Mastodawn

Dimitri Fabrèges Jan 16

Victor Buendía

Hi, scientists from the Fediverse! It seems that Nature is asking people about Twitter migration and if they are happier on #bluesky .

On Nature writers' minds, Bluesky is the only place to migrate to. There's not a single mention of the Fediverse in there! However, there is a small free text box where you can write your thoughts, in the step before "send" button. So I did fill the poll anyway, writing why I decided not to go to Bluesky but to Mastodon instead.

I thought that maybe if we get enough people to actually fill the survey and mention that they migrated to Mastodon, we can make a stronger case for open, free networks. It's an extremely short survey, so let's try! https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00037-y

#academicchatter #OpenScience

Has Bluesky replaced X for scientists? Take Nature’s poll

The research community has flocked to the social-media platform Bluesky. Tell us about your experience.

Nick has moved to Mathstodon Jan 15

@vbuendiar My impression (based on discussions with people who talk about their research on both platforms), is that Bluesky has a considerably more vibrant research community than the Fediverse at this point. Indeed, many of the researchers I follow who migrated to Mastodon in 2022 seem to have stopped posting here. And generally Bluesky has a larger and more rapidly growing user base. So I suppose I'm saying that it seems highly unlikely that Nature would move here, despite the advantages in principle.

Victor Buendía Jan 15

@internic yes, Bluesky got way more users and I guess it's more vibrant. The app looks better and it has some features that people really like and are not yet here. But it's a bit sad that scientists decide to lock themselves again in a proprietary platform that (I believe) in long-term will suffer the same problems current Twitter has.

Anyway, even if there's less people on Mastodon, I don't think the fraction is so negligible as to ignore it. And there's for sure also people in Threads or TikTok or whatever. There's no way to indicate "I migrated somewhere else". They assume that if you changed, it was to Bluesky. If I presented that research methodology to Nature I would be rejected on the spot 😅😅😅

Nick has moved to Mathstodon Jan 15

@vbuendiar I will say that for some organizations even Bluesky is too small to bother with (compared to, say, Instragram, Tiktok, and Youtube), but I assume that Nature is really mostly interested in a Twitter successors, since Twitter was where more scientist discourse was happening.

Alexandre Marcati Jan 15

@internic @vbuendiar that's not the point. It's a poll and it leaves out potentially significant alternatives. That's bad methodology to say the least

Tony Vladusich Jan 16

@alemarcati @internic @vbuendiar

Fair, but we are talking about Nature here!

Tom Hayward Jan 15

@vbuendiar @internic that methodology seems so obviously flawed that maybe a Nature journal would publish it (!!)

August C. Bourré Jan 15

@vbuendiar @internic I'm on both Mastodon & Bluesky, and the thing I've learned is that affordances matter more—a lot more—than the ideological foundations of a network, even to scientists.

Nick has moved to Mathstodon Jan 16

@fishsauce I think many scientists see Twitter and its successors as an important venue to promote their work, network, etc., so I think they will tend to be pragmatic in gravitating to where they think they can best do that.

Mastodon doesn't make it that easy to connect people to the information they're interested in, so it would be hard for people to rely on for those purposes. The same dynamics will apply for anyone who relies on social media professionally to some degree (unless maybe they're such a big fish that they know people will seek them out).
@vbuendiar

Vojtech Tlaskal Jan 16

@fishsauce @vbuendiar @internic

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

via @pluralistic

Daniel Marks Jan 16

@tlaskal @fishsauce @vbuendiar @internic @pluralistic You know you're in bad shape when you long for the time of W.

@profdc9
By "W" do you mean the predecessor to the X Window System?
@tlaskal @fishsauce @vbuendiar @internic @pluralistic

@Kavus @profdc9 @tlaskal @fishsauce @vbuendiar @internic @pluralistic I think he meant George W Bush.

@lproven
Ahhh that makes sense.
@profdc9 @tlaskal @fishsauce @vbuendiar @internic @pluralistic

Daniel Marks Jan 17

@Kavus @lproven @tlaskal @fishsauce @vbuendiar @internic @pluralistic George W. Bush invading Iraq on false pretenses (the presence of WMD, of which there was none, and to "liberate" Iraq) seemed bad, but then Trump came along and tried to overthrow the government and stood by while a million Americans died from COVID telling them to drink bleach. And now he's reelected.

MidgePhoto Jan 18

@profdc9 @Kavus @lproven @tlaskal @fishsauce @vbuendiar @internic @pluralistic
Odd place, America.

Daniel Marks Jan 18

@midgephoto @Kavus @lproven @tlaskal @fishsauce @vbuendiar @internic @pluralistic Nature, or really Springer Nature, is not American, it is German and headquartered in Berlin. As they say, a Euro is a Euro and they're getting what they can.

