I really want Mastodon to be the next big thing, but it frankly has a culture problem that is going to kill its broader adoption. After quite a long time here, and a few days at Bluesky, the comparative experience looks like this:
Bluesky: "Everyone's posting about the latest weird inside joke, and I'm excited to post my weird twist on it!"
Mastodon: "Jokes offend me because I was born without a sense of humor. I demand that you wrap all levity in a content warning or I will FediBlock you."
People are always going to be overly sensitive... because some people think it makes them seem special.
Here's a hint: Ignore the BS and let them block you. If someone blocks you that solves your problem more than theirs.
to be fair, Bluesky/atproto will hit the fediblock/community block list thing once there is more than one instance
interesting to see how the funless fediverse diagnosis seems to be fairly widely acknowledged at this point
@arossp Yeah, you've pretty much summed up exactly what's wrong with algorithmic social media.
Mastodon is already a big success. But it's not ever going to be the place where everyone repeats the same dumb joke over and over again in a quest for cheap & easy clout.
There's no clout on here.
Instead, we're making the same joke over and over again because we can't stop laughing about it, and we don't care if no one else thinks it's funny.
@arossp my experience is:
Mastodon: I like your creations! Keep at it. Also, we agree on politics. Do you want a red panda?
BlueSky: your creations aren’t sufficiently edgy/incomprehensible so I ignore them.
BS feels like high school all over again
@arossp Comparing a culture that's been baking for 5 or so years, with one that's attracting all kinds of people and only had a few weeks to figure itself out...
Well, what's to be achieved with that? The culture of BlueSky may be radically different in a month, and even more different than that in a year.
It's okay to like both platforms! Or only one of them!
Just don't get in to the age old internet argument of "X is superior to Y, and you're just wrong if you disagree."
@arossp I guess I haven't really experienced that, myself. I've been on here as long as you, and it's generally felt welcoming.
The only unwelcoming bit I felt was when the mastodon.social admin's muted me and didn't respond to my PM's 😂 Getting moved to a different instance was a big step forward, for me.
@artilectzed @arossp I guess in addition to the above great advice, I'd offer that Mastodon was really quiet until 6 months ago. From their perspective, it's like a freight train just ran through their wall and parked in their living room.
That's gonna take some time to settle out culturally. How much flak new folks get is already drastically different than what it was even 3 months ago. Likely because the people who are pissed just defederated from common landing instances, which I'd guess will keep happening.
Some of it may be new folks being rude, but some of it also may just be Mastodon regulars still reeling from their home exploding.
@glassbottommeg @artilectzed @arossp This is why certain communities do not feel welcome on Mastodon and I can totally understand it.
See @chadloder's post for more context:
I wrote something about how I'm judging people who joined BlueSky, and I've since had a number of Black friends reach out and explain to me why they feel more hopeful about finding safe community on BlueSky than in the Mastodon-centric Fediverse. So, my judgment was unwarranted. As reluctant as I am about the business model of for-profit social media companies, I also see how little has been done to make Black folx feel welcome here. I've definitely run into the nitpicky / tone-policing aspect of Mastodon, and I barely posted on here.
@atj @glassbottommeg @artilectzed @arossp @chadloder Agree.
What's interesting for me, however, is that there are infightings among the minorities. Asking questions and you're already scolded, which then makes people refrain from interacting with, and eventually these groups become more and more vocal.
https://phanpy.social/#/mastodon.social/s/110279676651103346?view=full
@arossp i think a model where users can subscribe (potentially multiple) moderators of their choice (rather than it being server-dependent) whould probably relax the whole issue a lot.
i don't know if Bluesky goes in this direction, but i'm not interested in joining any new proprietary platform. if there's open source nodes in the network i'll probably give it a look.
@mwt huh? i mean i guess you could pay people for it, but nowadays most fedi servers don't have membership fees, so the admins moderate for free there.
i was thinking of blocklists (and perhaps allowlists) you can subscribe to and then. i think blocking instances, accounts or posts is pretty much what "moderation" means here on fedi…
but if they are paid it could be done though donations like with patreon, that seems a good model for providing public goods.
@sofia @arossp I think there already are blocklists, and they get passed around among the admins to apply to their instances. You could take advantage of that by setting up your own instance and applying the blocklists you want to it.
I'm pretty sure the mods do more than just block. Modding is hard work. It's time-consuming and emotionally laborious to do well. It just sounded like you wanted a setup where you could demand that they work for you for free.
@mwt yeah that's what i mean, most of this is already been done, it's just not acccessible for the average user because today's internet/web tech is a bit of a 2-class system (because NAT, DNS, CAs, etc).
i don't know how you read that business aspect into it. people can pay and get paid for what they want, obviously 🤷…
What Mastodon needs is an optional curated feed with a difference. That difference is that the user determines what the feed optimises for instead of such metrics as maximising engagement.
Such a feed would allow quality to work its way into the system, and if the implementation of such preferences works as a kind of partial time ordering, or several such preferences can be saved, Mastodon could become the killer app for escaping seductive advertiser-led junk on other sites.
🗣️LOL🫨
Dear excited fiends, friends and budding Buddhists,👣
Those of us begging for #BeginnerMind are always glad to try the last new thong/thing or throng of sheeple. Or Knot. 👤
Personally I am looking for clarity, peace and quiet progress into my practice:
🙏Zero zenith followers/sheeple
🤲Friends across time, space and emptying
😻A joke for the last listed weird yoke
As my yoga teacher used to say, “oh wait … 🤐”
Define Radical Liberalism.
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