Folks seem reluctant to join Mastodon because the signup process is a bit more involved. Specifically the choice of server is what puts people off.
Yet this is intrinsic to the nature of Mastodon. It’s federated - distributed and decentralised- so that one person or company cannot control the whole thing.
We should celebrate this aspect of Mastodon and not be afraid of it.
@badams The difficulty I found is that you're asked to make a pretty foundational decision (which server) before you really know what it all means.
Perhaps there could be a "temporary new user" server as a default, which pushes people off to their "real" server?
@johnmu the server decision is not that fundamental, there is a server migration feature that allows you to move wholesale to a new server.
But yes a better onboarding proces is probably welcome.
@badams I guess I just have the weird SEO mindset that picking a domain name is important :-)), but perhaps site moves here are easier than with search engines.
Or perhaps the end-goal should be to just run your own server so that you have more control.... (time to check my long list of unused domain names)
That's a good point, with your server instance visible in your handle, it's part of your identity.
And it gave me long pause for thought. Should I join the techiest instance I saw? Or the social one? Or the metal head one? Where's the one for cyclists?
Does the domain enforce a single choice of your personal identity and re-enforce tribalism?
Barry Adams 📰
John Mueller
Michael Jervis 