MidgePhoto Jan 18

@profdc9
I probably meant Trump. And GWB.
American presidents who were not Berliners.
Elected.
Odd place, America.

pfriedma Jan 15

@vbuendiar
I ended up selecting the No/other freeform option about x and Blue sky and noted the vibrant scientific community on Mastodon.

I needed to log in with my inst/orcid, and the survey iframe is a little wonky

@pfriedma @vbuendiar any recommended accounts to follow on on Mastafon?

pfriedma Jan 15

@Fredis
In addition to fediscience, check-out accounts on scicomm.xyz and scholar.social

@vbuendiar

A community for scientists and science communicators.

An instance for scientists, researchers, science students, communicators, and enthusiasts! Please visit https://about.scicomm.xyz for details.

Mastodon hosted on scicomm.xyz

@pfriedma @vbuendiar silly question but how do I add the server to my feed?

AlsoPaisleyCat Jan 15

@FediFollows may have a curated list in your domain.

@pfriedma @vbuendiar

@AlsoPaisleyCat @FediFollows @pfriedma @vbuendiar thank you!

petersuber Jan 15

Unfortunately the link to the survey is behind a paywall. But I just used my university's subscription to open the article and take the survey.

One question asked why we had accounts on Bluesky. It gave several options plus "other". I picked "other" and wrote this:

>> All the above plus this: To hedge my bets. #Mastodon is a better decentralized #socialmedia platform than #Bluesky. So I'm more active on Mastodon than Bluesky. But I have an account on Bluesky in case it grows much larger and more useful for my professional purposes. In that case, I'll use it more than I do today, alongside Mastodon.

Another question asked how we'd like to see Bluesky improve. My response:

>> Integrate fully with the #Fediverse. Right now bridge accounts are possible but their functionality is very limited.

@petersuber I don't think there is any chance for Bluesky to adopt ActivityPub, especially since it is made by the creators of the AT proto. Similarly, I don't see Mastodon integrating the AT protocol. However, there are software that (partially) implement both of them, so you could look into that.

petersuber Jan 15

@Varpie
I don't expect Bluesky to adopt ActivityPub or Mastodon to adopt AT Protocol. But I'd like to see better bridges between the two platforms. I already use Bridgy Fed for more than one account. It's a start but far from adequate. I'm not saying that deeper levels of integration or bridge-building will be easy. The survey question asked what I'd like to see.

PoLiTiPeT Jan 15

@petersuber what is missing from Bridgy Fed in your opinion ?

I tend to find it "good enough" or even "does a pretty good job", for a _real_ protocol-level bridge.

The main annoyance (for me) is the lack of "edits" mirroring to Bluesky. But well, Bluesky does not have edit capacity, so I guess it's "their fault".

Also DMs don't cross the bridge, but for public discourse, that's a minor issue. And maybe only just a matter of time/ressources before it lands.

petersuber Jan 16

@politipet @Varpie

Thx for asking. Here are 6 limitations to #BridgyFed (@bsky.brid.gy).

1. It creates a new #Bluesky account and only forwards #Mastodon posts to the bridge account. I want a bridge that forwards my M posts to my existing B account, not a new B account. Then all my B followers would see those posts automatically. I wouldn't have to persuade them to follow a second B account to get my M posts.

2. But if I must have a separate bridge account on B, then I want to be able to like and reply to other B posts from that account, not from my direct B account. Then the person I'm liking or replying to might visit my bridge account and follow it.

3. When my M posts on B get replies, likes, or boosts, those are not propagated back to M. I want to follow that activity from M without having to go to B.

4. My direct M posts flow to B. But replies to my M posts don't flow to B. This includes my own replies to my own posts in a deliberate thread. Basically, an M thread doesn't flow to B, just the first post in the thread.

5. When B users have opted in to BridgyFed, then I can follow them on M. But I want to follow any B users from M, without them having to opt in.

6. M allows us to revise posts after posting them. When I revise an M post, I want the revision to flow through to B, preferably as an update to the original bridge copy already on B (not as a new post on B). This would require upgrades to both BridgyFed and B itself.

PoLiTiPeT Jan 16

cc: @snarfed.org : user's feedback ⬆️ from @petersuber @Varpie

Different Than Jan 15

@petersuber Huh. I didn't get the "how to improve" question, I don't think. Of course, it was hard to see what I was getting because the survey is in a tiny iframe that shows about 2 lines at a time.

PoLiTiPeT Jan 15

@guyjantic @petersuber how to improve Bluesky : I answered :

- Add capacity to EDIT posts
- Add integrated polls
- Add support for CW (content warning)

JustSaying Jan 15

@vbuendiar
Yes going to ANOTHER site owned and controlled by a Billionaire is that definition of madness, repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

John Mierau Jan 15

@vbuendiar done.

Michael Busch Jan 15

@vbuendiar @vicgrinberg

I also took that survey.

