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.
@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 @patrick_h_lauke
When Twitter went full Nazi Bar, a lot of writers and journalists I followed there came to Mastodon, where I duly followed them.
Within a month, virtually all of them went silent here, but post regularly on Bluesky, where I maintain an account primarily to stake my username.
Since posting on two or more sites is a cut&paste exercise, I don't understand their behavior at all.
When broadcast media was invented, the only way to know if people were listening, then watching, was by sampling surveys.
Now, it's follower counts, or god forbid, boosts and likes. I do *read* print columnists whose opinions I don't like, and I often skip reading ones I do like if the topic holds no interest for me.
Accordingly, I follow a lot of people here, but get more from the posts *they* boost, from people I don't follow.
So there's really no metric feedback for hundreds of posts I read every week, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be publishing here.
I do often boost items I like, but receive virtually no feedback from my small population of followers, whose change in numbers I don't track, but assume if they're still following me, they appreciate, or at least don't hate what I boost. My own posts are mostly whispers into the void (per the feedback), but that doesn't stop me from making them, and I assume they're glanced at the same as I do with what scrolls through my home feed.
So, what they’re looking for is evidence of being seen? Evidence of positive reactions? And without this evidence they’re unlikely to invest their time?
On my first reading of op I thought the primary point was about mastodenizens being less critical of “ai”-philes. Now I’m not sure it was.
If you had to pick, is your point about a cultural dynamic here around “AI” or about engagement metrics?
I was trying to make a point about "any group that doesn't feel welcome" here on mastodon, which you think would be a welcome topic. There are many and it's been widely discussed how a small number of people "tone police" chase off new users. (Spinning up your own instance is a tired and meaningless reply)
Foolishly, I picked an AI journalist as an example which just set off fires. Half the people were mad at me for "pushing AI slop", the other half saying that calling for more tolerance was "letting in fascists". There is no debate to be had with that framing.
I've been told a dozen times to "read the room" which is a pretty ominous warning. It basically admits the problem: there is "a room" of people that 'holds the line' on the right thing to say and believe.
Thanks for the reply. It all makes more sense to me as a commentary on gatekeeping.
@scottjenson sigh this is the reason we can’t have nice things. Sending hugs 🤗
Thank you both. But lets be clear, I didn't do a good job setting up my argument, it was confusing and unclear. I have to own that. My frustration was that I tried to correct the record and just continued to get yelled at.
So then, what sorts of changes “on the ground” would you like to see?
@CptSuperlative
Let's start with a discussion of "how federation is supposed to work". Who is allowed in, when are they banned and when is their server defederated.
Then ask "does this cover most of the bases?" If so, Can we then allow, say journalists in and if they are saying things you don't like, you can just ignore them, let server ban them, etc.
Great, so if we can agree that federation tools to kick out bad people, can we just open the door a TINY amount and let others in and NOT freak out?
I can’t think of any journalists I’ve blocked so I’m probably not your target audience.
That said, I do have a few quixotic axes to grind where my days are better if I’m not seeing certain posts. But I don’t think I generally block for mere disagreement.
So, is this the crux of things?:
If this is your argument, I think I would like to hear more about how this is a real problem for a lot of people.
(I’m probably very far outside the loop and some infamous mastodon stuff just went down that I’m completely ignorant of.)
@CptSuperlative @scottjenson
> Evidence of positive reactions?
For all of them, yes, it's about engagement. Even the ratio doesn't matter, because hate brings in as many or more eyeballs (everywhere but here).
It's not the AI fluffing, it's the attention-seeking that really pisses off people here, where there are tools to *actually* mute them, *and* defederate their Nazi Bars. If it were a couple of years ago, it would have been cryptocurrency or Bored Apes.
Everywhere else, the algorithm keeps them visible.
Scott Jenson
Patrick H. Lauke
RealGene ☣️
Captain Superlative
Marc "ACAB" Godin
Eldritch kcarruthers
rakoo