Mastodawn

Erin Kissane Apr 6, 2023

It’s great to see mastodon showing up meaningfully for things like the Texas Observer, but it seems—from my subjective POV—super uneven. Making a really strong case for the best parts of, for example, bookworld/literary twitter to put down stronger roots here is going to take active support and community-building, especially when most journalists are still not active here (and are frequently reviled for being journalists at all).

Angela Loves Salem Apr 7, 2023

Right now, a lot of fedi advocates are asking authors and artists to leave the social media sites that have allowed them to get by, but without doing much/anything to support those newcomers once they arrive here—even leaving aside the old-guard pushback against “self promotion.”

And idk, “staying on twitter for your work makes you the object of my disgust,” is maybe not the persuasive tool a lot of people here seem to believe it is. 🤷🏻

Erin Kissane Apr 6, 2023

Please definitely post here with your favorite counterexamples and thriving zones, I want to be wrong in my cranky feelings!

Prickly Pam (D-PA)Apr 6, 2023

Nope.

Continue on in your crankiness.

Eric Vey Apr 6, 2023

@PricklyPam @kissane

The only reason I began using Twitter was for the breaking news and the journos. I figured out how to bypass the algo and make it work like this site does. It turned into a great news feed.

Then, in February, "improvements" took that away and weeks would go by without me seeing a single tweet of many of the journos I followed. I tried, but couldn't make it work.

It was disappointing, but I hope more of the journos will come here.

Burrito Justice Apr 6, 2023

@kissane science is pretty lively. wish government agencies would get on board (I’m looking at you, sfgov and NWS and NASA…)

Adara Astin Apr 6, 2023

@kissane I want to shout out @Hypnobeard who is a one-man boosting machine for NSFW artists on Mastodon. He is a sweetheart and his incredibly generous support is going a long way to building a thriving NSFW creative community here.

Adara Astin Apr 6, 2023

@kissane Other positive NSFW Mastodon highlights:

Smutlandia.com is a welcoming, supportive instance for literary erotica writers, artists and fans.

#Smutiverse and @smutstodon are at the heart of a growing & mutually supportive erotica & art community.

There's a tiny but growing (ha!) macrophilia community here coalescing around @sizestodon.

｜霜の狼｜人面獣心」🐺❄️Apr 7, 2023

@AdaraAstin @kissane @smutstodon @sizestodon Tiny? Hah, you haven't seen all the macro furs. :3

(unless this is NON-furry macro stuff!)

Adara Astin Apr 7, 2023

@frostwolf @smutstodon @sizestodon Correct: I was talking about non-furry macro stuff.

I narrate for Amber Collins, who writes non-furry growing and shrinking stories.

I know that Mastodon is furries galore but it's not a community I know personally and I didn't know it overlapped with macro. That's great!

I'd be opening to narrating furry stuff in the future (I'd love to) but it hasn't come up so far for me with audiobook narration work.

｜霜の狼｜人面獣心」🐺❄️Apr 7, 2023

@AdaraAstin *grins!* yeah, furry in general is VERY kink-positive – we've actually never seen any non-BDSM kink talked about positively outside of furry. Had no idea non-furry macro existed!

Adara Astin Apr 7, 2023

@frostwolf Amber's not on Mastodon (yet! I keep hoping) but here's her links for where else you can find her: https://linktr.ee/giantessamber. She writes macro exclusively. I don't think she's written any furry + macro but her catalogue is so vast I couldn't say for sure!

She's a lovely person & has been an absolute joy as an author to work with, too.

There was quite a macro community on Twitter around the #SizeTwitter hashtag as well, almost all of which was non-furry. They're out there.

Giantess Amber Collins | Twitter, Instagram | Linktree

If you're a fan of growing and shrinking, check out my links!

Linktree

Adara Astin Apr 8, 2023

@frostwolf PS It only just occurred to me that I should ask you: can you recommend any hashtags for macrophilia content? I haven't been able to figure out yet what people are using here and I'd love a kind helping hand.

｜霜の狼｜人面獣心」🐺❄️Apr 8, 2023

@AdaraAstin ...uh, no idea!

I'm not actually into macro. :3 But probably something like #/macro and... I dunno, maybe poke that one to get a sense for what other tags you can use instead, since #/macro ALSO includes the macro photography gang.

