What is Mastodon for? Self promotion or constructive engagement? I wonder about scientists that discuss/critique other's work in their own work, but then won't engage when queried about it here. Or journals/editors that promote their journals/positions in Mastodon, but then won't engage in any discussion that challenges any of their policies, etc? Maybe there should be a separate Mastodon server instance entitled something like "neuromatch.promotion" or "scientific.promotion" where they understanding is that authors, journals, etc can post their self-promoting toots without any expectation of responding to comments, questions, etc. Then we can decide who or what we want to follow on that server, but for the .social instances, we can focus on actual discussion?
I think this highlights the issue of there being a lack of sub-communities in #mastodon, where membership in any two sub-communities can overlap entirely but the culture and expectations of activity can differ widely.
Here, the “social graph” is the only real community infrastructure. There’s also local timelines for separate instances, but then multiple accounts arises as an awkward UX.
The only engagement that seems to have followed posting [1] is views on Zenodo (and a #reproducibility discussion) - there's not much of a Fediverse response that can be given to the number of Zenodo views ...
I think this is an interesting question and was reflecting on my own engagement. I think as in real life the best interactions can be a mix of fun and seriousness (sprinkled with perhaps just a bit of promotion). Personally, I think it can be hard to find that balance, and hard to feel it out on a new-to-me platform that may not have as many on it from the virtual circles you're used to traveling in.
That seems entirely reasonable. But direct queries about specific questions/papers/ideas seem a place where engagement might be expected? That was my original question? Am I being naïve here? Or just an out of touch boomer?
A place of direct engagement would have benefits and would attract people for those benefits, which would lead to a cultural norm and mutual expectation and understanding while broadcasting would naturally get pushed out.
Putting everything into mega microblogging timelines has limits, IMO.
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