phytolipide
Paris Marxi might have my criticisms of mastodon, but the founder of post is out here pretending “net worth” is a protected category to signal you can’t make fun of billionaires on his a16z-funded twitter alternative
ophiocephalic 🐍@parismarx considering *another* surveilled monetized rightwing hypercapitalist shithole as an alternative to twitter is crazy. Mastodon is a community project, which means possible shortcomings can be remediated by everyone together
Morgan@ophiocephalic @parismarx seriously, if someone wants an environment like that why are they moving off of Twitter in the first place
aresthe "or beliefs" part is a tell that #post will vigorously protect "beliefs" that propagate hate and violence against vulnerable people, while censoring and suppressing #communitydefense against threats and aggression
John Abbe (aka Slow)@ares @ophiocephalic @parismarx Also note that age, ability, and country of origin are not on that list.
EDIT: Or gender identity. (d'oh!)
Tsumami 
@slowenough @ares @ophiocephalic @parismarx gross. Everything I read about that platform just gets worse.
Kat@parismarx Hi-larious.
Defiance!@parismarx Well then indeed Post is not for me! Simply knowing Post is funded by Andreessen is enough to ignore it entirely
Extra Super
james todd 
@Defiance @parismarx yeep ... See @jwz recent post on just this point, the protocols need to be web first and open.
Dani 🍁@Defiance @parismarx There’s a lot of Post promotion going on at birdsite. There’s also other new social media sites vying for customers. Pick me, pick me….
@DaniEhm I assume they're all walled gardens, no?
Doctor😷G 🇵🇹🇺🇸
Andreas K
Exiled New Yorker- Connie@yacc143
I’ll admit I’m more familiar with different platforms than the average person my age but I simply cannot understand the resistance to the very idea of Mastodon being too complicated.
I think a lot of it is in the language. “Instances” instead of servers, which is the closest approximation in my experience I can relate to.
I also don’t think we can stress too much that there are apps that are less than stellar as far as user friendliness.
That’s all I see, as a totally new user.
@Pagan_Activist Sigh. Modern times.
With the cloud nowadays, we literally call today's servers (the VMs that we start or stop, if we even do that), instances.
So yes, I didn't even think a moment about the usage because the word is mostly interchangeable today.
And yes, the fact that there are different apps, is a strength and a weakness:
Twitter for a long time allowed 3ʳᵈ party apps too. Much UX polish was gained by these.
OTOH these can also provide really bad UI experiences.
Steve In Ashland@Pagan_Activist @yacc143 Mastodon is to Linux as Twitter is to iOS. The fact that people have to look around and figure out what to do for themselves is a big barrier to entry.
There is a need for a service like pre-Musk Twitter but so far Mastodon isn't it. That's fine, and it seems to work for a lot of the people on it, but it's too different from Twitter to make better/worse comparisons.
@steveinashland @yacc143
Do they?
*Have* to look around and figure out what to do for themselves?
There are many resources available to learn how to be part of the Mastodon community and the Fediverse.
I’m relying heavily on them as a brand new user, believe me.
I don’t know.
Are you/people even interested in changing the perception?
@Pagan_Activist @yacc143 Twitter was pretty self-explanatory: sign up one place, like and follow, reply and quote. A lot of the mechanisms are similar but it’s clear from the comments here and elsewhere that the intuitiveness is not as strong here.
The more a user has to figure out how to do something, even if there are a lot of resources outside of the service (that’s key), the harder it is to attract.
@steveinashland
Which is exactly why I asked if it had to be that way.
Is there a way to put together an easy to use and understand tutorial on the sign up page? Or a link to one, which would be less than ideal.
Is there any merit to that thought?
Which is exactly why I asked if it had to be that way.
Is there a way to put together an easy to use and understand tutorial on the sign up page? Or a link to one, which would be less than ideal.
Is there any merit to that thought?
Not exactly the way I remember my start with twitter. More like a crazy dash to learn all the crazy features of twitter, the acceptable behaviour pattern.
Not helped that twitter saß actively removing functionality at the time (eg 3rd party clients) so googled answers did not always made sense.
