I don't know how useful this will be, but I've compiled a quick start guide, with lots of screenshots, aimed at #humanities #academics who are #NewToMastodon, trying to cover some of the things I see people most frequently getting stuck on in some less technical language than existing documentation.

I've put it on #HumanitiesCommons open for edits and comments so that other folks can help fill out things like useful hashtags.

https://hcommons.org/docs/mastodon-quick-start-guide-for-humanities-scholars/

There seems to be a sentiment circulating that the move from Twitter to Mastodon will make it harder for scholars in the Global South to access academic resources and networks.

Wouldn’t an open source and decentralized service like Mastodon actually increase access? Why should our global public sphere be controlled by one capitalist in the global North? Unless the implication is that GS scholars lack tech literacy, which is patronizing at best.

#ethics #access #Mastodon #twittermigration

Lilienfeld on academia's grant culture:

"Faculty members receive plaudits for receiving grants but frequently find that their scholarly accomplishments go largely unnoticed. These reinforcement contingencies should strike us as odd for several reasons. First, we do not laud novelists or film producers for securing large contracts for their planned projects, nor should we. Instead, we rightly acclaim them if and when they have generated high-quality artistic work" https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616687745

reasons mastodon's "viral dampening effect" is a good thing:

👉🏻 no "main character of the day"
👉🏻 no free text searching for people to get angry at (and harrass)
👉🏻 doomscrolling is *actually bad for you* and not a thing we should be trying to replicate
👉🏻 birdsite's virality is heavily driven by actual paid advertising and bots. You think that "Explore" tab gets its content organically? really? That's not making connections between people, it's about driving sales.

Mastodon is not, and should not be, a 1:1 replacement for Twitter. But it *can* be a new place for you to make valuable connections with other human beings. #twitter #twittermigration