Roger Whitson
I don't quite get instances. How do they work? I saw some account that listed octodon as an instance? :/
Apr 6, 2017 at 1:32pmWeb
Show threadJeffrey MoroApr 6, 2017

@rogerwhitson the best metaphor I've seen so far is to think of them like email providers—everyone's got their own @whatever.com email but we can all still email each other?

I agree rn that for the most part instances feel pretty arbitrary. I've seen some affinity ones but I wonder how long individual servers will last, depending on moderator interest & $$$ upkeep.

Show threadRoger WhitsonApr 6, 2017
@jeffreymoro I think it's potentially good long term and for the overall network, but yeah, there's a question as to how these individual instances will persist.
Show threadscott_botApr 6, 2017
@rogerwhitson @jeffreymoro I originally thought, perhaps, we should all be running our instances on our own servers - but we clearly don't do that with email. But as with email, if this model succeeds, some trustworthy instances will emerge.
Show threadRoger WhitsonApr 6, 2017
@scott_bot @jeffreymoro I do like that it is more distributed.
Show threadJeffrey MoroApr 6, 2017
@rogerwhitson @scott_bot I imagine the real test of the tech is if there emerges an easily portable way to hop instances if one isn't being properly maintained, or a new affinity instance opens up—e.g. if Amanda has luck setting up digitalhumanities.club. We can export the folks we follow & our toots, but not those who follow us, which seems like a tricky gap rn.
Show threadRoger WhitsonApr 6, 2017
@jeffreymoro @scott_bot See, I stopped using Slack that much, even though I really liked it when it came out.
Show threadJeffrey MoroApr 6, 2017
@rogerwhitson @scott_bot I've def had a hard time getting past the business-y affect on Slack. The DH one is a great resource & I know plenty of folks who make it work for friend groups but there always felt something a little off about it for me.
Show threadMatt SchneiderApr 6, 2017
@rogerwhitson @jeffreymoro Yeah, this will be fascinating to see play out. In theory this is the same problem that email faces, but email has never had to deal with the expectations that we have for social media, which I think will lead to frustration for some users, but will hopefully be dealt with productively in general.
Show threadMatt SchneiderApr 6, 2017
@rogerwhitson @jeffreymoro I also wouldn't be surprised if we start to see people sorting out how to uproot instances and set them up elsewhere in case of a massive failure, but I guess that could be really tricky depending on how the linking of instances works.
Show threadRoger WhitsonApr 6, 2017
@jeffreymoro Having said that, I've felt a little out of the loop with Twitter for a while and not able to get back into it. So maybe I just need a clean slate with something like this - if it sticks around.
Show threadSamuraiLink3Apr 6, 2017

@rogerwhitson Think of mastadon like email. There are lots of email providers (gmail, yahoo, outlook, etc), but you can send and receive email to and from anywhere.

Same thing here. You have an account on an "instance" or a mastodon server, but it speaks the same language as the others, so we can talk to anyone else running the same type of software.

Show threadRoger WhitsonApr 6, 2017
@samurailink3 ah! that's pretty cool. thanks!
Show threadJohn WalterApr 6, 2017
@rogerwhitson Your local timeline represents the accounts hosted on the same server (instance) as your account, while the Federated timeline represents the larger Mastodon ecosystem.
Show threadRoger WhitsonApr 7, 2017
@johnpwalter Thanks! It's a brave new world!