Mastodawn

Laurence Gonsalves Jan 20, 2023

@atomicpoet There isn't a proprietary API, but parts of the fediverse community, especially on Mastodon, seems to be very against certain kinds of features. Search, quote tweets, non-chronological feeds -- pretty much anything that isn't the pared-down Twitter clone that Mastodon currently is seems to be off-limits.

That isn't necessarily all bad -- I think it's good that people consider what *should* be done, and not just what *could* be done. However, I feel like a lot of fediverse/mastodon old-timers aren't really thinking about what's the actual problem with certain things, and instead have a knee jerk "Twitter did that, and Mastodon doesn't, so therefore it must be bad".

In any case, I fell like saying "the sky is the limit in how they can innovate" isn't entirely accurate. There are many things Twitter apps could do that at least some people on the fediverse wouldn't tolerate.

Jeff C. 🇺🇦🇬🇱Jan 20, 2023

@xenomachina @atomicpoet Old-school Mastodon users are either outnumbered by Twitter refugees at this point or will be in short order.

I’ve seen the resistance you speak of, but if Mastodon keeps growing I expect the needs of those new people to inform and influence changes over the long run.

That’s not to say that they’ll always get their way (nor should they necessarily), but they’ll definitely have a seat at the table, so to speak.

Chris Trottier Jan 20, 2023

@jeff @xenomachina Many of those new accounts have quickly acclimated to the old culture, though there have been changes.

Less people want a 1:1 reproduction of Twitter.

But hey, there's nothing stopping a developer from attempting to do it.

Jeff C. 🇺🇦🇬🇱Jan 20, 2023

@atomicpoet @xenomachina If they acclimate so quickly, I think, then that may well be a case where the old guard got it right.

What I want to see is a lot of experimentation (with Mastodon and the Fediverse at large), and I’m cautiously hopeful that we’ll see it. Because right now I’m not sure we even know what all the possibilities are.

There are things that I’d like to see make the jump from Twitter, but I also think we can do better than a 1:1 reproduction.

@jeff @atomicpoet I completely agree.

I'd like to see a lot of experimentation too, but I'm concerned that the fediverse is not as welcoming to experimentation as it should be.

I want to reiterate that I'm not trying to say that all pushback is bad, however. On the contrary, I think it's a huge improvement that there is a lot more thought put into things like user safety, and I do agree that sometimes that means certain features shouldn't exist, or should at least be different. I also don't want a 1:1 Twitter reproduction; Twitter did a lot wrong, even before the new ownership.

Anyway, my point in replying to this thread was just that the fediverse isn't really "sky's the limit". It has constraints, they are just different constraints from Twitter's.

Chris Trottier

@xenomachina @jeff You have yet to name what these specific constraints are.

You have also yet to name any of the people who supposedly are constraining you.

I suspect you're making this up.

From https://searchtodon.social/Adventures-in-Mastoland.html

@atomicpoet @jeff

In the last several months there have been several fediverse search engines that popped up, and they all seemed to get shot down within days. I don't remember the names of all of them, but the most recent example I know of was searchtodon, which seems like it was quite careful to avoid a lot of the dangers with global search.

"... folks commented and criticised things that didn’t match reality, or only confirmed their preconceived notions. Some folks have a reflex to react negatively when hearing “mastodon” and “search” in the same sentence without actually evaluating what is proposed. Names were called."

@xenomachina @jeff Again, who's shooting it down? Who's making search impossible?

More to the point, if search was so impossible, why am I able to Google so many of my Mastodon posts?

If your argument is, "Some people don't like search", that's not a constraint. That's an opinion.

Anyone can have an opinion. So what?

@atomicpoet @xenomachina To be more specific -- there is tacit acceptance that general purpose search engines can and will index Mastodon instances (like mastodon . social) that don't take particular efforts to prevent it. What has been repeatedly shot down are fediverse-SPECIFIC search tools. As for who, see the negative comments on https://toot.berlin/@[email protected]/109677152712029470 particularly those from tokyo_0@mstdn . social , t54r4n1@mspsocial . net , epiceneVivant@mas . to , & wigglytuffitout@elekk . xyz

HTH!

Jan Lehnardt 🛋️ (@[email protected])

I want to be very upfront: if this is something the community rather not have, I’ll shut it down. But, I think there are three hypotheses worth exploring: 1. User experience: can this be done in a way that users want? 2. Operational feasibility: how much extra burden would this be on instance operators? 3. Community: is this something Mastodon folks at large are comfortable with.

chaos.social

@JavierKolstad @xenomachina Nothing has been shot down.

These are opinions. People are welcome to their opinions.

But having an opinion doesn't equate to authority.

@atomicpoet Very much agreed that the space is still open. But, by "shot down" I (and probably @xenomachina ) meant: "convinced the creator to stop operating the service", which certainly has happened, repeatedly. The convincing wasn't generally via authority, but via a combination of reasoning, emotional appeals, and demonstration of numbers (multiple people expressing the same opinion).

