I have been trying to think of ways of making the Fediverse more Friendly and Welcoming.
To people outside the Fediverse.
To people thinking of joining the Fediverse.
To people who recently joined the Fediverse.
And more.
...
What do YOU think could make the Fediverse more Friendly and Welcoming?
(Reply with your answers.)
#Fediverse #FriendlyFediverse #SpreadFediverse #WelcomingFediverse
if we had 100% portability, we should have an intro server. only allow people on there for a couple months but we could give it extra moderation and hand holding. everybody would know to give these folks an extra level of consideration.
@reiver The culture here can be pretty toxic. Too much gate-keeping, tone policing, scolding people instead of leading by example.
And without reply controls, no tools to protect yourself from this.
@David @reiver Tutorials…is there someplace where all these are currently housed? Because I haven’t a clue where that is and I’ve been using Mastodon for about 2 years. But yes, it would be fabulous if there were videos someplace that walked us thru the early experiences of starting.
Also, yes, a lot less tech speak. Use $2 words instead of $10 words. I’m in my 70s and I did sort of figure it out, still learning, but it could have been easier.
@kentuckyalumni There is no "official" tutorial but there are a bunch online. Few are actually useful, sadly.
@David Ah, I will admit I don't follow the project closely enough, I just see it come up a lot, and it seems to cover a wide breadth of topic in a beginner-friendly way.
Although, I will say, the bridge does have some utility, given that it also works with Blacksky and other non-Bluesky communities, as they progress towards independence from Bluesky.
@kentuckyalumni You're very welcome!
@reiver host a small instance for your community - whether that means your city, friends, family, interest group, whatever.
Prioritize community interests and act as a reliable onramp to the rest of the Fediverse.
how do you stop somebody from creating bots to fuck with that?
the fedi kinda relies on having a small network of trust and not having to care about the trustworthiness of those outside of that. jerks can be on the network and it doesn't affect me as long as I don't follow them or anybody that boosts their jerky posts and there's a system to keep them from being able to harass me.
we lock down the network unnecessarily when we extend trust too far. a block might be personal etc.
imo it's an insurmountable problem if you care about being decentralized. if you try to hide or sidestep it, you open the door to centralization. I think we're seeing that with bluesky.
I think you have to address it directly. make education and why we're decentralized into part of the messaging.
"we're different and that might make us more difficult, but we've chosen this path because it matters. for you as a person and society at large. our attention determines everything."
that's what the mastodon org is going to do. I think that's our best possible model, but it might not ultimately be mastodon. I could see most people on locality based servers that give you the mastodon social news feed functionality, but also stuff like you might want from Next Door. I hope Roundabout does this.
@reiver A wider diversity of project code bases, that are real world functional for needed community use.
Definitely better onboarding. Based on my own experience and when I had my wife sign up, these are the things that comes to mind:
1. Explain why you need to sign up on a server, and why you may benefit from signing up on a server that aligns with your interests. A way to pre-filter servers based on a few checkboxes would be great.
2. Explain how there is no algorithm, and that you only start to see content in your feed after you start following others. Starter packs would be a huge difference here, so that should have a very high priority.
3. Explain how moderation works, how to contact your server admin, how to block other users and how to make this a safe space for yourself.
4. Explain how not agreeing with others does not make them unwanted here, as long as they do not actively try to harass you or otherwise interact with you. Nobody owns this - and that includes you.
5. Oh, and lets create a USB disk image that anyone can run from an old laptop and host their own Mastodon, Lemmy, PeerTube, Friendica and Bonfire instance for their family to use. Easy-peasy. 😉
I had no idea this existed! 😀
That being said, this describes the problem with onboarding perfectly.
1. I had no idea that this existed, so it is not unreasonable to assume that this goes for a lot of other newcomers as well.
2. It is a list. You can search it, but it is all just in one big pile with no structure or sorting. Search for "politics" and get two results - and I kid you not, one of them is "Shitposters of the Fediverse".
I count 5 SPD-related starter packs that are not shown when I search for "politics", probably because the search feature only looks at the description of the starter pack.
I appreciate the effort, I truly, really do, but it is nowhere near a usable solution for some innocent newbie with huge eyes and trembling hands. They will take one look at that huge pile and run right back to Facebook.
@reiver ⊼ (Charles) 
william.maggos
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urig
Daniel
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EnQueued
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