The official Mastodon app is doing something new which is potentially very dangerous to the existence of Mastodon and the Fediverse.
The official Mastodon app now prompts users to join mastodon.social by default, when previously it prompted them to pick a server. If you're new this may sound harmless, but let me explain.
There is technically still an option on the official app to "pick my own server", but it's much harder to read or notice, and new users will probably click the mastodon.social button without even understanding the other button.
Mastodon.social just passed 1 million registered users about a week ago, out of a total network of approx 7 to 11 million users (dependiing on how you count them).
Most of these users probably signed up via the official app.
For the first time ever, the most common way to sign up on the Fediverse is now directing people to sign up on one specific server, rather than making them choose.
This will make mastodon.social grow even more quickly than it has before, and future waves of new Mastodon users may end up mostly there. It's very plausible this one server could become the majority of the Fediverse in the near future.
If that happens, the Fediverse would no longer be protected from buyouts by nasty people.
Yes, signing up on one server is much easier for people who are used to centralised services like Twitter, Facebook etc.
But as we have seen from Twitter, such a setup leaves you at the mercy of Musk-type takeovers. For-profit social networks do not like federation, they hate it as they see it as competition. It is very likely that a commercial takeover of a majority server would defederate it, to prevent people leaving and simplify its maintenance.
This is not an attack on Eugen, I don't do those. Most of what @Gargron does is amazing, the Fedi owes him a great deal, and the fact he turned down large sums of VC money recently shows great integrity.
But eventually most people in that position will crack. Ever larger sums of money can make even the nicest people sell out.
If most of the Fediverse is on mastodon.social, it WILL receive more takeover bids. If it grows even further, these bids will become even higher.
2. Tell people to sign up on the website. Mastodon's official site at https://joinmastodon.org is still asking people to choose a server, and is very professionally laid out. (I've also got my own amateurish effort at https://fedi.garden.)
I feel like this is the same pains we feel in the WordPress space. OS let's forking happen. This might happen. Who knows. But thanks for a great thread.
I started on Mastodon.social, but always planned that to be a temporary thing. Just stayed long enough to figure out Mastodon and then find a server that I liked.
How about replacing the mastodon.social button with a "random server" button to put them on any general-purpose instance that has open registrations? That should spread people around more @Gargron
I've watched people here saying "we need to simplify the sign up process, to get more people onto Mastodon" Doesn't this help do this this, while also providing a way for people to just as easily pick their own server? Your thoughts, people 🙇♂️🙏❤️....
I appreciate your being careful to make this about the fediverse, not Mastodon or Eugen.
Here's why I welcome the change.
We are losing *so many* users to server choice. I only have anecdata and wish I had more. But just last night, a tech product manager emailed me his whole list of hobbies and interests, saying he was "at a loss" for how to join Mastodon.
If we don't grow the fediverse now, centralized competitors will win and nothing will change. (1/2)
I reckon this problem could be fixed at the code level by using the SOLID project from Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Actually I'm surprised that Mastodon hasn't jumped onboard already. His solution would effectively transfer data ownership to every user, who could host his data anywhere and then authorise what applications can access it. It would ruin once and for all the "American way" of corporate-bully culture.
I think this is a good thing. Choosing a server is hard. Really hard. I first picked a server that ended up going away (I got locked out because their 2FA stopped working and couldn't migrate my account out, and the admin got sick and stopped running it). Then I tried mastodon.social. And that was when I actually started really using mastodon. Finally I found a server that fit me, I knew the admins, etc, and I moved to THAT.
This design choice was probably made because they found that when forced to choose a server, many people just give up and don’t join Mastodon at all. Maybe they could still offer a button that picks the server for you but it’s chosen at random from all the general instances on joinmastodon.org
One great solution would be a rotating server suggestion based on a dynamic independent list of open servers. Users would get their easy choice, but they'd be distributed. Should be really easy to implement.
worst case scenario it ends up like email is at the moment we are technically anybody can set up a server but don't expect your messages to be delivered reliably if you're not with one of the top five biggest servers run by major corporations (because spam filtering) anybody who is tried to set up their own email server will understand why this is an issue
I desperately hope this kind of thing doesn't happen to activitypub/Mastodon
I agree with Fedtips and understand those who say it's difficult for some users to choose a server. I chose Mastodon.social without knowing what it was and whether it was a good server. The solution seems to be a program that would rotate the servers. Rotation will ensure that all servers get the same amount of users.
