Mastodawn

ScaredyCat Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy

"How often do you use Mastodon?"

"Once a day" ... is that once a day for 16 hours? 🤣

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Oct 31, 2024

https://northwestbylines.co.uk/business/technology/leaving-twitter-for-mastodon/

completed & boosted.... I think one thing you're missing is the character of people's interest - I see a real mix of politics, arts, science etc. & it would be interesting to know how that might break down by people's primary interest in being on Masto.

That said I realise you cannot amend the survey now, but something for future work.

if there is anything you want to discuss about Masto happy to have an exchange & so you might be interested in this:

Leaving Twitter for Mastodon

A reflection on leaving Twitter in the wake of the troubled takeover by Elon Musk – is Mastodon the next best alternative for Twitter?

North West Bylines | Powerful Citizen Journalism

@ChrisMayLA6 Thank you for your support and your feedback!

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Oct 31, 2024

you might also be interest in a book I wrote some 15 years ago....

@ChrisMayLA6 Thanks for the suggestion!

flere-imsaho 🇺🇦Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy cheers, sent out.

in the the general question section, unless it's not at all pertinent to your research, noting a difference between a regular user, a moderator or an admin of an instance might probably add additional nuance to some answers.

like: i'm an admin of my instance. but i do not, in general, trust admins with the amount of power they have, myself included.

@mawhrin Thank you for your participation and for your feedback!
I totally get your point - something that I will keep in mind for the evaluation of the data.

meek cynics Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy, I'm not using Mastodon, can I also participate?

dick_turpin

Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy Just HONESTLY completed your survey.

A couple of things:

You should have had a "How many times a day do you post?" question. Not the "Do you post once a day?"

The Censorship question is subjective. It all depends on a person's idea of freedom. Is stopping right-wing views censorship? I would argue that it is. I would argue that suppressing any conversation on a topic is censorship. For me only illegal content should be censored.

I wrote "Restricted" on my pad but forget what now.🤦‍♂️

@dick_turpin Thank you for your support and your feedback!

Aubrey De Los Destinos Oct 31, 2024

@dick_turpin @palllyyy But isn't it about the general perception? In that case, I think it works. For some, it helps with censorship, while others will feel they were censored.

@AubreyDeLosDestinos @palllyyy

dick_turpin

Nov 1, 2024

Mmm? Yes. But think of it this way: What value would you place on someone who has a quick look once a day over someone who invests a lot of personal time interacting with other Fediverse users?

While it's a bit more work for Paula, I would have thought it would be more impressive to say, "X number of people log in each day with an average of 90% of users creating 30 posts each."

Then again, what would I know? I only have CSEs, which were abolished years ago. 🤣

@AubreyDeLosDestinos @palllyyy

dick_turpin

Nov 1, 2024

Censorship is never right. It's about one person, group, community, or government imposing their views on you, i.e. telling you what you can and can't do. I believe you should have the freedom to make your own choices. If you dislike me or I annoy you, then use the tools you've been given and mute me or block me. However, blocking an 'instance' I use is someone else enforcing their rules and not yours.

Just my opinion; yours may well differ from mine.🤷‍♂️

Aubrey De Los Destinos Nov 1, 2024

@dick_turpin @palllyyy I imagine that exchanges like that help Paula with interpreting the survey. There was no formal definition of censorship given with the question (is it only if a state mandates it?), but I spent enough time with the freedom-loving bunch to know that for many, various forms of moderation are considered censorship (because they want the anything-goes approach). Depending on who was responding, this point might not give a clear view without additional questions.

Personally, I don't see moderation as a censorship, but I know that this can be a discussion-sparkling topic.

My favourite saying is:

The moment someone suggests a moderator, you need to say to yourself, "There goes my freedom." 😄

Emil Oppeln-Bronikowski Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy It might sound nitpicky but is this questionnaire about Mastodon the service or Fediverse the network, yes, I understand it's in the survey's name but what's the intent? I can't answer some of those questions because I'm on the Fediverse and use Mastodon services second-hand (by reading what their users wrote) but "I like that Mastodon is a not-for-profit" does fit my case. I'd rather not add shit data to the pile.

@emil As my research question focusses on Mastodon users, I prefer to collect data from people using Mastodon. Thank you for your considerations.

Jess Torley (Wilson) [she/her]Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy I’ve done my best to answer. Your questions about why people migrated from twitter didn’t get to the heart of why I left - I left because Twitter changed and became a right wing fascist echo chamber. It abandoned its normal content control. I refused to be part of it anymore. I like Mastodon but it can’t replace for me what Twitter used to be in my life.

@shakespearenut Thanks for your input and your participation!

Tyckmyckna Oct 31, 2024

@shakespearenut @palllyyy This is exactly what I was going to say, I did not feel the options covered that reason for leaving, which I know is a common one. I was having a blast on Twitter for many years, but it turned into something else. So it was ideological reasons rather than concern about the financing or technical aspects or even privacy.

El Duvelle Oct 31, 2024

@tyckmyckna @shakespearenut @palllyyy +1 for this

Bethan Tovey-Walsh has moved Oct 31, 2024

Really quick survey about attitudes to Mastodon - take the survey and/or pass it on!

isol Oct 31, 2024

Why do you repeatedly say that Mastodon is "alternative" ?

