I’m not sure if my follow requests are *ANY* kind of barometer of how Mastodon is changing with the recent influx of new users, but within the past 24 hours, I got the following two requests:
1) from a guy whose most recent post was essentially a complaint that not enough people were following him, accompanied with a picture of a naked woman (I blocked him); and
2) from a member of the clergy, whose entire timeline (100%) was proselytizing for his particular brand of religion (I declined).
?!
I have a somewhat sinking feeling that we’re seeing more, shall we say, problematic people making the migration over here.
It’s gonna be interesting to see how the complainers, proselytizers, and (God help us) “influencers” will adjust to a completely different environment from the birdsite and the facesite… I mean, how well will Mastodon stand up to undesirable or unsociable behaviours? Open to hear your war stories and your opinions!
@ryanschultz
There are many servers with *extremely* problematic people on them. Some are tiny (one bigot running pleroma) and some are brand new, but some are also non-tiny and non-new. Those are to a large extent defederated, though.
It's not like Mastodon or the larger Fediverse hasn't seen or isn't prepared for undesirable or antisocial behaviors, by any means! It already stands up to them quite well, at least for some people, to the extent that you may if you're lucky hardly notice that they exist.
What remains, and the negative impacts that some people experience more than others, are what we still need to work on.
Ryan Schultz
ceoln