I have re-read the magnificent article by @kissane, titled "Mastodon is easy and fun except when it isn’t". On Bluesky, she asked those people who had tried/used Mastodon and bounced off, what had led them to slow down or leave.
Couldn’t find people or interests, people didn’t stay
Too confusing, too much work, too intimidating
Too serious, too boring, anti-fun
Complicated high-stakes decisions
"I don’t know if Mastodon can grapple with the complexities of mass scale. Lots of people would prefer it didn’t—staying smaller and lower-profile makes it friendly to amateur experimentation and also a lot safer for people who need to evade various kinds of persecution. But if Mastodon and other fedi projects do take on the mass scale, their developers must consider the needs of people who aren’t already converts. That starts by asking a lot of questions and then listening closely and receptively to the answers you receive."
For many parts I agree. But despite everything, Mastodon/Fediverse is still the best place to be on social media. Let's make this even better. We have the power. #Mastodon#OpenSource#Fediverse#Bluesky#BlueskySocial
@rolle
> Mastodon/Fediverse is still the best place to be on social media. Let's make this even better.
100%. One problem that causes friction for newbies is the expectation that Mastodon can be all things to all people. Somehow we need to convince people who want an InstaGram/TikTok-a-like experience to try PixelFed, or people who want more of a neighbourhood feel to try Hometown, or people who want Quote Posts to try FireFish. The fediverse has so much more to offer than Mastodon.
All of the "your instance doesnt matter" lies need to go though. Your instance makes a big difference. And while you can pack up and move, that doesnt always go smoothly and it can be time consuming.
Some of the problems she mentioned (like poor discoverability / isolationism) can only be fixed on the backend dev side.
Lots to think on. But theyre at least specific enough to be actionable.
@Hawkwinter
> All of the "your instance doesnt matter" lies need to go though
That's a bit unfair. For a while a lot of people didn't realize that instances could talk to each other at all. The 'instances don't matter' message was intended to correct that misconception. Which seems to have passed now, thanks to journalists now doing some basic research on how the verse works before writing about it. It was also a way to break people out of paralysis-by-analysis and get them in the door.
@Hawkwinter
> it got me to sign up for a small friendica server, and wonder why there was no activity at all
I'm confused by this. What kind of activity were you expecting before you'd even followed a single account? To me, this sounds like walking into your kitchen and looking at the plates in the cupboard, and saying "there's no food here". True, but there certainly would be if you dug around in the pantry, and maybe used the stove, and put some on the plates.
@Hawkwinter
> automatically following an updating index of accounts like "FediTips" "FediFollows" etc
I can see the benefits. Who curates the index? Is there one for the whole verse, of one per software, or a bunch of independent ones? Is it a built-in default in the software, or is the admin prompted to pick one from a list? If it's a list, where does that come from? Supplied with the software, or pulled from somewhere else? If so, where?
@Hawkwinter
> Fediverse onboarding is (in general, from my experience and from what others have told me) terrible
I guess that depends what you're comparing it to. I can assure you that the pre-Mastodon fediverse apps, like GNU social, were much worse in that respect. But if you compare it to DataFarms and VC-funded startups whose whole focus is "growth hacking", then sure, it's probably a bit hands-off by comparison. We could do better and lots of ink has been spilled on how.
@Hawkwinter
> there should be a quiz when you first set up your account that has you go through categories of common / known / active tags and guppe groups to follow ones that will be of interest to you, so that your starting feed has... something
Good idea. Mastodon has the local and federated timelines for that, but perhaps that's not obvious to newbies in the UI? Not sure what Friendica has. It's one of the older apps in the verse and is showing its age. FireFish is better.
@Hawkwinter
> If I had instead encountered "choose one of the biggest general instances, running mastodon
Again, I'm confused by why you think that would be good advice. Why is Mastodon in particular a better software choice than any other? Why is a big, general instance better than a smaller one that caters to your interests, geographical location etc? Why are you relying on the instance to populate your feed, instead of tools like Trunk, fedi.directory etc?
@Hawkwinter
> Bigger number of users on the local instance.
Choosing Mastodon instances doesn't guarantee that. There are many tiny (or single-user) Masto instances, and many instances of other software that are huge.