It's just social media, like all other social media.

Sure, it's an alternative to other social media, but TikTok is an alternative to Facebook, which is an alternative to Reddit, etc., etc.

The wording makes it seem like all other social media is normal and standard, but Mastodon is somehow strange and different.

@isol In my thesis I look at theories of alternative media, which can be applied to Mastodon. That is why I speak of Mastodon as alternative social network.

isol Oct 31, 2024

That seems circular to me:

you say Mastodon is "alternative" media.
And that's why you call it "alternative" media.

If the usage was, say
"… an alternative to centralised social media"
or
"… an alternative to FB/X/TikTok"

I could understand, but I read the usage as being just like the phrase "alternative medicine", which has connotations of being weird, and not based on proven scientific facts.

Cenobyte

Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy Great stuff. Would you be posting the results?

@cenobyte I cannot promise anything, but I think about sharing some interesting aspects of my thesis once it is finished.

André Polykanine Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy Hi Paula! I've just answered your survey, but you didn't raise two questions that are the most important for me and those are the reasons I migrated to Mastodon. First, it's Mastodon's better accessibility for every category of users including blind screen reader users like me, and second (strongly tied to the first one) is that Mastodon, unlike the darned network that X became, has a robust API and allows you to create a third-party client for any platform, be it Web, Windows, Mac or mobile.

@menelion Thank you for your participation and your remarks. I do not mainly focus on the migration process in my thesis, but I'll keep your suggestions in mind.

André Polykanine Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy It's not about migration as such, it's more about marginalized groups, or, as I prefer the term more, discriminated minorities. When you-know-who bought Twitter, he eliminated the whole accessibility team and also especially prohibited using their API for building new third-party software clients for the network. That's why lots of blind and some sighted people instantly switched to Mastodon. I had my Mastodon account even before, but at the point where my third-party software of choice stopped working, I stopped using Twitter immediately.

sotolf Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy I'm not using Mastodon, but gotosocial another fediverse software, but I answered with that in mind.

@sotolf Thank you!

Bit_form Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy I feel like some of these questions miss the point and do not understand the platform by the way it functions, or is built, so some of the question sound as if the premise is to be a monopoly, or to have many monopolies, or to have a single standard, which is a misleading premise. Mastodon in its user base is not a monolith, and cannot because of the many ways that it can be edited, deployed, moderated, and used. So it was difficult to answer beyond "neutral" in some cases, as the questions did not leave enough room for the possibility of plurality, and diversity.

hyakinthos Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy can’t load the survey.. times out for me.

marionline Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy That's super cool! I once wrote an essay about the fediverse as an alternative social network! If you allow, I'd later love to read your thesis. 🙂
Good luck and success with writing!

@marionline Thanks a lot! I am not sure whether I can publish my whole thesis but maybe I gonna share some of my main insights.

guyjantic has moved!Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy This is great, and you have my responses. Feedback:

"once a day" is the maximum frequency for using Mastodon. Um.... I, uh...

The definition for "migrating from twitter" is quite restrictive. I chose "yes," even though that's not quite true. I didn't switch suddenly from twitter to mastodon; I had mastodon accounts for a couple of years, but only used them occasionally. Then I shifted that usage, over the course of a few months, until eventually I canceled all my twitter accounts and use mastodon.

There were some questions with wording I simply didn't understand, so I chose "no answer."

Thanks for doing this, and I hope we see more study of mastodon :)

@guyjantic Thank you for your participation and your feedback!

Migration from X: "Migration in this context means that you used X/Twitter until a point in time and then immediately shifted to using Mastodon."

I had a trial phase where I kept my Twitter account for a while, before later deleting it. So while I would normally answer "yes", I did migrate from Twitter to Mastodon, because of the "immediately", I'll have to answer "no". Not sure why you stress the "immediately", I find that a bit weird.

bumblefudge Oct 31, 2024

@dj3ei @palllyyy yeah i think that question might not yield very useful results because it was both hard to understand and doesn't map neatly to most people's migration stories.

Yes. That question was less useful than it could have been.

Another questionaire "don't": Do not ask negative questions. There was at least one in this one.

@by_caballero @palllyyy

@dj3ei Thank you for your feedback!

One big plus for me on Mastodon is that (not all, but) most of the people I encounter here are more friendly than most of the people I've encountered on Twitter. Fediverse feels more like a friendly encounter among humans, Twitter like a constant battlefield.

I find it peculiar to answer a fact question (have I donated?) on an agreement scale. It doesn't quite fit. Straight "yes/no" would be better.

Licho Oct 31, 2024

@dj3ei
I guess "strongly disagree" would mean that I don't intend to. That's how I interpreted it.

david turgeon Oct 31, 2024

@palllyyy a small thing but some questions regarding supporting your instance/admin do not provide very clear answers. at some point you ask something like “i do not think about how admin instances are…” which is very confusing & could be rephrased in the positive. also i don't see how you can agree/disagree to a statement like “i financially support my instance” which should be a simple yes/no question. anyway, good luck with your thesis!