the federated nature of it really seems like a worst-of-both-worlds situation to me, not quite a lot of little independent online communities (and the messageboard is still the superior format for that, really) nor the single central website for everyone about all things, but it's trying to be both at once and isn't good at either as a result
― ufo, Monday, 21 November 2022 11:30 (one year ago) link
The challenge for a everyone everywhere platform I guess is: 1) how do you scale so that 'everyone' can be on it and 2) how do you moderate it so that the worst ppl are kicked out.
Mastodon is trying to solve 2), but it probably won't be good enough at 1).
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 21 November 2022 12:15 (one year ago) link
i don't think it's solving 2) because the politics of who's federated with who and different moderation standards and practices seems to get very messy very quickly
― ufo, Monday, 21 November 2022 12:24 (one year ago) link
Agreed.
I think if there were standards and these could be enforced that might be a way of solving 2).
But not at scale.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 21 November 2022 12:34 (one year ago) link
yes all that we need is a technology and a top-down constitution that solves political messiness, no i am not a neolib crackpot
― mark s, Monday, 21 November 2022 12:48 (one year ago) link
People seem to be pushing Hive as an alternative all of a sudden; seems to have a lot of Twitter-like features except you can also add a song to your profile like MySpace (which was my favorite obnoxious feature).
― Chris L, Monday, 21 November 2022 12:56 (one year ago) link
Solve like we did and let mod bots operate. 50 strikes and you are out (one week only) xp
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 21 November 2022 12:57 (one year ago) link
happy I'm not well known like Wesley
"In brief, he's tired of being harassed constantly by random internet people, and the straw that broke the camel's back was getting run out of Mastodon by malicious users reporting his account simply for being there."
https://wilwheaton.net/2018/08/the-world-is-a-terrible-place-right-now-and-thats-largely-because-it-is-what-we-make-it/
― | (Latham Green), Monday, 21 November 2022 14:28 (one year ago) link
I did it: @AlfredS✧✧✧@l✧✧.s✧
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 November 2022 14:36 (one year ago) link
l✧✧.s✧ you say?
― link.exposing.politically (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, 21 November 2022 15:09 (one year ago) link
It must be true.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 21 November 2022 15:47 (one year ago) link
Is Mastodon real?
I rely on Twitter for three professional niches: biology, computer science, and numerical analysis. When I write that “I rely on Twitter,” I mean it. Nearly every collaboration of mine in the past three-four years started on Twitter. It’s been extremely nice to have all three (mostly disconnected) communities on one website. I was skeptical about, despite their rehetoric, whether these communities would move. Yet I feel like the entire biology community (or the subset relevant to me) moved to Mastodon this weekend. Today I see that the computer science community is starting to strongly consider moving. The numerical analysis community? Hopeless. They’ll likely move back to Usenet, if anywhere (this isn’t a joke, they continued to rely on Usenet and Listserv until the late 2010s). I don’t know whether Mastodon will be my new “home,” but I do hope I find one.
― Allen (etaeoe), Monday, 21 November 2022 16:06 (one year ago) link
It's already feeling very comfortable, I have to say.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 21 November 2022 16:28 (one year ago) link
mastodon feels like it can serve the academic niches just fine, i think whatever various media outlets/members of the media choose could become the true twitter heir tho and i think the federatedness of mastodon doesnt lend itself to ease of sharing stuff like that, at least not in its current form
― slai gorgeous-alexander (m bison), Monday, 21 November 2022 16:56 (one year ago) link
Apparently, getting a password reset email has been an impossibility on Mastodon, even prior to the Twitter migration. I'm still logged in on my mobile, but it wouldn't accept my login on desktop, so I was trying to reset due to that. The first time I tried was mid-last week and I haven't received an email from them yet.
The other thing that's been difficult about Mastodon so far is my inability to see who other people are following. For instance, I found someone on Mastodon who I recognized from Twitter and was hoping to poach some of his follows, because there is probably a sizable overlap between the two networks and I thought that it would save me time grabbing all these names again. According to his Mastodon account, he's following 300+ people. But when I click on the list of people he's following, it only shows me 3 people.
― peace, man, Monday, 21 November 2022 17:07 (one year ago) link
yeah to me it seems like 'professional niches' is probably the most likely twittery thing to happen
media / pr outlets and celebs / sports / politicians / "good general punditry" probably not so much
― ꙮ (map), Monday, 21 November 2022 17:10 (one year ago) link
when I click on the list of people he's following, it only shows me 3 people.
The three people you're seeing will be ones who are on the same server as you. This might not be possible on mobile, but on desktop you have to click through to the account's home page on its origin server, then you get a full list of followers/following from all servers.
In general I am enjoying Mastodon (the instance I am on has upgraded their tech so it runs smoothly now), but there are definitely some not-so-user-friendly elements.
― emil.y, Monday, 21 November 2022 17:21 (one year ago) link
I am following you, emil.y, right?
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 21 November 2022 17:23 (one year ago) link
Yep, I'm EK on mastodon.lol - not posting much but hanging out there frequently.
― emil.y, Monday, 21 November 2022 17:29 (one year ago) link
https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/21/tumblr-to-add-support-for-activitypub-the-social-protocol-powering-mastodon-and-other-apps/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9uZXdzLmdvb2dsZS5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAATkfHMi1jSTpSQ_PwB9QsQP0qI4VKRXOkTSsbUFPKqLx3TQ5YDzvZ6RVnSPFoBK5sFl3HkTiNvlou_dc4Nzbk39wb9FJMQTnkOZqNJx-0eJ9i_DYeZu8AA5WxrBZP75wVSytaqSlJ80-WnlYzuprY1YZkGK3p45rvpaA8M4fUqn
― | (Latham Green), Tuesday, 22 November 2022 16:38 (one year ago) link
and here comes sic on his fiery steed
― Fash Gordon (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 22 November 2022 16:40 (one year ago) link
I’m @0x00b1 on @fediscience.org if people want to follow me! I think Ned is the only person I’ve found so far.
