I've just got to say how happy I am with the Mastodon community, especially all the science/space people that I'm following. This place is the clear winner after the social media meltdown, despite its outstanding issues and missing features.
What makes me even more excited is that it's open and unmonetized, so it's completely immune to shareholder demands or the whim of a billionaire.
Don't worry if your friends aren't here yet, we're your new friends.
@fraser
So happy that you and @starstryder are on here!
- a huge astronomy cast fan!
@tdev Yeah, go to the lists here: https://truesciphi.org/ast_mas.html
Import any CSV file that seems interesting to you.
do note that while it's not subject to whims of "a billionaire", it's now subject to the whims of a few hundred neurodivergent server administrators which means some or all of your data and connections can still vanish in thin air with no warning, for any touchy reason, and frequently does, unless you're hosting your own, which comes with its own problems...
there's masto.host and also digitalocean offers an "almost one-click" setup, but yeah. in my eyes it's a dilemma, while theoretically individuals are better than billionaire shareholders, in practice i've seen dozens of those individuals go out of commission permanently, taking thousands to hundreds of thousands of users with them, because behind the scenes mastodon is a really rough place to manage. and while self hosting protects you against that somewhat, your reach becomes minimal
@fraser yknow we also do have precedent of corporate takeover for federated services, it's... email!
it used to be that most people had their own email address in any random place, very often their ISP provided one. nowadays you're pretty much stuck with google or microsoft, and a few others who managed to carve out a slice through great effort. Problem is, if you self host mail, if you don't get blessed, nobody will accept your mail even if you fulfill all the dozen requirements.
@fraser Thank you for keeping up to date on all the science happenings!!!
๐
And here I have some computer nerd tell me that Lemmy/Mastodon are dead and their apps are dead interfaces. I don't follow this train of thought. I like this place.
@Jason_Dodd That could have been a fair point if acquisition would affect all Mastodon servers, but it would affect two servers only (sure, two big ones, but still), not all Mastodon servers, and as for the software there are several living forks already.
That's before we count the rise of Firefish, but I admit the overwhelming part of Fedi is still Masto and derivatives.
@clacke of course i was just making a joke with hyperbole but i'm thinking buying mastodon.social and the project would result in that.
sure forks would happen but i'm thinking would be detrimental to the project.
heck, there are already articles with titles like, "why mastodon failed" after musk bought twitter. so many might already think it's dead.
@Jason_Dodd It would be detrimental to the project, which would lose one of its two most active contributors and it would be detrimental to the network, which would lose two of its top servers.
It might also hurt public perception, to the extent that there is any public perception.
Whether you're joking or not, after a hit like that, someone torpedoing Mastodon gGmbH, I still seriously think the network would be more active than it was in October 2022.
The biggest hit to growth would probably be joinmastodon, but I think the network has enough friends of friends that joinmastodon is only important, not crucial.
Matt
Fraser Cain
wijfi
cobalt going beige today
Pulin Kothari, MD
Bodhipaksa
Kelly Lepo
Mori
nickapos
Bevardimus
Marcel Haas
Travis
Big George
[TODO:Insert Name]
evolbug
Hervรฉ Renault
cakemix
Mike Haudenschild
gunstick
Doug Baker - Elbows Up! ๐จ๐ฆ
๐ป๐ ๐๐๐๐๐.๐ฅ๐๐๐
Gokul Das
Vint Prox
clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy ๐ธ๐ช๐ญ๐ฐ๐๐
Jason_Dodd