henryJul 29, 2023
petersuber

Excellent diagnosis and recommendations by @kissane.
https://erinkissane.com/mastodon-is-easy-and-fun-except-when-it-isnt

I'm a committed #Mastodon user. But I sympathize with the complaints she has gathered and understand why they drove many users away.

All of us who are here and committed to stay should take them seriously, especially if we want more people from our networks to give Mastodon a try (not deterred by its reputation), like what they find (not deterred by their experience), and decide to join us.

Jul 29, 2023 at 1:39pmWeb
Show threadFernando RiosJul 29, 2023

@petersuber @kissane

Been here all but 2 days and have experienced every single one of those things except the "got yelled at, felt bad" one (so far). The analogy that Mastodon feels like eating your vegetables resonated (I like my veggies btw!)

Also, though not exactly the same, the rules on some instances made me think of internet forums where newbies are scolded for just posting basic questions instead of providing a well structured, reasoned query with a minimum working example.

Show threadWilliam GunnJul 29, 2023
@riosfrnd @petersuber @kissane I've seen all that, too. I guess I take a more parent-like reframe and think about it as learning manners. We're not born learning how to be polite, yet it's nice to live in a society where people have standard ways of demonstrating respect for one another. There's no consensus on what Mastodon manners are yet, and people will tell you opposite things not so nicely, but polite enforcement of norms is an aspirational goal, in my book.
Show threadWilliam GunnJul 29, 2023
@riosfrnd @petersuber @kissane I'm aware I'm touching some sensitive things using this framing. Not everyone had a happy childhood with gentle but firmly supportive parents and some people have trauma associated with the whole concept of manners. With respectful awareness of that, it remains a useful framing for the cognitive style of various instances. Some may see themselves as more "parental" and be seen by others as authoritarian. Others may be "free/open" and seen as chaotic.
Show threadWilliam GunnJul 29, 2023
@riosfrnd @petersuber @kissane These two styles of instances will have very different ideas about what the norms are and will find themselves at cross-purposes if they happen upon a norms discussion. This can't be helped or prevented; it's up to each person to enter the discussion with as much meta-level awareness of this as they are capable of & other people to be compassionate about misunderstandings.
Show threadMayor of Nerdocrumbesia 🏡Jul 29, 2023

@riosfrnd @petersuber @kissane

I like vegetables too. Maybe that is what determines whether someone stays on Mastodon or not. 🤔

Show threadProf Prachi SrivastavaJul 29, 2023

@petersuber @kissane

Brilliant analysis here, Erin. Thanks for doing this. I'm sticking with it for now but many of the issues you found are the reason why I can't completely leave Twitter and have also reinvigorated LinkedIn. Core academic engagement with my peers is not here and I think it has a lot to do with discoverability and the time and energy it takes on getting set up and maintaining one's feed.

Show threadWilliam GunnJul 29, 2023
@petersuber It's important to remember that all coherent, stable communities must have barriers of some sort. I'm not arguing for the specific barriers we do have, just want to inject a little bit about how barriers can have a positive side to them, a viewpoint which is frequently missing in discussion among "the opens".
Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Jul 29, 2023

@williamgunn @petersuber I was thinking that. We don't say "We need to make academic mathematics open to people who can't solve equations", and rightly. Not everything has to be for everyone. Prog rock isn't for everyone, real ale isn't for everyone, sushi isn't for everyone — and that's OK.

I'm not 100% sure what that means for Mastodon, but I do know that "make it easy for anyone and everyone" is at least a double-edged sword.

Show threadWilliam GunnJul 29, 2023
@mike @petersuber Yes, and there's always metadiscussion about "who gets to be the influence peddler", too.
Show threadmrobinsonJul 29, 2023

@petersuber @kissane

I wasn't even aware that Mastodon had a reputation yet. Admittedly I still don't understand how to change instances or why anyone would do that.

But everyone platform is going to have challenges--hopefully Mastodon's community will work on addressing theirs rather than doubling down

Show threadMarshall AbramsJul 29, 2023
@petersuber @kissane Great essay. One point not mentioned, perhaps because it matters less to people who use social media the most: Algorithms on commercial sites, despite bad goals and consequences, can put missed, older posts that you would want to see at the top of your feed. With Mastodon, I have to watch it constantly to catch interesting things (so I don't). Even though my home feed consists mostly only of people and tags I've followed. Not sure if exbird did this well, but FB and IG do.
Show threadMarshall AbramsAug 2, 2023
@petersuber @kissane Illustrating what Mastodon lacks for those who don't watch their feed constantly: Often I see a post in the local feed of a slow server by an account I'm following on mastodon.social. I would have never seen the post on mastodon.social, though, unless I scrolled many posts. Some platforms e.g. FB improve this. I don't want abusive for-profit algorithms, but how about the ability to opt in to an algorithm that tends to move to the top unseen posts by user-selected accounts?