Adara Astin Apr 8, 2023

@frostwolf hahahah Yes, I don't want to horrify the macro photography folks.

I'll dig around in the hashtag. Thank you! xo

Cecilia Tan Apr 7, 2023

@AdaraAstin @kissane @smutstodon Hm, when I try to follow Smutstodon by putting their URL into the search bar on my instance (wandering.shop), I get a "nothing found" error.

Adara Astin Apr 7, 2023

@ceciliatan @kissane @smutstodon It works for me and I'm subscribed. Hmm.

It's @ smutstodon @ a.gup.pe, but without the spaces.

Is there a chance your instance blocks gup.pe groups? / Do other gup,pe groups work for you?

I don't know my way around Mastodon well enough to guess or troubleshoot beyond that, but perhaps others in the thread might.

Cecilia Tan Apr 7, 2023

@AdaraAstin @kissane @smutstodon Yeah, I don't know. it's the first time I've had that happen when I searched for something from one mastodon server to another.

Adara Astin Apr 7, 2023

@ceciliatan Does this link work any better for you? https://a.gup.pe/u/smutstodon

Guppe Groups

Cecilia Tan Apr 7, 2023

@AdaraAstin Ooh! That worked! Thank you!!

Adara Astin Apr 7, 2023

@ceciliatan Hurray! I'm thrilled it worked. You're welcome. xo

James Gleick Apr 6, 2023

@kissane No, you’re absolutely right. There needs to be a robust author/publishing community here, and it isn’t happening.

Erin Kissane Apr 6, 2023

@JamesGleick It seems that way to me—and it’s been very meaningful to see you thinking and working here. I have to wonder how much of the gap is cultural and how much (if we briefly pretend that culture and technology can be separated) is technical. And whether it’s more immediately a question of building better incentives or reducing disincentives.

anothercultland Apr 7, 2023

@kissane I wish I could post examples counter to this, and say no, erin, you're wrong.

please note my lack of examples 😔

and yeah, this is a bummer

anothercultland Apr 7, 2023

@kissane I mean, for decades now, I have worked toward finding ways of building community…

And yet it's almost as if people work harder to find ways _not_ to

This, ummm, kind of mystifies me 🤔

Megan Fox Apr 7, 2023

@kissane I haven't gotten much pushback as an indie game dev sharing what I work on, at least?

Heck, @eniko regularly has threads about her stuff that go HUGE, and it seems fine?

Like I'm sure there are folks quietly (sometimes not so quietly) grumbling out there, but we had those on Twitter too anyways, heh.

Abandoned America Apr 8, 2023

@kissane can't tell is this is sarcasm or not, if not I'd be happy to but if it is I'm sorry the experience hasn't been as rewarding here as Twitter. It frustrates me from time to time too, mostly for the lack of search but I digress

Erin Kissane Apr 8, 2023

@AbandonedAmerica Zero sarcasm! I love to be wrong, especially when I’m grumpy.

I love a lot of mastodon, myself, but loads of my favorite writers and researchers and artists haven’t made the jump yet, and I feel like it’s not going to happen without more effort from this side of the fence. And I’d be willing to put in some effort to help make it easier.

Abandoned America Apr 8, 2023

@kissane thanks for clarifying, I didn't want to be rude by assuming incorrectly. I definitely think there are things that the community refuses to do (search, QRT, threads) that would make this SO much better for creators. But I will say that my personal experience is most people have been understanding of the struggles to make it as a creator who needs community support - that's probably the same as Twitter but with about 95% less hostile randos. But it's not the same for everyone, I know

Pauxlll Kruczynski Apr 8, 2023

@kissane the fact that many artists from twitter haven't made the jump to mastodon is why I often think mastodon feeds feel more awful & dire...besides the world actually getting more awful & dire, of course. I'd love to help that effort too.

CoolBlenderKitten Apr 8, 2023

@paulkruczynski @kissane
I don't understand that at all - I have so many great artists and so much beautiful art in my timeline, much more than on the dead bird site. Maybe you just need to look around a bit more...

Pauxlll Kruczynski Apr 8, 2023

@CoolBlenderKitten you're right, there are many interesting artists on Mastodon and the Fediverse. However, there are many musicians and labels that I followed on Twitter who haven't made the jump.