I see the issue, but at the same time, this is an attempt to make joining Mastodon less confusing and you're just saying "don't do it" rather than "here is a better way to achieve this goal." I mean, you could just give people a randomized instance, but then you run the risk that some people wind up on crap instances.
Honestly I don't see this as an issue, in fact I welcome it.
It's like Linux, want to get more involved or dig deeper? You have ton of options!
Want to just use your PC and not be bothered by the OS? Install Ubuntu like the vast majority of users.
Asking too many questions or choices is an immediate negative for most people, having an easy default is great! It wasn't the end for Linux to have it, and it won't be the end for the Fediverse!
Not to mention so many instances block mastodon.social because of poor moderation and abuse, which means all these new people will be missing out on some of the most informative and diverse voices of the Fediverse without even realizing it.
IMHO, the website is better than any app. You get the full functionality of Mastodon, and the site is coded to display really well as a mobile webpage. I tried using like 3 different apps, not liking any of them. Why? Because I've been trained to assume the mobile webpage is dogshit.
Then I finally had the notion "what if I look at a mobile webpage?" IT'S REALLY GOOD.
Valid points, but consider Mastodon org ≠ fediverse. Open-source tech, but org shouldn't guide the whole fediverse. Mastodon's app focusing on their servers makes sense. Users can still choose other servers/apps. Reducing friction for newcomers is a fair trade-off, especially with account migration. Helps catch Twitter fall-off. [1/2]
Just an off-the-cuff idea that I haven't really thought about. What about an initial sign-up where people are randomly assigned an instance as their home? Then, as they learn more about Mastodon, they could move to another instance later?
I'm on .social but when I signed up it wasnt via the app it was on my PC, and I didnt understand how it works so just went with what seemed like the default.
My first thought on reading this is that I should move servers. Perhaps a push to get people already on .social to move would help?
So what can be done? Join PeopleCount.org. Support building a way to break out of the current paradigm of politics, including taking power away from the wealthy and the parties, and naturally empowering unity.
Mastodon is good. But it's designed to communicate without profit, not to actually fix anything. It's a piece of a good future. But PeopleCount is designed to deliver that future.
Throwing my two cents in the hat: I think this is a necessary temporary measure to improve the onboarding process. There's no way around it: putting this complexity upfront to new users is daunting.
Educating them on how to move their account afterwards and having that process be seamless is the way to go, imho.
Honestly don’t see the problem. The official app is free to recommend its own instance if it wants to, just as other apps can promote their own. There’s nothing to stop people from switching instances or in fact making their own apps.
step in the right direction. Get the users into the network with as few hurdles as possible. Having to choose server is a pain in the ass and introduces uncertainty for the users. Directing all to the same server is not ideal but still better than having to chose a server without knowing wtf a server is and what the consequences are
this is also just so easy to fix. just reword it to [join mastodon.social] and [pick my own server (recommend)] or even just flipping the colours around. that way you still allow for the easy "just put me in the largest server" option, while at the same time encouraging a large and diverse federation.
I’m no computer expert nor programmer, but I have a question; is it possible to automatically “split” a server into smaller ones as soon as it becomes too big? If it’s transparent to the user, then it would solve this issue, no?
👆 Well-meaning thread without a doubt - but unfortunately one that entirely misses the point that most users of anything, including social media, A. are not tech savvy, B. shouldn't have to be, and C. are focused on the outcome, not the process.
It's definitely correct that concentration increases vulnerability, but the remedy isn't to change the users - it's to give them the best possible entry & path to the preferable solution. This is what we/the 'verse must do.
