Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.

I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!

@scottjenson @carnage4life threads and bluesky are single monolithic platforms. masto federated. so would likely depend on which masto server someone's posting on i'd guess as a starter...

also, purely anecdotally/for my own part, there's less of a culture of boosting/liking/trying to make things go viral for the algorithm. lack of apparent engagement may not signal lack of people actually reading posts/following links/etc.

@scottjenson @carnage4life "we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!" if they're only coming to see number go up engagement metrics... they may have a hard time. maybe they should come here to, oh i don't know, spread information? have targeted discussions with specific folks (rather than hoping for drive-by engagement)?

@patrick_h_lauke So is the only alternative "number go DOWN" metrics? I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm trying to find a way to have both be possible: how can we keep our soul but still have a diverse community.

My concern is that your comment uses the "we don't want a number go up mentality" argument to hide the fact that our community is a mono culture.

@scottjenson seems like now you're shifting the goalpost. are we talking about "people don't like / fave / reply as much" (engagement) or "people actively tells me they don't want my content here" (and again, on which server are they? that's always an important aspect too)

@patrick_h_lauke Good point, I didn't mean to shift the goal posts! Part of my goal here is to understand the problem better. The original post was superficially about engagement but it was really about how a journalist isn't welcome here on Mastodon. (and people seem to be quite happy about that!)

So yeah, my argument is likely shifting with the replies I'm getting. But I can't believe that asking for 'a big tent' is considered a bad thing.

@scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke I've seen that on every platform I've been on since 2000. Assholes are usually more vocal. But actively being an asshole towards is a problem not just for journalists.