Erin Kissane Apr 8, 2023

@CoolBlenderKitten @paulkruczynski Fwiw, I think responding to people who are having a worse time than you with things like “I don’t understand that” and “you need to look around more” is both super common around here and wicked unhelpful.

(This is a problem with requests, like mine, for kindness—civil but IMO unhelpful fedi behavior like telling people to try harder or explaining hashtags again tends to flourish.)

CoolBlenderKitten Apr 8, 2023

@AbandonedAmerica @kissane
I understand about the lack of search but I always understood there to be good reasons for that. The way around it are hashtags that artist and journalists could use a lot, which would help with that. Yes, it's not ideal but it's also a safety guard against exploitation of all content here by the big coorporations.
I don't want this to be another Twitter. The hellsite can go and burn, as far as I am concerned.

Abandoned America Apr 8, 2023

@CoolBlenderKitten @kissane it's a little ridiculous to expect that just because one group of people don't want a feature that could easily be opt in/opt out, nobody should have it. And the problems with Twitter were way beyond the fact that it has a search function. Hashtags are ineffective.

Erin Kissane Apr 8, 2023

@AbandonedAmerica @CoolBlenderKitten Honestly, I give it 6-12 months before search is running here, one way or another, ideally with a strong opt-out.

(AFAIK, lots of people prefer opt-in and apparently some believe even that is unacceptable because the presence of search in the fediverse will change things—and they believe, I guess, that nothing should change without unanimous consent. I don’t think that’s likely to prevent implementation.)

Abandoned America Apr 8, 2023

@kissane @CoolBlenderKitten I hope it isn't. One of the worst things about Old Mastodon is this prevailing belief that just because you personally don't want a feature that could be opt in/out nobody else should have it either. THAT I really do resent and it is a huge hindrance to platform growth. That's where all the Content Police are coming from too. "I don't like threads so nobody should do them, I don't like X types of posts so they're not welcome here," etc. STFU & manage your prefs then 🙄

CoolBlenderKitten Apr 8, 2023

@kissane
Actually two things: I feel @Curator does a great job with giving people space for self promoting, telling them to boost themselves and all that. It's a lovely and thriving community here.
The second thing is: on Twitter, people did not just start out there and immediately made their living - it took time to build up a stable community and so on. It's the same way here.
Many people say, engagement here is much better than on Twitter, I feel so, too.
Oh, and a third thing 😋

CoolBlenderKitten Apr 8, 2023

@kissane @Curator
I do believe these things take time and should take time. We can't have a whole bunch of journalists and Co come over from Twitter and just carry on here as if it was the same. It is not and I am actually a bit afraid for the lovely community here if we tried something like that.
So if people want to come, that's awesome. But it will take time to get used to things here, build up a nice community for oneself and all that. It's important to factor that in and respect it.

Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator Apr 8, 2023

@CoolBlenderKitten @kissane <3

Yeah, I'm often reminding new users on .art to put their shop links in their bios and/or in a pinned toot at the top of their feed, and to share their shop links liberally. People come to fedi because they're tired of corporate-owned social media and capitalism, they're eager to support independent creators. There are also hashtags made especially for using when you're posting work for sale so that other people can browse those tags for things to buy.

Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator Apr 8, 2023

@CoolBlenderKitten @kissane If anyone's telling you (or if you see in general) that promoting yourself isn't encouraged on fedi and it's counter-fedi-culture to do that, they're the ones in the wrong. I've been here since 2016 and it has always been hugely supportive of independent creators. I've made more sales through masto than I ever did through 3k Twitter followers, 5k Facebook and 20k Insta, even when I only had a few hundred followers on masto.

Derek Powazek 🐐Apr 6, 2023

@kissane I think you left a "not" out of that last sentence, but yeah, I totally agree.

Erin Kissane Apr 6, 2023

@fraying lol yes just pushed the edit

Derek Powazek 🐐Apr 6, 2023

@kissane Editing posts is still my favorite thing about this place.

