Eryk SalvaggioNov 6, 2022
Mastodon setting up the servers as “identities” is a weird move. Is someone gay or an artist? Are they interested in tech or cake recipes? Probably all of them! The server-as-identity is a counterproductive and highly artificial way of presenting the idea to the public, and its doing more harm than good. Most newbies assume they are limited to those servers, and freeze deciding what box they should be in (or rightfully reject the idea of any boxes).
Show threadHans GerwitzNov 6, 2022

@CyberneticForests I agree, but what alternatives would be better?

Maybe care should be taken to frame as a “starter group” or similar. I also think it would be good to normalize multiple accounts (which means better UI support, for sure)

Show threadEryk SalvaggioNov 6, 2022
@gerwitz Ultimately servers shouldnt matter, though I know people start servers for their own reasons. But choosing a server is not as interesting to users as Mastodon seems to think it is. I want to chat with lots of people across the platform, so the individual server may as well be invisible to me. Could be anything: name some after extinct animals, and randomly assign new users to one. And allow users or entire servers to opt out of these artificial barriers if they choose?
Show threadHans Gerwitz

@CyberneticForests IDK, I agree that most (new) users just want to use “Mastodon” and not learn about the fediverse or think about instances. But for all of this to scale socially, we need to avoid hard-to-moderate monoliths and it’s useful to delineate tribes.

My current weakly-held opinion is that we’re just not ready for users that can’t deal with how “complicated” the fediverse is, and that’s fine. Twitter nearly died under the strain of rapid growth many times.

Nov 6, 2022 at 7:41pmWeb
Show threadEryk SalvaggioNov 7, 2022
@gerwitz that’s certainly an argument (sincerely). I know that’s the logic behind Wikipedia’s UX being what it is. But I’m not suggesting servers glob together - I like the bespoke server aspect! I’m just suggesting the server choice is de-emphasized to new users, held off to the “after you ease into it” phase instead of the first choice you have to make.