My least favorite thing about Mastodon has always been the unnecessary and snide convention of using “birdsite” when referring to Twitter. I’m not a fan of this sort of winky insider nonsense.

@adamprocter being silly is the point. Mastodon, has an established culture of being silly. Mastodon . Social spent the last few days obsessed with Fat Yoshi emoji. It a way to make something that can be a touchy subject fun.

@12ozbeehouse fair enough, I like silly but I think the comment was about in-jokes. Which I am not a big fan of.

@12ozbeehouse Silly is fine, but I worry that this particular bit of silliness can be a turn-off for new users. I know it was for me (although apparently I got past it :) ).

@jack I can understand that. But I think it is also instructive to see why. I think of birdsite as less of a inside joke and more of an extension of the community’s commitment to content warnings. Lots of the people who shaped mastodon’s culture were run off twitter by hate mobs

@12ozbeehouse Of course that makes sense, and can I understand why it's used that way, but I'd still prefer that it wasn't. Without enough context, it risks coming across the wrong way, and anything off-putting to new users should be avoided. That's the effect it had (and still does) on me, personally.