented about his tweets being held hostage like this? I can't imagine he'd be too happy knowing that Elon is charging users a cover fee to see his content.
I feel like the reason #Mastodon, and the #Fediverse at large, aren't taking off has to do with the fact that they're actually social networks. People don't seem to want a social network, they want content platforms. People aren't using #Twitter or #Threads or #TikTok to keep up with their friends these days, they're using these apps to entertain themselves. And since #Facebook and every other platform that used to be a social network began pivoting toward content promotion, I think society has forgotten what a social network is supposed to actually be anymore.
@Jerry Thanks! What prompted this for me was seeing how much #Misskey is blowing up in Japan right now, and I couldn't figure out what was making Misskey different from the rest of the Fediverse. And after taking a look around at how that instance is being used by its community, it seems like it's being used mostly for content promotion. Most people are using it to share artwork and videos, and there's more focus on reactions than actual, meaningful replies. There's definitely people still using it as an actual blogging platform, but looking at the global feed, you'll see that 99% of the activity is coming from shared media. Its use-case is being catered more similarly toward the mainstream, media-sharing-based platforms.
Just kinda interesting to see that what people say they want and what they actually end up using tend to be different, sometimes.
Personally speaking, I have no interest in socialization. I’m only on the fediverse for content and more importantly discussion on that content (though not in a social manner)
Yeah, I feel like I'm very much in the same boat, these days. If I want to socialize with somebody, I'd rather just do it in private than publicly in front of the whole world. I've begun to appreciate the more genuine connections these days after I quit traditional social media and went back to just texting people directly if I wanna say something to them.
@kentbrew It's actually a little insane just how quickly these lunatics spun up all this PR over some half-baked 3AM Elon meme. What an absurd company Twitter is.
@taylorlorenz I'll bet he did this directly in response to the people who blocked the term "Twitter" in their social/news feeds. "X" is a lot harder to block without filtering out other material. Now it's going to be even harder for people to avoid hearing about it.