JohnPhilpin
JohnPhilpin

In all the various debates about open sourcing twitter and alternatives like Parler … not sure why I not read more about Mastadon .. why not? Or am I reading the wrong people?

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jemostrom
jemostrom

@JohnPhilpin or could it be that Mastodon is a bit "messy" and a hard sell to "the masses"

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JohnPhilpin
JohnPhilpin

@jemostrom there is that … but why would you invent a new one .. rather than wack up a mastadon instance?

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jemostrom
jemostrom

@JohnPhilpin I think that the biggest problem with mastodon is to explain what it is and how it works. I wouldn't consider myself technical illiterate but it took me some time to understand how it worked, to form a mental model of it. Compare this to Twitter which is basically "write something and anyone on Twitter can see it and if you're interested in someone just follow them". To this I would add that no client I've tried makes it easy for newbie to use it, they are basically written for those who knows mastodon well.

I'm not saying that mastodon is bad, just that it needs to make these things clearer if they want non-tech users.

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In reply to
pimoore
pimoore

@jemostrom @johnphilpin This right here. Mastodon needs to make it more clear what they offer in comparison to — or do differently than — Twitter, if they want to garner more adoption. Especially from those who already feel like Twitter is the only option.

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SimonWoods
SimonWoods

@pimoore @jemostrom @JohnPhilpin Eh. What do they offer? Why are they better? For anybody other than the enthusiasts who are already using it? And are those people using it that much? Maybe I'm unlucky and only notice when people rediscover the barren instances they set up the last time they got in a huff with Twitter; it reminds me of message boards back in the day.

I'm not confident most people see the value of the social web beyond the basic level of the big silos. Given the way communities can spiral into bad habits, I don't blame them. Even those of us who are enthusiasts are invariably drawn to physical representations of our digital communities, including the middle ground (video and audio calls).

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bradenslen
bradenslen

@pimoore @johnphilpin @jemostrom @simonwoods to me Mastodon is just Twitter with a lot less users. And because of that it's hard to find really diverse people/topics to follow compared to Twitter. It's not bad just not very compelling. Yeah, if Twitter ever became too annoying I'd completely move to Mastodon but it wouldn't be the same.

And breaking up Mastodon instances into topic based communities does not work for me, my interests are all over the place and my micro-posts are too.

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pimoore
pimoore

@bradenslen @johnphilpin @jemostrom @simonwoods The ability to find a community around more specific interests is great, but I agree that it can be challenging to merge with other instances even though that’s the point. The fact it’s a smaller Twitter can be both a hindrance and a feature, depending how you look at it. I genuinely believe Mastodon wants to offer people an open platform for conversation, whereas Twitter only cares about attention and ad revenue.

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hjertnes
hjertnes

@pimoore @jemostrom Mastodon is my primary social network these days, and it have been since early 2020. It is better than Twitter and Micro.blog in most ways.

A lot of people, me included don't want Mastodon to become mainstream, because more people, more problems there will be with having to block instances etc.

What annoys me about all social networks where you post some kind of short blog post without a title is that we still are stuck in this world where we either follow everything a person posts or nothing.

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jemostrom
jemostrom

@hjertnes @pimoore About not wanting to be mainstream: perfectly valid opinion. But if this is a general opinion, it also means that Mastodon isn't a replacement for Twitter and there should be no surprise that people are trying to find another Twitter-replacement.

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bradenslen
bradenslen

@pimoore @johnphilpin @jemostrom @simonwoods I see the point about building smaller communities, It's good and nice to have that option.

Very important is that anyone can start a Mastodon community so that groups that are repressed have a place to communicate and express themselves uncontrolled by governments and corporate suits.

The problem with Mastodon catching on with the person on the street lies partly in the explanation "decentralized, federated, open source, social network" you can see eyes glazing over by the second word. Then you need to find an "instance" (what's that?) and each instance has it's own rules. And if you join the wrong instance can you move and how do you move? It all adds a lot of friction.

But maybe it's best that Mastodon does not go to the lowest common denominator. There's some strange things living in the deepest cellar.

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hjertnes
hjertnes

@jemostrom It could be a twitter replacement for people that are willing to do some work.

I just find the whole notion of replacing something with something that should be identical but better is ridiculous

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eli
eli

@bradenslen @johnphilpin @jemostrom @simonwoods like @hjertnes mastodon is my main, and reall only, social media and has been for a couple years at this point.

I often see folks cite issues with mastodon like the difficulty of explaining its technical nuances to potential new comers...the thing is, as a person on mastodon, I've never seen folks bounce off of it for that reason. There are a lot fewer technical users of mastodon than their are of something like m.b -- they're on mastodon because it is where their community/friends are. The trick isn't one, I think, of explaining arcane technical nuance, instead of it is showing up.The community I've found there is weird, vibrant, and really interested in building a specific kind of place. Twitter offers a space where you just show up and sort of role with the tide, where as on mastodon you are able to shape a network to your interests.

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Gabz
Gabz

@eli "The community I've found there is weird, vibrant," I find this to be very true, and is not a bad thing

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jemostrom
jemostrom

@hjertnes I was probably unclear, I didn't mean to imply that it has to be identical to Twitter, just that it has to be easy to understand and use. With this I mean that people has to feel that it's worth the effort - whatever level that is - compared to what you get out of it. Some are willing to put in a lot of effort, others are less willing. My opinion is that mastodon requires more effort than most potential users are willing to put in, which is just fine, but I think that also limits how successful mastodon will be in the general population - which is also fine. I think we will see other social media alternatives with a lower "entry threshold effort".

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eli
eli

@Gaby 🙌 💯➕❤️

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