Ron Gilbert (GrumpyGamer)When Twitter collapsed, it was great to see the flood of friends, game devs and other come to Mastodon. Over the next 9 months a lot of them vanished to Threads, BlueSky or just left. I want to thank all people who are still on Mastodon and make it a wonderful place. You know who you are.
Ged Maheux@grumpygamer Agreed. I lament how many left for Bluesky especially since it’s shaping up to be Twitter part deux.
Andres@gedeonm @grumpygamer Honestly I don't think mastodon was ready in 2022. It feels so much more polished now, so I'm hoping we're better positioned for the pending bsky implosion.
Oblomov@Andres4NY @gedeonm @grumpygamer people moving in now will still have many of the same issues because they are intrinsic to federation (gotta choose the server, nontrivial to find other users until their presence propagates), and Big Names (which are what really moves the crowds) will still dislike how this place is unwelcoming to people with inflated egos, so I have little faith in that a migration now will go significantly different —and I'm actually ok with that.
@oblomov @gedeonm @grumpygamer See, I have to disagree. They changed the signup process to default to mastodon.social to make it easier for the newbs, they're working on the ability to find other users through starter packs (though they hilariously failed to create a usable poll), and I don't think hostility to Big Names is what it used to be. Even the lack of alt text often results in someone doing it for them rather than a lecturing.
@oblomov @gedeonm @grumpygamer I also think that having servers sync threads when you click on them makes mastodon a much less lonely place, too. I click on a toot and like it, and within a few seconds it goes from 2 visible likes to 25, and I can see all the responses.. so rather than looking like a ghost town, I can see a vibrant community of people conversing, and follow people whose responses I like.
@oblomov @gedeonm @grumpygamer Now if they could just hire some proper UI/UX people.. and also improve moderation..
@Andres4NY @gedeonm @grumpygamer but those are conflicting requirements. Dumping every newcomer on mastodon.social makes moderation massively more difficult (there), and redirects resources that would be better spent at improving the software towards management of the “flagship” instance, which is *already* too big for their own good *and* for the good of the Fediverse at large, for example.
Similarly, while new features like backfilling of comment threads are “universally good”,
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@Andres4NY @gedeonm @grumpygamer
other like starter packs or feed gamification (“trending posts”), which may be good to cater to Big Names and clout chasers, are also destructive for the kind of spread-out, organic growth and interaction building which is one of the main factors contributing to making this network less toxic (to many) than the commercial ones.
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