Fizzle
Tiffany LiThe explosion in growth for Mastodon, including among mainstream, non-tech users, is genuinely exciting. That an open-source, interoperable, nonprofit-driven protocol could reach this kind of success is incredible. The future looks bright ❤️
Steyrshrek@tiffanycli We do have E to thank for that.
Helchose
Sam Wade@tiffanycli It really is exciting, and it’s so refreshing to have this sense of optimism about something in tech again. It’s been a while!
@samuel_wade right? Perhaps we had all grown too cynical too soon
Odiseo@samuel_wade @tiffanycli None of this would've happened without Space Karen and his antics. So, in a way, thanks, Elon!
@Odiseo79 @tiffanycli I’m not quite there yet.
James Buckley@samuel_wade @Odiseo79 @tiffanycli
Agreed. It's still not intuitive enough when it comes to handling multiple accounts and lacks key groups participating. I'm hoping for the best and it will be an interesting time.
Sierra Madre
Dan Hugo@Odiseo79 @samuel_wade @tiffanycli All aspects of what we are seeing today began long before Elon (or various others) entered the fray.
Catalysis is a factor, sure but mastodon landed on GitHub back in 2016…
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/commit/9c4856bdb11fc9311ab30a97224cee3dfaec492f
@danhugo @samuel_wade @tiffanycli I'm aware of that. But it was Elon's policies what brought it to the mainstream.
@Odiseo79 @samuel_wade @tiffanycli True, but in the grand scheme, there is often little appreciation for a volunteer effort that magically appears on scene just in time, but is also judged as though it, too, was developed with a substantial budget and contributors… so my comment was more for other people reading, if any.
Everybody loves Gordo@samuel_wade @tiffanycli it's pretty hard to be optimistic overall (not to rain on your parade) but I do agree that I am feeling very good about at least about the new vertical scrolling animal app. So much less toxic than the bird place. The tech space overall is getting really dark and scary though, it must be said. I'm usually the furthest thing from an alarmist, but the world has also never felt so much like a Philip K. Dick novel, at least to me.
Rebecca@samuel_wade @tiffanycli Just optimism in general!
Siona@tiffanycli I know! One of those beautiful examples of what happens when certain for-profit models crumble. Makes me hopeful across the board. ♡
rgesthuizen@tiffanycli It is certainly impressive. Akin to the revelation that we don't need to all use and share the one email provider, everybody can have a stake in this ecosystem :-)
GabyDow@tiffanycli agree completely! It’s exciting and fun :)
PeoriaBummer@tiffanycli so far so good
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Gwyddnogaranhir@tiffanycli I’d had enough of the aggression and hate on Twitter which was increasingly drowning out reasoned debate. There’s nothing stopping people agreeing disagreeably.
As more people move from #twitter the likelihood of that happening here approaches one, but as long as you stay away from politics, you should be good.
Samantha Godwin@tiffanycli Mastodon feels surprisingly impoverished on exploration, and stumbling upon new people, sites, etc.
Clicking Federated or Local produces rapid strings of mostly non-English toots that I can't engage with.
Clicking #Explore is weirdly a very slow trickle.
Hiding replies sort of kills conversation potential. It doesn't actually feel that *engaging*.
I think this might be more viable on some instances or for some power users but...it doesn't actually replace twitter's UX
@samanthagodwin I think it’s not really fun until you find a good number of people to follow, so your followed feed fills up. A lot of the folks we knew on twitter are here! Try the tools that auto-find the people you followed on twitter.
Local feed depends on your instance. I’m now seeing a lot more relevant posts, using the Mastodon app. I think someone is hand-curating? Unsure.
@tiffanycli This makes sense.
w/r/t local feed:
I've been using the smaller mstdn.social - are you enjoying the local feed on the significantly larger mastodon.social?
I have an account on both instances - I heard mastodon.social got slow to load, but it also clearly has more people I know on it.
Given that I haven't used either account much, switching would seem pretty easy.
@samanthagodwin I honestly can’t really tell the difference. I went w/the largest community I could find at the start, assuming stability and potential longevity. Like it so far, but the specialized local feeds of the lawprofs instance and the infosec instance do seem nice.
Sandrine@samanthagodwin @tiffanycli Profile > Preferences > Other > Filter languages should be a first step to a more readable Federated feed.
Thanks very much for this - this was very helpful
Rui Malheiro@samanthagodwin you can follow people, but you can also follow tags. Choose a few subjects you're really into and you'll start filling your home. Then follow and unfollow as needed.
And welcome to the Fediverse.
@tiffanycli
And welcome to the Fediverse.
@tiffanycli
@samanthagodwin oh, and in settings, you can also filter which languages you see on your timelines.
@tiffanycli
@tiffanycli
The preferences setting allows you to filter by language. Also, there’s a ‘slow mode’ setting so toots don’t come down all at once. Swipe to refresh.