I mentioned several other social medial platforms as well as Mastodon and Bluesky in my replies.

(Threads, Instagram, Tiktok, etc.)

El Duvelle Jan 15

@vbuendiar I'm glad they're realizing that twitter is dead but yeah, I wish they (and many others journals / websites) stopped forgetting #Mastodon all the time. We exist! We are having fun! No, we (probably) don't have an advertising department that asks everybody to write articles about us but it doesn't mean we should be forgotten!

Thanks for sharing the poll, I've answered it saying that I'm not using either Bluesky or X but am using Masto and I wish they had included it.

#Academia #Research #SocialMedia

Dan Goodman Jan 16

@elduvelle @vbuendiar I think they might feel a bit threatened by the idea that the academic community might just build their own infrastructure making for profit companies irrelevant. 😉

jonny (good kind)Jan 16

@neuralreckoning
@elduvelle @vbuendiar
Imagining inviting Nature to set up an account here and then having to limit them for violating the no promotion of harmful or exploitative grifts rule

Dan Goodman Jan 17

@jonny @elduvelle @vbuendiar 🤣

Tatjana Scheffler Jan 15

@vbuendiar done! Thank you for sharing this. I hope they follow up. #loveMasto

Daniel Marks Jan 15

@vbuendiar Nature is for profit and they do not want to promote federated services lest the readers get ideas regarding academic publishing.

Luke Drury Jan 15

@vbuendiar Thanks for sharing - I have responded stating that I left Twitter for Mastodon and am very happy here!

Adam Jacobs 🇺🇦Jan 15

@vbuendiar Done

Lumiukko Jan 15

@vbuendiar Done. I don't care who currently has more academics, there is no way I'm going to bsky.

@vbuendiar The link to the poll without paywall: https://static-enhanced-content-live.storage.googleapis.com/interactive/2025/bluesky-poll/index.html

Bluesky poll

Nordnick 🐘Jan 15

Seems to be behind a paywall* for me. No option to leave a comment.

* Maybe "just" a registration...

John Faithfull 🌍🇪🇺🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🧡✊🏻✊🏿Jan 15

@vbuendiar done! 👍

Charles J Gervasi ⚡🛡️🥥Jan 15

@vbuendiar Done. I commented that Mastodon is better because there's no risk of it changing as X has.

Winter Trabex Jan 15

Bluesky is just the fad of the moment. It will pass, at which point it will turn into another Facebook / Twitter full of right-wing dreck.

Joris Meys Jan 15

@vbuendiar done, thx for the tip!

Joshua Moerman Jan 15

@vbuendiar Here is a link directly to the poll: https://static-enhanced-content-live.storage.googleapis.com/interactive/2025/bluesky-poll/index.html

(This way, you don't have to log in to view the article. I hope the direct link works for everyone.)

Bluesky poll

@vbuendiar
First:
Last Week, Universities and research institutions leave Platform X - Together for diversity, freedom and science.

https://idw-online.de/de/news845520

Second: Elon Musk buy Bluesky vor 12Mrd. Dollar. yes it's a joke, but it's possible. What lesson have you learned?

https://www.der-postillon.com/2023/10/musk-himmel.html

Hochschulen und Forschungsinstitutionen verlassen Plattform X - Gemeinsam für Vielfalt, Freiheit und Wissenschaft

Furbland's Very Cool Mastodon™Jan 15

@vbuendiar I mean they're on the fediverse whether they like it or not: @nature.com

The Skeptic's Book of Lists Jan 15

@vbuendiar I prefer the 5K character limit inherent in Mastodon. That's for sure. Though for many I guess BS is an easier transition from Musk Twitter. If was, after all, designed to be exactly Twitter before Musk took over.

Vulpine Labs Inc.Jan 15

@vbuendiar mastodon for the win

Volodymyr Jan 15

@vbuendiar how to take a survay whithout getting an account on nature[.]com?

@stefan

Stefan Bohacek Jan 15

@Xen4n @vbuendiar Yeah, this was a bit annoying. But I signed up, I'll just make sure to unsubscribe from everything. It's for a good cause!

Bill Seitz Jan 15

@stefan @Xen4n @vbuendiar even worse - it's Springer

Jocelyn Etienne Jan 15

Hem. Told you I wasn't using Bluesky.

Different Than Jan 15

@vbuendiar I know I'm part of the problem here, but it looks like they only want to hear from me if I make an account.

GAH. I was taken in by the "continue with ORCID" button. After looking that up, a screen or two later it still wants my email and for me to create an account.

OK, I'll create a fucking Nature account. With an email address I can nuke if they get inappropriate.

I hate all of this, but I like the fediverse, so...

I did the poll. It's smashed into a 2-cm window/frame below the text, which just seems like lazy coding, but I did it.

Fediverse, look how I have degraded myself for you.