I've been a bit torn on Mastodon. It's a very interesting idea and a few performance issues aside, quite an impressive bit of technology. That federation works at all is a pleasant surprise.
I've had good conversations in the "fediverse". Engagement is super high. I've had more comments, reshares, and off-site link follows from 70 people on Mastodon than 700 people on Twitter. But I've also had a higher proportion of bad conversations than on Twitter. I guess there is a bit of a hollowing out of the middle that happens, as it takes effort to switch, so only people who feel strongly about staying on Twitter are going to go.
There's also way too much meta-discussion on Mastodon. Childish phrasing like "that bird site" instead of just saying Twitter. Too much back clapping about how amazing the fediverse is. Too much hand-wringing about what any of it means. Too much bitching about how blocking CP is "as bad as Twitter." Too much complaining about GNU Social not getting its day and trying to say Mastodon is just GNU Social (they are not the same thing, they have OStatus in common). I largely don't talk on Mastodon now because I just don't want to talk about Mastodon.
What I want right now is just my Twitter followers/followings with the 500 character post length of Mastodon. Use UX design to encourage brevity, but enable longer form when it's desired.
> There's also way too much meta-discussion on Mastodon. Childish phrasing like "that bird site" instead of just saying Twitter. Too much back clapping about how amazing the fediverse is. Too much hand-wringing about what any of it means. Too much bitching about how blocking CP is "as bad as Twitter."
This is exactly the same problem Voat had. Unfortunately it's pretty much inevitable whenever any kind of online space is explicitly founded as "[existing service], but without moderation!". Almost by definition, the people who are going to go there first, and form the basic norms of the community, are going to be the people who felt the impact of moderation on the old service-- i.e., trolls, immature brats, and people who want to post CP.
Freedom of speech is good, but it has to be a "background virtue": any online community explicitly founded on freedom of speech is going to be a garbage fire.
> any kind of online space is explicitly founded as "[existing service], but without moderation!".
I don't think that's a fair characterization of Mastodon. But that's how many users see it, because that's how it has been advertised to them by media and other users. (And some instances have taken it as a slogan or a goal, e.g. apparently the authors)
I agree it's not a fair characterization of Mastadon, but it's definitely a fair characterization of some of the servers, including the one that the guy in the story set up.
Interestingly, when I heard about Mastodon it was via Metafilter, where the main thrust of conversation wasn't "finally, we get an unmoderated space"; it was more "finally, we can inhabit/create better-moderated spaces".
If it's a background virtue, as it was made to be on Reddit (users had to dig up the commments by admins saying it would be a 'bastion of free speech'), does that not lead to the principles being forgotten, and a revolution to move to another service?
If it's a background virtue it means it's not important, and if it's not important, then it won't be followed up when the pressure is put on. Some communities founded on principles of free speech (though not wholly operating that way as such) have turned out fine; certain boards on 8chan are ripe with intelligent and informing discussion, with a very strong undercurrent of free speech and against censorship.
>> certain boards on 8chan are ripe with intelligent and informing discussion
The misconception here is that A) this is unique to 8chan, that those discussions are some how special and not being repeated across pretty much all online communities everywhere, and that B) this is the result of the lack of a dogmatic view of free speech that even evicts legal censorship of illegal activity.
Twitter updated their TOS many years ago to prohibit anything that would let you migrate away seamlessly. You can't mix their posts in a feed with other services, and there are constraints on mirroring them. :(
I have a command-line script to "toot", and I run a cross-posting tool that crosses in each direction. So I "toot" from the command line and it appears on Twitter. Equally, if I tweet, it appears as a "toot".
It gives me a chance to see how things go. So far, I'm preferring Mastodon because I'm on a small instance with a very definite community feel, rather than the sprawling, undifferentiated mess that is "Twitter".
That's very much regional slang. And I'm pretty sure people know it - software is full of immature, juvenile, and puerile jokes, references, and people. My approach is just to ignore the muffled giggles and treat it all with a straight face.
Different instances have different terms for things, some more sensible, some less so. On cybre.space you don't "toot", you "Ping!", and there's another instance where you "Awoo".
Yes, the terminology doesn't help, but used to be stupid to say that you would "tweet" something.
Tweet at least made sense in context, twitter is all bird branded and a single tweet is one message of many, just like a single bird tweet is one of many that make up bird songs/calls
Having different terminology per server seems even worse than having a unified word that makes out you're farting information at people. "Hey I'm going to awoo you the link" "you what?", where the second person is used to it being referred to as something else
I could be wrong, but I am under the impression that the phrase "that bird site" only exists as a way around oulipo.social's self-imposed "no letter e" rule.
A consequence of federation is that people on other instances don't necessarily realize what oulipo.social is or why the posts are worded oddly. At one point I briefly ended up in an argument with somebody who was unaware I was doing constrained writing.
Fair enough, that's a misapprehension on my part then. Plus I guess the form of it I've seen on oulipo.social must be "that bird platform" or something.
I've had good conversations in the "fediverse". Engagement is super high. I've had more comments, reshares, and off-site link follows from 70 people on Mastodon than 700 people on Twitter. But I've also had a higher proportion of bad conversations than on Twitter. I guess there is a bit of a hollowing out of the middle that happens, as it takes effort to switch, so only people who feel strongly about staying on Twitter are going to go.
There's also way too much meta-discussion on Mastodon. Childish phrasing like "that bird site" instead of just saying Twitter. Too much back clapping about how amazing the fediverse is. Too much hand-wringing about what any of it means. Too much bitching about how blocking CP is "as bad as Twitter." Too much complaining about GNU Social not getting its day and trying to say Mastodon is just GNU Social (they are not the same thing, they have OStatus in common). I largely don't talk on Mastodon now because I just don't want to talk about Mastodon.
What I want right now is just my Twitter followers/followings with the 500 character post length of Mastodon. Use UX design to encourage brevity, but enable longer form when it's desired.