If you’re reading this toot there’s a pretty high chance you’ve asked yourself ethical questions about your social media use *and that’s why you’re here*
You’ve likewise probably got concerns about Meta and Threads
But the 90-odd % of your friends you left behind on Facebook, Insta etc. likely don’t have those concerns to the same extent as you
Mastodon has to win on user experience *as well as on ethics*. We can’t just berate the Meta users
True. But I have a more fatalistic attitude.
Fewer "friends" on mastadon, consumes less of my time.
The "more enlightened ones" moved long ago.
I think that's true for some extent, but the Swedish journalists, intellectuals and leftists I know who are still on twitter are there 'because everyone is there'.
So I think it's easy to focus too much on pututive technical changes when what is needed is simply a more relevant and bigger community. And that's linked to a better ux, yes, but when twitter became big it wasn't because it was user friendly but because it was relevant to connect with Arab Spring.
@jon @Loukas True. Often, mastodon evangelists come across a bit as Linux evangelists.
Most people don't give a shit that Linux is FOSS. Windows users just don't want the hassle of switching, and just want their computers to put as few obstacles between what they want to do and themselves.
It's the same with Mastodon. Most people just want to see cat pictures.
@Loukas @jon That's where most ideologues go wrong, I think. Which is one reason many of them don't like Mastodon!
There's a difference between 'push' and 'pull' content.
People can be tricked into believing that what they push into an algorithm is universal, because of the engagement of showing up everywhere. They can be tricked into believing their own hype.
Here? What they push don't show up anywhere. Engagement is minimal. Hence they claim this place "is dead". Which is wrong.
@Loukas I mean, a fire department using the algorithm to reach out to residents in an area depends on an algorithm showing even non-followers that there's a dangerous fire. That's a great benefit of an algorithm.
Vulnerable communities interlinking with each other without knowing where they should start looking for connections is another.
Algorithms is not all bad.
Agreed. The bar has been set for what a micro-blogging site should be by Twitter. That is of course now history having been in large part dismantled by Elon.
The apparent stubbornness of the powers that be here to at least trial some of the features that people miss from Twitter is a real missed opportunity.
Somewhat of a catch-22 as to draw the crowd you need the crowd situation as well. I think a great opportunity that's being missed is for news outlets to establish their own instances. I don't know if there's been outreach from the Mastodon side or not, but that seems like a no-brainer.
For years I have been fighting a losing battle with friends – trying to make them see that the choices of the tech they use should be similar to how they choose what food to buy, or how to travel – namely that there are ethical values bound up in […]
@jon That's a good read. I thought I'd have a go at searching after reading it, and it took me a while to even find the function!
If I read it right though, your issue is more with the fact that your server has to have seen it for it to appear in search? Maybe there's a gap for an activity pub index facility?
@jon @rwtwm The way I've been thinking about it, it doesn't have to be market-based, as Waine fears, but it does have to be product-based - that is, building with those who aren't here but who we want here in mind, rather than building for those already here (and "don't see what the problem is"). Without breaking things for existing users, obviously.
Companies are good at building products, but we can be better (no ads, no engagement-through-hate, etc.) if we put our minds to it.
@rwtwm @jon Oh, yeah, it's tough. In some sense, I don't think stakeholders are the issue. Users can advocate for those not here, just as an exec might in a co.
I think the issue is the lack of product focus and tools. We can't take random ppl off the street and do UX tests etc. We have to make do.
As for the other sites... they're self-destructing right now. Just not falling apart should be a big advantage. :)
@rwtwm Apologies Wain; that was to Jon's thesis.
I disagree with volume of content equaling successful (it really depends on signal to noise), but that's a different (less contentious) discussion!
@jon @rwtwm Which is exactly why I don't, and would never, knowingly eat meat in the presence of a vegetarian.
I have that option; so do Metans. If they valued communication, they can come here without dragging an animal carcass behind them.
Being ethical means more than abstaining, it means challenging the unethical to do the right thing. We all fall short, but we also benefit when others hold us to higher standards.
@jon For me there are two aspects of the Mastodon user experience:
i) the interface
ii) who posts/toots what
and both of these are already good enough and getting better.
I am here, as I used to be on twitter, mainly for all the lovely stuff that other people post and will chip in my small contributions from time to time.
Mastodon enhances my quality of life and I am not looking for any alternative.
@jon I don't think this is some kind of competition. Mastodon doesn't have to "win", it is its own thing, apart from whatever Twitter or Meta or Bluesky or whoever does. It has value on its own.
That does not mean I don't think the Mastodon experience should be improved, but I think the aim of those improvements should be to make the lives of the users better, not to "win" against Meta or whatever.
@jon @heinragas I don't know ... based on the last two sentences of the original toot, I would have likely read something similar in it.
Having to win on user experience, as well as ethics, suggests to me at least that the aim of Mastodon is to win at some sort of competition with Twitter/other social media. Instead of just letting it be it's own thing.