@steveinashland @Pagan_Activist You'll find it funny, but what you are complaining about is, that “Mastodon is different”.
Some of that because stuff is called/labeled differently. Some is because of different social norms, community standards (which has consequences for features). And naturally the federated aspected (you know how the Internet is supposed to work, “not in centralized silos”). And I doubt that Eugen claimed that Mastodon is supposed to replace #birdsite.
@steveinashland @Pagan_Activist
So yes, any social media site that is not written to be a Twitter replacement, will have a certain level of learning involved.
And your analogy Mastodon = Linux and Twitter = iOS is funny.
As a 30 years Linux user (my last daily driver Windows was Windows 95), okay almost 30 years, a co student installed SLS on my PC back then in the Christmas holidays 1992, so nearly a month is missing, Linux is trivial. I would have to google much for iOS basic usage.
@yacc143 @Pagan_Activist I’m no longer a direct *nix user—it’s largely hidden under layers of UI now—but having used it on and off since ‘81, I can state pretty confidently that if I sat a never-used-a-computer person down at a terminal connected to Linux, and a Mac, they’d be browsing the web or creating a formatted doc faster on the latter. Even Windows would be faster.
That doesn’t make MacOS or Windows better than *nix, just easier to use.
That’s the same argument I am making about Mastodon vs. Twitter—with no other resources or outside help, it’s easier to get started with Twitter (or Instagram) than it is with Mastodon/Fediverse. You can get to the point where you can post and follow people you already know on those platforms because of the centralization.
Again, that doesn’t make one platform better than the other, and the need to learn the local social rules are going to be true no matter which platform you use; see the CW “education” a lot of new users are being told to adopt to fit in.
Ultimately, the Fediverse may be more resilient than the centralized services, if balkanization and mass de-feding don’t take hold. Ways to gloss over the separations without losing individuality would be good.
Building the search functions (for other users) so that finding and following your friends is easier might help. A sign-up process that does a better job of explaining the how and why of instances would help; that’s a common complaint. I didn’t have a problem with it but clearly others are.
It’s not necessary to change Mastodon/Fediverse. At all. But it’s responsible to understand the reasonable observances of others who are trying to use a product and making their own honest assessments.
You can have the “best” product in a space, but if you can’t get them to engage because the barriers to enter are (or are perceived to be) too high, they won’t come in.
@steveinashland
I have no problem with improving Mastodon/ActivityPub.
What I have a problem with new guys storming a 6 years old FOSS project, looking at it for a day or a week, and starting to plan for a new governance structure of that FOSS project.
That's not how it works.
You can fork Mastodon, it's FOSS, and improve YourMastodon, if you think you have such great ideas, you can set up your community standards for your federation, but nobody voted you on the Mastodon board ;)
@yacc143 please. No one is storming anything. Who is demanding a new governance structure?
This started from an OP who commented that people feel Mastodon/Fediverse is harder to use than other platforms. I agree with them. That doesn’t make either objectively bad or good in an absolute sense. It does make them different, and one has to understand what the prospective users want to make rational decisions about what to change or not.
@yacc143 I’m not advocating for change BTW. I’m pointing out why some people look at Mastodon and say “this is too hard”, and why I agree that it is harder.
Is it not possible to have a rational, civil discussion about this? Those who say “it’s harder” are just fundamentally wrong, or foolish, or uninformed, or all of the above?
@steveinashland Oops, sorry wrong, thread. Apologies. But the demand for common behaviour rules for all instances is as common as not well-thought-out.
@yacc143 Not asking for that (common behavior rules). But I understand the desire and how it's the source of another "not the same as Twitter" complaint.
@steveinashland Actually it's BS. Twitter's “common rules” were enforced in a non-transparent way by corporate minions, so there was absolutely no guarantee that two tweets by two users saying the same thing would be treated the same.
@yacc143 perception is everything. And this is all about perception.
@steveinashland I'm getting strongly the perception that a small minority but vocal of the twitter intake (not you) is applying way harsher criteria to Mastodon than they did to Twitter, even pre-Musk. Twitter was not (for me) immediately fully understandable, neither from UI, nor the interaction model. But it seems people forget that.
