Dr. Casey FieslerNov 25, 2022
I hope I'm stating the obvious here, but... yes, of course Mastodon had strong social norms that created a positive community that folks here really appreciated. Because until quite recently, this was a small, relatively homogeneous group of people. Once that is no longer the case, conflict and norm breakdowns are inevitable because different types of people and different communities do not have the same idea of what appropriate norms are.
Show threadDr. Casey FieslerNov 25, 2022

My dissertation work was largely about social norms in fandom communities, specifically around copyright. And a critical conclusion was that positive norms were so strong, and the community so effectively self-policing, in large part because of the importance of group identity.

Here is an excerpt from the paper that covers much of this (https://cmci.colorado.edu/~cafi5706/group2020_fiesler.pdf):

Show threadDr. Casey FieslerNov 25, 2022
I haven't done any research on Mastodon (yet šŸ˜„ ) and so this is totally just conjecture, but I wonder if in addition to there being some similarities among folks who were early adopters, there may also have been a stronger sense of group identity tied to being a Mastodon user than one would typically see for users of a social media platform. And I suspect that new people coming in do not see using Mastodon as part of their identity any more so than they would have for Twitter.
Andromeda YeltonNov 25, 2022
Show threadDr. Casey Fiesler
OK one more addition to this thread, now that I've tracked this down. :) A couple of years ago there was some really interesting and important discussion about content warnings on Archive of Our Own (and in particular, whether one should be added for racism) and I wrote a bit about content moderation and communities and norms/values/definitions: https://at.tumblr.com/cfiesler/thoughts-on-ao3-from-a-content-moderation/7uz79mmit3kv
Nov 25, 2022 at 8:47pmWeb
Show threadSteven L. JohnsonNov 25, 2022

@cfiesler I've been thinking a lot about how to establish and then maintain a positive group identity for a newly launched Mastodon serverā€”in my case, a location-based one.

I'm hopeful it'll work out to be more like a well-run Reddit sub (or FB group) as opposed to devolving into the worst of local Nextdoor.

"Better than Nextdoor. Better than Twitter." isn't all that inspiring tagline, though, is it? Any thoughts on online places that are worthy of emulation to aspire to?

Show threadNatanael āš ļøNov 25, 2022
@steven @cfiesler one of the differences here is the lack of "walls", posts and interactions are visible outside the community members (this is similar on Twitter too, as compared to forums and FB groups)
Show threadSteven L. JohnsonNov 26, 2022

@Natanael_L @cfiesler I agree that's a big difference. My sense is that many people care more about filters than walls, though.

As in... so far the main reason people are interested in this local-geography-based server is because of the Local Timeline. It only shows new posts by users on this server, so to the extent that server remains local-based / -focused accounts, it's a effective filter.

Show threadJim KillockNov 26, 2022

@cfiesler On the idenification point, ties of course will overall be weaker for the new than the older, but:

(1) Itā€™s very obviously a community venture at this point;

(2) Discussions are forming around ā€œcan we do thisā€, ā€œcan it be doneā€, ā€œwhat do we need to keep and what needs to changeā€.

(3) People are asked to help pay and encouraged to join smaller communities

(4) People are sharing the old Twitter creative vibe

Quite a few elements to foster a sense of participation and ownership

Show threadJim KillockNov 26, 2022

@cfiesler Also worth noting that there is a large bridge group of people perhaps like me who dipped in but didnā€™t spend more than a fraction of time using Mastodon, but came straight back.

That less committed bunch have encouraged and helped people onboard, but are probably less tied to any particular set of norms.

There will be others who are trying to build instances whose motovations will vary from very good to less positive; they may be critical to the project and how it develops.

Show threadDavid GerardNov 26, 2022
@jim @cfiesler a *lot* of people who created accounts years ago, hardly used them and have now returned - and are effectively new users.
Show threadJim KillockNov 26, 2022
@davidgerard @cfiesler Although we like to pretend we are old hands when it suits ;)