This is a recreation of a Twitter thread of my response to someone who said re: scientists moving to Mastodon: "Leaving the global community to enter a silo makes no sense."
I think this represents a common misconception about Mastodon! The entire point of federated social media is that it isn't a silo. On Twitter you are in a Twitter silo. On a Mastodon instance you can interact with anyone on ANY instance.
[thread continues :) ]
Right now Mastodon *feels* like a silo because there aren't many people there - so yep, it isn't a global community. But neither was Twitter at the beginning. If we can only be on social media where everyone else *already* is, then we'll be held hostage forever.
To be clear, I think the "global community" part is really important for scientists, which is why I'm not leaving Twitter right now. But I would very much like to be *able* to.
[thread: 2/3]
I 100% agree that scientists not silo-ing themselves is important. But in theory that's an argument FOR federated social media. Like right now people on Facebook are not seeing my Tweets and maybe they should. :)
I'm not leaving Twitter... yet. But at this point there's a non-zero chance that it becomes unusable in the near future. :-\ So as a scientist who wants to communicate with people I want other options.
[thread: 3/3]
Attached: 1 image De las cosas bonitas que como #LaAraña suelo hacer es estar, ver, vivir cómo se arman las burbujas y al tiempo lanzar hilos que me permitan conectarme y conectar con otras burbujas. Con café en la mano pero sigo soñando... #Mastodon #Fediverse #Fediverse Las burbujas no tienen nada de malo, son nuestra red social próxima. El problema es cuando no se permean por lo que sucede en otras burbujas para transformarse a sí mismas.
@cfiesler I really love the counterpoint of reach to the idea of that leaving is silo-ing. In FB I do not control my feed. In Twitter... to some degree. In IG no idea and it is crowded with promotions. So that would support the idea of federation not oppose it.
But the challenge is how not to increase the cost of doing this outreach if we spread across too many spaces. I feel this cannot be really though in an "individual scientist" level, but a community one.
@dezene @chotee @cfiesler
But you could easily set up an instance for, say, geologists world wide, and when flat earthers knock on your door, you can refuse them. They might then set up a flat earth instance for themselves, but you can defederate from them.
That way you can talk geologists worldwide without having to wade through a timeline of nonsense, threats and trolling.
@cfiesler Here's what I tell to people that claim Mastodon is 'siloed':
“@johannabee @DiligentBeaver @peggy_blair I think one of the example of how Mastodon is the opposite of a silo is the fact that you can interact (follow, converse with, etc) with users on different _platforms_. Like if you could comment on Facebook posts from Twitter or like a YouTube video from Instagram. >”
@cfiesler Very much in agreement that the smaller community size can have a siloing feel and that the Fediverse is capable of being far more networked than the silos of Twitter or Facebook.
However, in practise, because server admins have complete autonomy as to which instances get blocked and which are allowed to federate, it is easy for a fedizen to unwittingly end up in a silo simply because their admin has decided instance X is <insert name of odious ideology> and blocked it.
>But at this point there's a non-zero chance that it becomes unusable in the near future.
Elon is making that decision to leave twitter for us. Can't be on twitter if the servers break down and there is no institutional knowledge left on how to get them up again. taps_forehead.jpg
@christa @cfiesler as I understand it, we start in a village. But there is noth8ng to stop us seeing what’s going on elsewhere and making connections with other villages. If people are saying interesting things, it’ll get shared.
So make connections within and outwith your village, say interesting things and share interesting things.
Exactly, @guillaumelegoy. You wouldn’t.
I’m sceptical about the federated timeline in any case. It will be too much of a firehose, containing too much noise versus signal for any individual user.
You can only get a sample of what your local community (the people on your instance) appreciates from your local timeline. And still you will likely miss out on many interesting things people say.
1/2
For lack of an algorithm, you will really have to put your hands out of your sleeves and do some serious list curation. Create lists for the themes you’re interested in and add people who are your heroes for those themes.
There is no way you can filter a feed of all the things you find interesting. You’ll have to work through your own curated “gate openers”.
And of course searching with hashtags. And just browsing around for added serendipity.
Should be fun enough, right?
2/2
@cfiesler I saw someone on twitter compare the siloing to discord, which shows a deep misunderstanding of the structure.
I consistently explain to ppl that instances are also how Twitter runs, it's just they own them all and hide the seams from you. This isn't fundamentally different than twitter in terms of its potential reach in your feed.
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