Nor are there “common rules” at Twitter, enforcement is rather random, and VIP accounts are even officially granted more
leeway.
My perception.
@steveinashland @Pagan_Activist Ah, you are comparing the Unix of a quarter century ago. Compare it a modern desktop environment like KDE or even Gnome, and you'll notice that it's quite grandparents ready.
@yacc143
Oh, I am not complaining in the least, nor do I want to be in an environment like Twitter.
I’m tired of my communities getting torn apart because a corporation decided to nuke it.
I was only going over the same well trod ground, thinking out loud.
@Pagan_Activist Actually, adding a mini tutorial to the signup pages is a good idea.
Although finding the right balance is not easy, people nowadays seem not to like reading too long texts. Sigh.
@DaniEhm @Defiance @parismarx The Post hyping by a bunch of bigtime twatters is some fetid combo of self-interest, buddy boosting & sock-puppetry.
krull1981@DaniEhm "Hive" made me laugh, the "Twitter killer", social media platform with no web app or android support, just Iphone. As a 18 year 3510i + Windows 10 user im SOL.
NVRGRLS@krull1981 @DaniEhm to be fair Instagram succeeded this way so makes sense some idiots would think what worked for them would work now
@DaniEhm @Defiance @parismarx I'll be referring to them as #NotMastodons. (Though Cohost looks a bit interesting so far.)
Kenny Kravitz@DaniEhm @Defiance @parismarx I'll never join another social media network that's owned by a single entity. Too easy for corporate influences (or brittle, egomaniacal billionaires) to turn it toward their own ends. Decentralise or GTFO.
@kennykravitz I’m trying to think how many times this has happened since 1999.
@kennykravitz @DaniEhm @Defiance @parismarx Or, assume that like most tech, each service is transitory, and moving on eventually is part of the experience.
Buck 14001@Defiance @parismarx basically my heuristic as well
@buck14001 heuristics FTW!!
OughtThoughts 
@parismarx I would like to believe the intended angle was that voices of the poor/marginalized should not be drowned out by the voices of the rich.
I would like to. But, I fear your suspicion is probably closer to reality.
SaftyKumaIt goes both ways, based on a literal reading. But we all know how these work in reality. You'll be more likely to get banned bashing the billionaires than the poors on Andreessen's platform.
bluestarultor@oughtthoughts @parismarx It almost would sound like that if not for "beliefs" hanging at the end like a dingleberry.
Less a dog whistle and more a train whistle right there.
James Taylor@oughtthoughts @parismarx I would love to think that. But then the better phrase would be "socioeconomic status".
Net worth is of most interest to those who have more than a "survival wage" on which to live and assets they can keep. It's not a valuable measure when you have much less, unless you value giving yourself one more reason to be depressed.
Juliana Sohn she/her@oughtthoughts @parismarx My reading is similar to yours. I think it's poor wording and socioeconomic status would have been better. At least I'd like to hope that was the intended meaning. And I'd like to hope that there are fewer pile ones on Mastodon for poor wording and we give people the benefit of the doubt instead of jumping at a perceived opening to misrepresent people to drive engagement. You know, like on Twitter. I see red flags with Post, but that word choice is not one of them.
Lindsay@JulianaSohn
I'd like to believe it's poor wording but in my experience socioeconomic status is inclusive of all but net worth is only refrrenced for middle class or above. Regardless, I guess the true intent will become apparent soon
@ljj @oughtthoughts @parismarx I agree with you. In context socioeconomic status makes more sense. What the word choice net worth really reveals is that he is so wealthy that's how he's become accustomed to discussing personal economic status. Yes, it's a tell for sure.
Nick "Neiloch" 
@oughtthoughts @parismarx Using of "net worth" is kind of the give away they mean to protect the rich. No one is advocating for the poor while citing their "low net worth"
@neilochgaming @parismarx I COULD make an argument that it was worded that way to speak to people of high net worth, who speak in terms of net worth, that they should not look down at people who have little net worth...but even the language is horrid, as if a person's "worth" is measured simply by material.