> Accidentally setting up in a ghost-town is not a pleasant experience
You don't want to choose a disused instance, sure. But that doesn't make a big one better than a small-to-medium one with an active community, and well-populated local and federated timelines.
@Hawkwinter
> Smaller instances can be great... I think they're places to move to once you understand what's going on
I understand why you're arguing that. But there are many benefits of medium instances over the huge ones. One of the main ones being that moderation tends to be more responsive, due to having way fewer accounts per mod. Huge instances face the same problems of scaling moderation that turn the DataFarms into raging trashfires.
@Hawkwinter
So many of the huge instances are widely Limited or even Suspended. Meaning that it's actually harder to be discovered and included in cross-instance community-building if your account is on a huge instance.
This is especially true for anyone looking to connect with specific communities. Eg vegans on a huge instance are much less likely to find their people than on veganism.social, and much more likely to come across posts they find upsetting.
Agreed. It's dominated by servers run by FediBlock crypto-conservatives and other passive-aggressive gatekeepers. Which is great for people who are looking for that (eg middle class USAmericans who fancy themselves "liberals"). But useless for anyone else.
@c060b31fe2bbb0be4d393bc7c40a80 848a25b8f0e0f382cb5b49c37bf7476cb4@mostr.pub
> Also try Nostr
... or Scuttlebutt, or XMPP, or Matrix, or Jami, or Tox, or Session, or SimpleX, any of the other dozens of non-fediverse decentralized networks. But that's a separate discussion from the one about using apps other than Mastodon to navigate the fediverse itself.
@rolle@strypey Thanks. I'm on Mastodon; it was a tongue-in-cheek question aimed at the idea that those of us who've found Mastodon a disappointing social media experience are expecting it to replace all social networks at once, or something
@wrigleyfield
No comment covers all criticisms. I was addressing criticisms based on the lack of features like Quote Posts, which can be used in almost every fedi app except Mastodon.
> the less toxic parts of Twitter
... is not something technologists can recreate for you. That's up to the people who want it, and there are many moderation tools available, at both account and server level.
@rolle
> Quote posts are coming, they're in Planned stage on the roadmap
Sure, but in the meantime, there's heaps of other software where you can use them right now, and that's just one of many examples. Groups is another. In other cases, there's features Mastodon technically has, but other platforms do much better. Videos and PeerTube or OwnCast for example.
@wrigleyfield I've always found the fediverse less toxic than any part of Titter I've experienced. With temporary exceptions, when there's a huge influx of newbies hopped up on DataFarm algorithm nosecandy, and spoiling for a fight. But before long they always calm down. Or block me, or leave for lack of drama etc. Either way, it's a problem that appears to solve itself.
(Side note: Timed Mute is really handy for getting usually good people out of your face if they're getting snappy)
@strypey@rolle I guess our experiences were very different! My Twitter count was the perfect size for me on that platform (~7,000 followers: big enough to have really interesting conversations in a setting where an algorithm shows you to followers’ followers; small enough that I almost never had random trolls pop up). I really want this place to work but I’ve had a lot of challenge getting anywhere near the same level of interesting exchange here. 🤷🏻♀️ It’s so hard to find the posts I want too!
@wrigleyfield
> I really want this place to work but I’ve had a lot of challenge getting anywhere near the same level of interesting exchange here
I'm sorry to hear that, good on you for sticking with it.
> It’s so hard to find the posts I want too!
As you might have guessed, I have suggestions. But before I offer any, I want to check you're not always overloaded with them from other well-meaning over-sharers : )
@wrigleyfield
To some degree it's a chicken and egg situation. Once more people and institutions get interested in the potential of the fediverse, it will get easier to access the resources needed to improve the technologies and do more active community-building. But it's hard to get well-resourced people and institutions to take the fediverse seriously until the technology and organisation improves : /
@strypey@rolle Suggestions welcome; thanks for asking! I know about following hashtags and stuff like that. I think I might have better search on a different instance (I otherwise like mine) but I’d be bummed to lose my posts.
@wrigleyfield
> I think I might have better search on a different instance
You can do tag searches on other instances without having to up sticks and leave yours. On a Mastodon instance, just add "tags" and the term you want to search to its URL, like
It's an ugly hack, and we need to come up with ways to make the verse more searchable, while respecting the needs of folks nervous about being found by dragnet style search tools. But as a stopgap, it works.