@tirohia @jon @heinragas I think there are complications here - I personally don't want it to be about winning *or* letting it be its own thing.
"Winning" suggests an "at all costs", "if we don't win, we lose" attitude, when Fedi has its own value.
The latter suggests having no goals. Sounds care-free, except we'll default to techies-building-for-techies, while others feel stuck on proprietary social media. We should deliberately build to be welcoming to good people.
Letting it be it's own thing doesn't mean no goals. To me it suggests that the goal is not continual growth, or to drag users away fro other platforms. The goal is to be a better platform for the people that are here.
If people on other platforms like what they see, they're welcome to come over, that's cool. Developing a specifically to appeal to those not here already doesn't feel like a path to a better platform.
@tirohia @jon @heinragas Ah, I read "Letting it be its own thing" as imposing no goals, so that's just a word thing.
OTOH I disagree w/ "The goal is to be a better platform for the people who are here". Fedi underrepresents people I feel should be here. Naming two distinct dimensions, Fedi is overweight techies & underweight black people.
Given the mess that is Twitter, w/ XXXM users, many of whom would do great here, it feels remarkably selfish to focus on the 1M largely like us already here.
@tirohia @jon @heinragas I think my post was messy, I'll try a different angle:
By building for those already here, we inevitably make Fedi more attractive to non-users similar to current users.
Intentional or not, we're "competing" for users - when Twitter screws up, we get a huge influx.
If we work to build for current users, Fedi's "natural" growth will leave groups behind.
Hence I think we should deliberately build for good ppl not here, even if we want to avoid a competitive mindset.
@jon Haha, I might have over-focused on the word 'win' here, indeed.
There has been so much discourse on fediverse versus Meta, especially with Meta's imminent entry into the fediverse, that I assumed this toot was part of that same thing. My apologies for seeming too aggressive.
@jon
What people should absolutely *not* be getting is a page that says "Hey, we're really popular at the moment. So you can't just join on our site. Go to one of these instead and pick from them."
It should be "go here, sign-up, pick server, done." Or, for the undecided, a "pick a server for me" option. Or "point me to your Twitter/Hive/etc, and we'll pick a server that should have a bunch of people you have something in common with."
There should be effort put into streamlining the process.
@nathan Sorry to hear this. What was the issue with signing up with e.g. a big instance? Was there something specific you were after?
I'm asking because AIUI the default now is "we recommend a random big instance", and your "I had a tough time joining up" is the nearest we hear from a current user as to a first-hand account of what stops people joining.
@sgf
I signed up at the last big exodus, where the 'main' site, when you google to sign up had a notice along the lines of "we've had a huge influx .. struggling to cope .. can't sign up here just yet .. try one of these instead", which IIRC, followed to a list of other mastodon sites with their own sign-up page.
[1/x] 🧵
@sgf
So I did a bit of reading up on "does it matter where you sign up?" and, yeah, there is that possibility that the one you choose may shut down, and you want it to be a 'good' instance run by 'good' people, so that took a bit of time to find one that felt right. I don't think it was a big instance. (One in Germany.) And the confirmation email just wasn't coming through. I was worried it was getting blocked by a spam-filter. Eventually 2 or 3 days later the mail came through. 😄
[2/x] 🧵
@sgf
Then I was going to go for one with a domain that fitted my retrogaming slant .. but when I read up on the admins notes on that instance .. well, they sounded like a bit of a .. person with strong opinions, not all of which I agreed with? So I decided not to go with that.
In the end I decided to go for one based around the people of my country 🇳🇿 ..so more 'normal people' talk in this instance than I'm used to, but it worked out okay. So I've settled here. 👍
[3/x] 🧵
@sgf
Nowadays, when you google for somewhere to sign-up, and go there.. It looks reasonably user-friendly. (Thinking of how the 'average joe' might try this.)
But that would essentially get everyone going for "mastodon.social". Not necessarily a bad thing. But I thought the 'ideal' situation would be for someone to be able to sign-up there, and have a drop-down at the "@mastodon.social" bit where you can choose an instance, and your sign-up is seamlessly handed over to "@whoever"
[4/x] 🧵
@sgf
..then people could still get some of the advantages of federation without much hassle.
But I've been in IT for a long time, with an interest in UI design. So I'm really thinking along the lines of the 'ideal signup path', and voicing my opinion, rather than suggesting "this is the way it *has* to be, or we'll fail." 😄
I actually kinda like it that mastodon hasn't 100% gone mainstream. I keeps away some of the noise that, frankly, I didn't enjoy on the birdsite.
[5/x] 🧵
lasersailor (he/him)
Jon Worth
Oliver Schönrock
Enby Shark
Loukas (They/Them) 🏳️⚧️
Max
Virginicus
Tor Lillqvist
Alon
petteriusa
Waine
Simon Frankau
What's it to you?
Derek Black
Khaled Blah
Hein Ragas
Ben
Gaganpreet
Stephen Cox Author
Nathan