― Allen (etaeoe), Tuesday, 22 November 2022 17:01 (one year ago) link
Hi there!
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 22 November 2022 17:23 (one year ago) link
Have seen some actual funny toots today
― death generator (lukas), Monday, 5 December 2022 18:22 (one year ago) link
My COmic SAns version of Moby Dick has been well-received on Mastodon
― | (Latham Green), Wednesday, 7 December 2022 18:33 (one year ago) link
lol
👽 @joinmastodon official account has been banned on Twitter pic.twitter.com/qOSe7nRj2W— Alex Barredo 📉 (@somospostpc) December 15, 2022
― mark s, Thursday, 15 December 2022 23:39 (one year ago) link
This guide should just have a link to this thread.
Here's a beginner 's guide to mastodon, the social network Elon Musk doesn't want you to know about, which you might want to use quite soon.https://t.co/o0XjdxS5v1— Jayati Ghosh (@Jayati1609) December 16, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 16 December 2022 10:48 (one year ago) link
is there an ilx-friendly server?
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 16 December 2022 10:54 (one year ago) link
@TheMoviegoer✧✧✧@d✧✧.commun✧✧✧
But I'd be interested in an ILX-centric server.
― Infanta Terrible (j.lu), Tuesday, 20 December 2022 02:19 (one year ago) link
https://dmv.community/@TheMoviegoeress
Is this better?
― Infanta Terrible (j.lu), Tuesday, 20 December 2022 02:21 (one year ago) link
Yes
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 20 December 2022 13:02 (one year ago) link
i signed up to a server but i'm on a waitlist and they haven't replied and literally every other server i've tried e.g. mastodon.lol has either removed their sign-up page or also operates a wait list :/
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 20 December 2022 14:51 (one year ago) link
I see it as a quiet non-replacement for twitter
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 20 December 2022 14:55 (one year ago) link
the thing that is kind of amazing is how non-commercial it is, at this point at least - not sure if /how that would change
― | (Latham Green), Tuesday, 20 December 2022 17:18 (one year ago) link
Yeah, I think .lol is off-limits for a while. The guy who owns the servers has been overwhelmed.
― emil.y, Tuesday, 20 December 2022 17:21 (one year ago) link
try ravenation.club
― | (Latham Green), Tuesday, 20 December 2022 18:06 (one year ago) link
nicei found one btw
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 20 December 2022 21:08 (one year ago) link
https://www.ft.com/content/de808736-2e05-4c3b-a53c-55b170ae9efd
Interesting - but can anything gold stay
― | (Latham Green), Friday, 30 December 2022 17:58 (one year ago) link
wikipedia has. in fact i've just sent my annual donation.
― Fizzles, Friday, 30 December 2022 18:37 (one year ago) link
I have read a few pieces pretty critical of their funding drives ie,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12/02/wikipedia-has-a-ton-of-money-so-why-is-it-begging-you-to-donate-yours/
― | (Latham Green), Friday, 30 December 2022 21:19 (one year ago) link
sure, i mean i think the criticisms there are fairly benign, but i get the messaging can be aggressively needy in tone. it was more to your original point – 'can anything gold stay'. assuming that anything needs some sort of revenue to run, and if you don't want wealthy individual philanthropy backing it, or private business owning it, that means donations if the answer is going to be 'yes'. for me, wikipedia remains an extraordinary enterprise from the early days of the internet, extraordinary partly because it exists, but partly too because it's endured – that's the 'gold' part of the equation. it's a resource I use regularly, at least once a week, probably more like once a day, so putting in a yearly donation seems right, ensuring it can can continue to endure – that's the 'stay' part of the equation.
― Fizzles, Friday, 30 December 2022 21:51 (one year ago) link
I too kick a few bucks in Wikipedia's direction every now and then, in gratitude that there's at least one major resource on the internet that's not trying to suck me dry of data in order to enrich some amoral billionaire dickhead.
― Zelda Zonk, Friday, 30 December 2022 22:15 (one year ago) link
it's an interesting dilemma - I am happy the Internet Archive is so steadfastly non-profit. There are so many people who are willing to work for free because they believe in something. Much money to be made in things like Chat GPT but then some impertinent upstart offers a free open source version. I have donated this year to internet archive and probably will to my mastodon instance
― | (Latham Green), Tuesday, 3 January 2023 15:38 (one year ago) link
so have i got this right?
home: just people i followlocal: everybody on that serverfederated: everybody on that server plus everybody they follow
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 3 January 2023 23:07 (one year ago) link
two months from now i'll come back with another extremely basic question, fyi
no this is helpful, speaking as someone who is not yet on it
― sleeve, Tuesday, 3 January 2023 23:10 (one year ago) link
home and local: yes that's right federated is all posts on all servers that your server has sight of (though maybe that's effectively the same as what you just said)
― mark s, Tuesday, 3 January 2023 23:25 (one year ago) link
just got a reply from chris 'blondie' stein.yeah, i aint leaving 'don.
― mark e, Thursday, 12 January 2023 19:13 (one year ago) link
also, i genuinely enjoy the low level laid back vibes of the place ..
A distinct plus
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 12 January 2023 20:18 (one year ago) link