@Gargron …perhaps it can be as simple as…just a landing page with the ?most capable? 3-5 instances and then a selection of “I know what I’m doing let me pick.”
The points of concern being (in no particular order); That the instances in the list are/can take large amounts of new users gracefully and/or have capacity to support them. These can be updated/changed over time. And that the mobile app has only a small amount of real estate to work with.
It's super unclear to a new user what the significance of the server is and they need a reasonable default option to use prior to really knowing what it means.
Is there a trustworthy way to do load balancing and spreading across open servers? Make the default "the lightest loaded non-dead instance in my preferred language" rather than any particular server but still provide a default.
I signed up where I did just because it was neither full nor empty.
Reading the issue, there seems to be 2 different goals : - People who want as much users on Mastodon as possible -> let's make the onboarding really easy. - People who want to keep it spread and federated.
I’ve tried *many* Fedi apps and I keep coming back to the ‘official’ one. Most of the third party apps have implemented *something* in a way that is really annoying. Most common seems to be the way hashtags work - key functionality for me is indicating which hashtag is the most used one. If it doesn’t give me an idea of how much a specific one is used I won’t have a clue which one people might actually be following…
I would be much happier if people could join multiple instances and accounts were not tied to one home instance. In this case the default instance could more easily funnel people to other smaller and more specialized instances. Users would have people to talk to while waiting for their applications to private instances to be approved or denied. The current migration process is off-putting.
If the size of the default instance becomes unmanageable, idle members could be auto-culled.
mastodon.social The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit
And the next one is mstdn.social
I see no real difference here — you afraid of concentrating people on a single server without choice. But new people will surely tend to choose the 1st or the 2nd one, even while they have a choice.
I'll be perfectly honest with you, I get what you're saying but as a new user I wish this was there for me. It was very confusing when I first signed up to the point I almost gave up on it. I picked Social because all the big names seemed to be here & I didn't understand how the system works with other servers.
There needs to be more focus to explain the system & simplify the process or people are going to move past Mastodon. Just my two cents as a newbie, I could be wrong.
Let this go. Making it easier for people to join Mastodon will only benefit the network. Once they land, they can then move if they choose to. Such ideological frenzy will only get in the way of this platform being all that it can be. The Fediverse, by nature, is not 'pure.' So let's not try to purify it.
Coming from 25+ years of using email, usenet, IRC-- all things where you have to "pick a server"-- that part of joining Mastodon didn't phase me.
BUT I really picked the wrong server for me the first time around, then went through two more before finding the one I really feel at home on.
Get people in the door. They can worry about picking a server after they get their feet wet.
And while they won't be able to port all their posts (because of AP), they will be able to move their accounts to new servers if/when Eugen finally sees enough zeroes on the check.
@Gargron I do think this could be easily mitigated by just using the nasty trick some websites do with the cookie consent notification and make the “Pick my own server” button the one that’s on top and more visible.
It still would leave the option for a simple solution for those who want it but makes picking a server the default and the first thing people see.
@Gargron There's something to be said for signup simplicity. However, in order to maintain federation stability, perhaps the app could assign less-used servers automatically?
no no please do attack him, he's been twitterifying Mastodon for too long and people needs to oust him and stop treating upstream Mastodon as the holy bible of ActivityPub before he ruins it completely.
makes me glad I'm holed out on world than social. I am a bit worried about the app though, I don't want to switch to tooot just because I much prefer the UI of this app...
Scratching my head here. I’m neither technically proficient nor especially patient. I heard Mastodon was “hard,” only to find out it isn’t, including choosing a server. It really isn’t hard but that’s what I keep hearing.
As a newbie to Mastodon, I found this series of posts very helpful. I understand now the importance of migrating to another server but I am still confused about it. A server is different from a Group? Will I still be able to see the folks I am following? It changes what I see under "Local" and "Federated," right? Or the navigation also changes? Sorry for the barrage of newbie questions :\
Somehow, that doesn’t seem right to me. I like having a large variety of servers, each with their own personality. I’m not a Scot, but I wouldn’t give up the friendliness and earthiness of .scot for anything.