Ethan Marcotte Apr 6, 2023

@kissane erin I appreciate the hell out of you

Erin Kissane Apr 6, 2023

@beep it has rained for 2,000 straight days probably and I am a GROUCH

💙💙💙

Ethan Marcotte Apr 6, 2023

@kissane look we NEED it

Ethan Marcotte Apr 6, 2023

@kissane uh and by that i mean the righteous grouching

okay maybe the rain too probably

but i hope you get some sun at some point this geological era

uh. hi

Why Not Zoidberg? 🦑Apr 6, 2023

@kissane I mean why? As in why do anyone think it's even a good idea to push someone to leave site X? I think this has to do with Mastodon up on to very recently being a small club of open source fundamentalists, and just like Linux distro preachers who at best look down upon and at worst openly insult Windows users, this is the very same thing.

Cat, owner of hue-man.Apr 6, 2023

@kissane agreed

ErosBlog Bacchus has moved!Apr 6, 2023

@kissane Even the basic design here, like the lack of quote-tweets so I can direct people toward somebody's social media presence with approval and recommendation, is pretty hostile toward people who need social media to make a living. And the culture doesn't help: every time I've mentioned why something like a QT seems essential to joyous social media interaction I get old guard glowerers who tell me "yeah, we built it that way to piss on trolls, deal with it". Complete failure to communicate.

Dr Ro Smith Apr 8, 2023

@ErosBlog @kissane 100 percent this. QT brought way more joy to my feed than trolls. I saw almost no use of it to dunk, but no one here wants to hear that.

Erotic Mythology ✊Apr 6, 2023

@kissane I've started actively pushing people to come here & I have decided for myself that I won't post new content to Twitter that goes beyond link sharing or promoting other platforms.
BUT.
I'm an indie content creator myself and I don't blame anyone for "two timing". Not building a presence on another platform, even if it's not Mastodon, is incredibly naive at this point IMO.
I'll help anyone coming here and looking for community, especially if they are writers, NSFW or myth creators/lovers.

Aral Balkan Apr 7, 2023

@kissane “I make money with my stall at the Nazi market” isn’t the best defense either, through.

Admonishing a community which, on a volunteer basis, has built and maintains a free and open alternative to a corporate space that was funded with over 12 billion dollars of venture capital investment and demanding “do more for me” comes across as somewhat entitled. To paraphrase JFK, “ask not what your community can do for you, ask what you can do for your community.” This place is what we make it.

JW prince of CPH Apr 7, 2023

@aral @kissane I agree, Aral, but we do still need to acknowledge that we're up against an experience which, by design, was (and in some ways remain) pretty alluring, and "but it was for bad reasons" is little comfort if it still means people who should come to the #Fediverse, and who would find value here, don't because they have no other frame of reference except to compare it to the built-to-please-them corporate social media.

ona [she/they]Apr 7, 2023

i agree with what you say, but the reality, i think, is that people have a way of living and for the change from the big tech to here is not a easy path... because you are dependent on them, as they planed.

so, maybe we can help to them autorganize....¿?¿

Michael Sokolov Apr 7, 2023

@kissane wait self-promotion=bad? If I'm not for me, who will be?

deco Apr 8, 2023

@kissane yeah that's what I'm hearing from other artists, especially those who make a living from selling art. I personally would LOVE to be done with instagram but mastodon really just doesn't provide any decent way to showcase your art like that. And sure, you can create your own website but then how are you supposed to get anyone to come to it if nobody knows about it? And they're definitely not going to keep coming back every day to check if you have any new pieces up...

Is anyone creating anything more geared towards (visual) artists in the fediverse?

Erin Kissane Apr 8, 2023

@deco Oh yes, there’s a fediverse Insta equivalent, no idea how good it is yet! https://pixelfed.org

Pixelfed - Decentralized social media

Learn more about Pixelfed, the free and open-source decentralized photo sharing social media platform

Pixelfed

Dr Ro Smith Apr 8, 2023

@kissane this same feel but in disabled people. I've found a lot of people over here behave in ways that are actively hostile to any disability except visual ones.

Twitter is much better set up to talk about chronic illness (for instance) while limiting unwanted amateur medical advice from complete strangers, whereas the server set up here seems to actively encourage this. But staying somewhere with an existing community and helpful tools and norms apparently makes me scum :-/

Erin Kissane Apr 8, 2023

@Rhube I am super curious about the problem behaviors here and, on the other side, the accommodations that work well elsewhere, but zero pressure to respond further! (Chronic illness is super familiar to me, but obviously plays out differently for each of us.)