Good to know. I just posted it again using the #FediTips and #WelcomeWednesday tags, to make it more discoverable. Which by the way is the other side of making search work better using the tools we have; tag heavily!
@wrigleyfield
Another strategy that works within the existing affordances, involves letting your home timeline become a firehose, and using Lists to curate a more manageable set of timelines.
This will greatly increase the reach of tag searches, for anyone using your instance.
Follow anyone you can find who isn't an asshat. Anyone who follows you, or favourites/ boosts/ replies to your posts. Anyone you find in tag searches. Anyone whose @handle you see on the web etc.
@wrigleyfield
Another variation on this strategy is to set up an alt account on your instance, specifically to be the firehose that helps your instance see a broader slice of the verse. Although if I understand relays correctly, getting your instance admins to make more use of relays is another way to achieve the same thing:
@wrigleyfield I have over 7000 followers on Twitter and nowadays and posts get barely any comments whatsover. And if so, the trolls...
Here on the contrary, hundreds of comments, lots of boosts... etc. It's like two different worlds.
On my instance and many others like https://universeodon.com there's open text search available. Hashtags are good too. This place works already (at least for me) better than Twitter ever did.
@rolle@wrigleyfield@strypey Rakastan sitä, mitä teet. Tämä on erittäin tärkeää kansalaisyhteiskunnan ja ihmisten välisen viestinnän kehittämisen kannalta. Haluan kertoa teille huolenaiheistani siirtymisestä ei kovin suosittuihin palvelimiin. Minun tilini, tämä on minun maailmani. Minun persoonallisuuteni, ystäväni. Jos siirryn uudelle palvelimelle ja se lakkaa toimimasta jostain syystä, menetän kaiken. Käytännössä minun on aloitettava uusi elämä. Onko olemassa keinoja välttää tällainen skenaario?
@PavelVoronezh
My app translates your post as being concerned about the risk of losing your identity and network, if the server hosting it goes down.
The lack of account portability is a serious limitation of the ActivityPub protocol that defines the way servers federate. One that's getting a lot of discussion among devs. One of the challenges is how to make accounts and posts more portable, without making the network more vulnerable to spammers and trolls.
@PavelVoronezh
One idea that app devs could look into, is embedding in third-party apps the ability to recreate your social network on a new server. In ways that will still work if the original server is completely gone. This could optionally include automating a regular backup of all your posts to your device. So they can be auto-posted to your new account, ideally with the date altered to reflect the original posting date.
@PavelVoronezh
> they can be auto-posted to your new account, ideally with the date altered to reflect the original posting date
Note: this would still break any links to the originals, including any threads they were part of. But at least you'd still have your posting history available.
@PavelVoronezh
> this would still break any links to the original posts, including any threads they were part of
FireFish to the rescue!
"One really nice Firefish feature is that, in addition to your followers, you can also move your data over with you. You can import old posts, people you were following, lists of people, and muted / blocked users. As of the current release of #Firefish, you’re not able to import Bookmarks, but ..."
@PavelVoronezh
> you can also move your data over with you
Although posts are identified by URLs, so they're tied to the domain name of the server where they're first posted. So I don't think moving them to a new server will preserve links to them, including within threads (not #Chains). That's one of the big technical challenges with making accounts fully portable in ActivityPub.
Yes, it does. You already name one of the complexities. Coincidentally the topic of Content Portability came up yesterday on @fedidevs with @steve
One thing that would be very useful imho is if the new instance you migrate to recreated the search index from your old account. I migrated away from @humanetech and lost the ability to find countless valuable discussions I've had there over the years.
@smallcircles
> I migrated away from @humanetech and lost the ability to find countless valuable discussions I've had there over the years
I remember people saying the same about FB. I think it's generally true of feed-based social media in general. It's an ephemeral medium, more like chat than forum/blog/wiki. But as you say, we can invent new media here. Ones that integrate with more durable documentation.
@strypey@smallcircles@rolle@wrigleyfield I wrote a proposal to the developers to add the ability to back up data on one of the friendly servers.
Server owners could negotiate data reinsurance for their users and offer them additional account security guarantees.