Regarding your stream: until you find people to follow, you may not see much, or what you are interested in. Best advice, follow lots of people, start with the journalists, as they tend to post a lot. Once you do, your home timeline will be better. Give it a couple of days.
Hey thanks very much for finding this - I didn't know about either feature.
John Pelham Black@tiffanycli Agreed that the future is bright, but the history of open-source, non-profit services in capitalist economies is hazardous. Wikipedia is one example of a survivor.
ZZ Bottom
⁂ Fish Id Wardrobe@tiffanycli Well it's not the first time this has happened -- the entire internet runs on such protocols. But what's really reassuring is to see that it can *still* happen.
Mark DouglasWe need to learn, after #twitter, #ElonMusk that keeping eggs in one basket is a recipe for disaster. Some will learn and use a #mastodon instance and others will be doomed to repeating the same mistake. Like using #PostSocial.
Holz2735
Timbuk 3 - The Future's So Bright
enmodo ⚛️ 🧬 🇺🇦 🍉@Holz2735 @tiffanycli thanks for saving me the effort of finding that. So happy to end up 2022 throwing some shades on the bird site and other corporate anti-social media 😃
Seclovin
Paul Giulan@tiffanycli if there’s one thing I think should be open and decentralized, human communication
Jonas Nordlund@tiffanycli Yes, exciting times! I love how it feels so "Internet". THIS is really what the web is about, and it's sad how we've almost forgot about it due to centralized and commercialized services. Truly the social network counterpart to e-mail or ye olde newsgroups.
Kelley Boles@tiffanycli I do like it. It’s a little confusing but I’m enjoying it so far
Carole BellAbsolutely agree.
Also...timing is everything. Mastodon was set up and ready, open for business as birdsite fears caused exits. The numbers are a cultural shift.
Jasqui@tiffanycli it's time for open-source to capitalize on the mainstream mistakes and use that momentum
Kayla Anderson@tiffanycli It's super exciting! Really glad that Mastodon was brought into mainstream discussions - I had no idea it was even a thing a while ago!
Susan@tiffanycli we NEED something to be bright. And Shiny.
Liz Clinen@tiffanycli I've just joined @Mastodon, and as someone who never really enjoyed Twitter I feel weirdly optimistic that I've finally found a platform I might like!
Hans Cathcart@tiffanycli It is exciting to see this, however, there's going be a point where advertising and subscriptions have to become a thing or those running the servers will go broke. The ActivityPub protocol, just like DNS, SMTP, and HTTP, is following in the footsteps of many successful open-source components. :-)
@hanscath @tiffanycli I’ve only done napkin math so far, but the subscription costs needed to support an instance are *very* low.
Remember… Wikipedia only asks for donations once a year and the amount they ask for is only a few dollars.
After seeing the incredible disaster centralized services cause, that’s an incredibly small price to pay.
Maybe it would be a good idea to form a coop of Mastodon admins to back each other up?
Remember… Wikipedia only asks for donations once a year and the amount they ask for is only a few dollars.
After seeing the incredible disaster centralized services cause, that’s an incredibly small price to pay.
Maybe it would be a good idea to form a coop of Mastodon admins to back each other up?
Mark Gardner@tiffanycli Yeah, I'm gonna be THAT guy… <puts on rms mask>
#ActivityPub is the protocol and #Mastodon is just one package that uses it. I'm happy that the latter's rising tide is lifting all the boats of the #fediverse, but let's hope this doesn't lead to a #GoogleReader #RSS type situation where the ecosystem is warped around its most popular interface.
VonGoethe Disciple
sub_o@tiffanycli I'm more excited about the fact that the fediverse actually has moderations that don't pander to neo Nazi, alt right, conspiracy theorists, transphobes, unlike other big socials
Azarilhⓥ@sub_o @tiffanycli That's unfortunately probably just because Mastodon is not mainstream yet. It's hard to moderate a mainstream social. BUT considering there are many instances and each has their own moderation, maybe it won't be that big of a problem. I don't think there ever was a social like this so we gotta see. Regardless, the concept itself is better then Twitter's already.
Melroy van den Berg@tiffanycli When can I see all replies below your posts from my instance in Mastodon?
YurkshireLad@tiffanycli it's like #Linux all over again.
What do you mean, the #yearofthelinuxdesktop is right around the corner. Just you watch in 2023 nobody is going to be using #mac or #Windows.
In all seriousness, #linux has a barrier to entry which is installing the #OS, most non-techies buy a prebuilt PC with windows installed. #mastodon's federated model is a bit wierd to non-techies if they don't understand that their choice of server literally doesn't matter. The only barrier to entry is making an account.
@drnfc @tiffanycli no; think way, way back, before Linux was everywhere. It was the underdog that people mocked.
Ah I misread what you were trying to communicate.
@drnfc @tiffanycli no worries, my post was probably a bit ambiguous.
Your good, communication is always flawed, because we innately assume everyone thinks like us.