@JavierKolstad Except, @xenomachina is conflating Twitter's removal of API access to 3rd party apps to a few randoms getting upset about Fediverse search—as though these two things are one and the same.

They aren't one and the same.

You can start a Fediverse search service. Some people might not like it, but it's possible.

It's not possible to make a 3rd party Twitter client.

@atomicpoet @xenomachina Ahh, I understand now. And I generally agree with your distinction -- although it's still a bit subtle, as a non-offical-API-relying 3rd-party Twitter client (like nitter) is still possible from a technical sense. And for both the fediverse and twitter cases, 3rd-parties can be legally threatened in plausible ways, although the centralization of twitter allows for greater financial resources to be applied at once to those threats.

@atomicpoet @JavierKolstad

No, I am not conflating them. I'm saying that stating "the sky is the limit" is too strong. Yes, Twitter is very constrained now -- I'm not denying that at all. Is the fediverse less constrained? Overall, I believe it is (and was, even before the recent changes at Twitter).

But is it completely unconstrained, which is what "the sky's the limit" implies? No.

I see now that it was probably a mistake for me to muddy the waters by also stating my opinion that in some ways the fediverse community is more averse to certain innovations than it probably should be. I can see that this made it sound like I was arguing that the fediverse is just as bad as Twitter, which was not my intention at at all.

@xenomachina Fair enough -- but what types of constraints do you see the fediverse having? Technical, legal, social, other?

Personally, I think there are various technical constraints, many of which differ from Twitter, more or less similar legal constraints (albeit with different finance structures around them), ... complicated ... social constraints, and maybe some other types I haven't thought of.

I suspect @atomicpoet wouldn't disagree that constraints exist, just that there are far less.

@JavierKolstad @xenomachina I will admit there are numerous technical constraints. Most of these constraints are due to this technology being in its infancy.

Other constraints touch upon the nature of federation itself, and how it requires server/client architecture.

Nevertheless, within these constraints, the possibilities for innovation are endless.

@atomicpoet @xenomachina Heh, I think there are legal constraints, too -- but I don't disagree that within *BOTH* the possibilities are still endless. That's a fun thing about possibilities.

Bob Mottram :debian:Jan 21, 2023

@atomicpoet @JavierKolstad @xenomachina Another constraint is the complexity of implementation. If it's too difficult or expensive to run an instance then things head back towards centralisation again.

Kuba Suder Jan 21, 2023

@atomicpoet @JavierKolstad @xenomachina The shooting down happens by putting enough pressure on the developer who builds a new thing that they give up because they can't handle it. Also, a service can be blocked by enough instances that it becomes unusable, if you make a client app, they could spread word about it and block everyone who uses it. They can also pressure the admin of your instance to kick you out by blocking their entire instance because of you.

See e.g.: https://hachyderm.io/@tedivm/109694155655555067

Rob Hafner :verified_bi: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] @[email protected] I have had far more abuse on mastodon than I have had on any other network. I built a tool specifically because minority run instances were having trouble with ban evasion and requested this specific tool, only to get brigaded, lied about, and abused once I released it. It went well beyond "this tool is bad"- people made up lies about what it did, lies about who I am, and coordinated harassment campaigns. No one in their right mind should write software for this platform.

Hachyderm.io

@xenomachina @atomicpoet You quoted the bit about "reflexive" knee jerk reaction people, but it's not clear that was the main reason the experiment was ended.

What I took from that section is those reactions were just the cherry on top, so to speak - not the primary impetus for the experiment ending.

I'd LOVE to see Twitter-like search functionality, myself, but the issues mentioned earlier in that section would keep me from wanting _this particular implementation_ to move forward as-is.

@xenomachina On the flip side, I would really like to see quote-tweeting supported natively in Mastodon. @Gargron has suggested that this might happen if there is enough support for it, and I've seen multiple 3rd party Mastodon clients implement functionality offering QT-like functionality in the past couple of months.

Where there is sufficient demand, there will be pressure to meet it. Even if what it results in is not a 1:1 copy of what existed elsewhere.

@jeff @atomicpoet

If those reactions were just the cherry on top, what do you see as being the main reason(s) the experiment ended?

@xenomachina @atomicpoet I have no special insight, but the post you linked to (from the Searchtodon dev) offered a few under the section "The Feedback":

• Not wanting to sign up for an experiment run by one person (who, near as I can tell, is anonymous?).

• It being a standalone service, and the consequences thereof.

• Lack of mechanics for it in the Mastodon ecosystem.

The reflexive response bit you quoted was mentioned at the end, implying (to me) that was the least significant factor.

@xenomachina @atomicpoet I can only speak for myself, but I can say that, for me, I'd much prefer this to be a fully-supported search feature - built into Mastodon itself - with more robust privacy controls and API support.

The reasons given ring true for me personally.

I still think it was a valuable and worthy experiment, though.