@PavelVoronezh
> the ability to back up data on one of the friendly servers
Have you looked into the Zot protocol and its Nomadic Identity? It does exactly that. Of all the fediverse software I'm aware of, only Hubzilla and Streams implement Zot. I'm pretty sure Zot apps could already do this when ActivityPub was being drafted. Not sure why this capability wasn't included in AP
> Not sure why this capability wasn't included in AP
@strypey AP was a delicate balance of getting something out the other side of the process at all, that's why there are gaps. It was close enough that we almost didn't get an AP Recommendation. 😐
My guess as an interested outsider is that Nomadic identity would have generated even more discussion and delayed Mastodon's implementation by months or a year.
@wrigleyfield@strypey@rolle
I've been crossing my fingers that #PopTwitter in particular will have a few more key "migrations" because I worry key ppl like you (@wrigleyfield - several others too, Beth Jarosz, Carl Schmertmann, Hugo Macedo, Philip Cohen...) will move on if not! I esp like aspects of just posting out to nowhere, but also I think it could be so great for demography to have a stronger comm network here on Mastodon, which seems to have better mission and connection to the Web.
@edyhsgr@wrigleyfield
> I've been crossing my fingers that PopTwitter in particular will have a few more key "migrations"
Please read this as a general suggestion, not a criticism of the two of you (or anyone else). But...
There's more you can do than crossing your fingers. I find it really helps to reframe the fediverse as a special case of community organisation, rather than merely a "platform"(1).
(1/?)
(1) a hand-wavey term I've always been uncomfortable with
The main thing I’ve been doing in this regard is trying to get my institutions (my pop center and department; another good goal would be our various professional orgs) to set up accounts here, even if it’s just a mirror of their Twitter at the moment. The lack of our institutions here seems highly relevant to whether the network can become dense enough.
@wrigleyfield
> trying to get my institutions... to set up accounts here
That's a great start. Once the EU Digital Markets Act and other similar legislation kick in, Titter et al won't be able to stop you from having your primary presence here, and having accounts on the DataFarms echoing what you post here, for whatever extra reach that gives you. The IndieWeb folks call this approach POSSE: Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere;
He focuses on the specific example of FarceBook, which dates the essay a little bit given the relative decline in FB's influence since he wrote it. But the underlying principles can be applied to maintaining a presence on any DataFarming platform. Including less obvious ones like academia.edu, ResearchGate and LockedIn.
@wrigleyfield
In the longer term, you want to get your institutions running their own fediverse servers, under their own domain names. That's the gold standard equivalent of the old Titter blue check (when it still meant something).
That will get easier with newer software like Takahē, which uses much less resources than Mastodon, and allows one server to serve accounts using multiple domain names. Eg one server could host both @academicand@academicand@academic.
@wrigleyfield@strypey@rolle One thing I keep meaning to reach out to PAA about somehow is to support/provide RSS on Demography (journal) - I think/recall they did way back - I think would be so great to get everyone keeping up via RSS or equivalent (for Web syndication), more powerful than even Mastododon/fediverse as I understand/find things!
@edyhsgr
> RSS or equivalent (for Web syndication), more powerful than even Mastododon/fediverse
One way to think about the ActivityPub standard that powers the verse is RSS+replies.
Many Free Code CMS now have AP plugins, including WordPress, Drupal and Joomla. So you can make a WP blog (for example) into an 'actor' that can be followed by a Mastodon account. Blog posts can be boosted and replied to, just like a post from Mastodon or any other fediverse server.
@edyhsgr
Depending on how the WP blog is set up, those replies from the verse can appear as commented on the web page of the blog piece they're replying to. The blogger can choose whether to enable that. If they do, they can choose whether to moderate replies before or after they appear there, just like they can with regular comments.
WeDistribute - a group blog about decentralised software news - was an example (edit: not currently):
actively shoulder-tap people, tell them how their posts help you meet your needs, and that you'd love to follow them in a network that's not owned and controlled by a single corporation
write a brief guide to making the transition. Targeted at the specific needs and interests of people who make up the slice of Titter you want to recreate here. Share it widely with them, on Titter, and through other channels where they can be found
talk about the verse at conferences, meetups, and other in-person events where people from your discipline gather. Explain what makes it fundamentally different from Titter and other DataFarms, or centralised replacements like CoHost or Minds. Offer to help people make the switch.
write articles for journals and other media popular in your discipline, doing the above.
give feedback to devs about how the software could meet the needs of your people
@edyhsgr
There's a strong parallel here with the Open Access movement. Both academic publishing and social media have a collective action problem. The only way to solve it is collectively. So far, the fediverse movement mostly relies on 'if you build it they will come'. We haven't had resources to do much more. But growing the verse from a network of experimenters, to the mainstream public utility it has the potential to be, will require organising and lots of it.
@rolle@kissane was following a bunch of scientists on T. When I tried to get started here and couldn’t really find science mastodon, i complained about what I felt was unnecessarily complicated and was, in no uncertain terms, told the If I was looking for T features I was in the wrong place.
Well so sorry but I AM looking for nature scientists. It’s easier to find NOW but it certainly didn’t feel all that welcoming.
I see the “too serious“ point in contrast to some of my recent flirting w/Threads, which is 80% shitposting & memes, versus 20% convo, politics, sharing, etc.
Masto is like the inverse: 80% convo interspersed with a lot less scroll fodder.
My personal preference for the Masto ratio is probably as much generational as anything, reminds me of 90s era usenet or the early 00s blogging peaks. More we’re talking & less influencer “like&sub” spam.
@rolle@kissane I find Mastodon imperfect, frustrating, limiting. Many of the people I want to follow aren't here, and won't come here. With all that said, it is, overall, its own thing. It works and it's durable and despite all the flaws and things I want that aren't here, it's good. I have the feeling that it will be long-lasting, and that's something a lot of people don't appreciate because it's been so long since a major social media site died.
This all feels valid. I've long given up hope that anything more than a few once-was-twitter friends will take up a place here, but I've also made plenty of great connections here – just as I did when I tried Google+ and most of my friends didn't, or when I joined twitter without knowing, well, anybody there except maybe @milligna and @Shaneus. And here they are(n't much)! 😆
I'll probably never leave centralised platforms completely, because most of my friends are still on Insta (and now Threads), but at least the weirdly-lesser-evil of Insta and Threads means I don't have to go to the dead-bird site.
@rolle@kissane you left out the "nice" bigotry
Blocking bigots puts the responsibility on marginalized individuals to defend themselves. The code of conduct IS NOT CURRENTLY EFFECTIVE
@rolle@kissane
Is seems most problems were for those who found it too hard to bother with. I came from Twitter the moment Musk became owner and left FB as I couldn't stand the meme pages pushed at me. Mastodon took a short while to get used to but it isn't hard.
It's the problem of self reporting surveys. Though the responders give legitimate answers the study relies on those who wish to respond. Those who don't respond, who likely make up the majority of the group they want to study, could have other issues.
I'm curious as to what may have been missed.
One big thing is that for social media there's no one size fits all solution. For each type of user a platform has developed to fit that niche. #Fediverse
@rolle@kissane First impressions are important. Like yesterday: I was at bit skeptical about #Firefish but decided to register. Well, the experiece was laggy and not very good.
So, I don't use Firefish. First impressions are important, and Firefish didn't leave good first impressions (at least that this stage of development).
The instance thing makes this of course bit harder for a person that has gotten used to centralized social media. I don't think it's explained well enough.
Email is a good example, kinda. We have the large multi-purpose instances (Gmail, Outlook, iCloud email), and then we have more niche, self-hosted providers, possibly running different software or frontends, but using the same protocol (like Protonmail, Fastmail, Skiff, etc.).
Well, the email is problematic, because it's a pretty monopolized field right now. As a casual user, you have either an Outlook (or hotmail), Gmail or icloud email.
Also cross-instance stuff is pretty hard (different themes, not being logged in, weird action flow on different instances). These issues could probably be solved with a good client.
@raikas@rolle@kissane People have a mental model in their head when they come here which they have gotten from Twitter. Because they seek the Twitter experience from here.
When things don’t work as they expect, confusion is totally understandable. For example discovering new people is non existent compared to Twitter. As is when you open a persons profile on an instance; why can’t I see all the message the user has posted?
@raikas@rolle@kissane You have to build your social circle from scratch. And since you know nobody from Mastodon from before, of course it feels empty.
There are good things to algorithms that try to suggest content to you. People want content and not work towards it. Like TikTok.
It’s up to Mastodon to try to live up to people’s expectations or then accept that it’s different and it will not work on mass scale.
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