Oh wow, that is very sad. There should probably be an artificial cap on the size of the server if technically they can grow so much because someone is skilled in running it well on one server.
Maybe #Mastodon is taking lessons from #Microsoft. They used to have a teeny, tiny #button (well, a link, really) to skip the automatic update to Microsoft Windows 10.
On the other hand, statements from someone that I respect, who spent a long time on twitter but finally joined us here, have said, after having spent many months here, that they still believe that the onboarding problem is real.
Don't take me wrong, I agree with you on everything you said. I'd rather see less people join the Fediverse than seeing more centralisation around m.s. But if the goal is to bring more people in, something like this needs to be done.
Perhaps an option would be for instances to make their own application (which would just be one of the common applications, but branded to their instance).
That way, if you wanted to join mstdn.social, you just download the mstdn.social application.
A lot of people these days don't know the difference between an application and a website anyway, so this may actually be more in line with expectations.
@feditips maybe it's a bad idea, but would be nice that the official app asked for topics you are interested in ( like other social media platforms do when you sign up). And then showed you a list of servers that for in that category.
After a bad experience with a terrible mod, who nuked my last account without warning or explanation, I've temporarily joined mastodon.social so I can have reasonable confidence in rebuilding a following without fear of being shut down again, then potentially migrate the new account/following around the fedi.
I've also syndicated longer posts using Hubzilla, to which I've installed ActivityPub so it's interoperable with Masto. Nomadic identity, baby. Shut me down now! 😎
I suspect @Gargron is trying to address the UX problems Mastodon has.
(And there are a lot of UX problems.)
I've been doing a lot of UX testing of various parts of the Fediverse (including Mastodon).
I think @Gargron has definitely (also) noticed one of the UX problems — having to choose a server causes many people to give up and abandon the sign up process.
Of all the *real* issues out there, people “maybe” signing up to one particular Mastodon instance instead of another is actually worth cold-sweating about?
The whole 'pick your server' has been one of the complaints to get non-tech people on board, so I very much welcome this. You can still pick another server but at least to non-tech users have a clear way forward.
Hmm. I don't know. I agree with everything you say here about the need to avoid one server becoming too big, but at the same time the "pick a server, any server" stage at onboarding has proved to be too much of a hurdle for far too many non-techie users. Perhaps this really is the least worst workaround for that—make one server a "welcome" server and then let people move once they've got in and had a chance to get used to it?
There's also the moderation issue where some instances are "too big to fail" and you can't just defederate from them fully because too many people, including some friends, are there. So intentionally funnelling everyone there rather than trying to diffuse that as much as possible is not a good thing.
I'm not technical but isn't this a flaw in Mastodon's basic functionality? It should be tweaked so that it has a tendency towards many smaller servers, that the disincentive to increase the size of a server gets exponentially stronger as the server grows.
Eugen literally said in one of his recent big interviews, that instance diversity is "historical" and he sees no alternative to default servers. Of course, his default servers.
When I read it, it was clear to me in which direction Mastodon is heading. The app is just the beginning.
Mastodon's decentralization is key to safeguarding free speech and preventing greedy centralization (which is what happens right in front of us now). Central servers can easily become susceptible to censorship, surveillance, and data abuse. By supporting Mastodon's diverse community of servers, we can ensure that power remains decentralized and accessible to all. Let's prioritize decentralization over greed!
I quit twitter and joined here when Elon started messing with the CBC. I had/have no idea how this thing works and wouldn't know what picking a server means. The first time I heard Fediverse was about 3 days ago.
There is an obvious solution that strikes me that would keep the clear "Give Only One Big Featured Choice to Users" - that I agree with, *AND* that distributes users away from one centralized server alone. Which I also empathize wiith.
That would be to round-robin which server gets that central place every X days. And set the standard for quality of service, clear branding, etc, to get that spot.
You're right that it's a risk of centralization, but OTOH it's hard to expect users to make a decision about their server before even knowing what that is and what are the implications.
Maybe the app could suggest one of 3-5 top servers at random?
That's very strange, he said recently in the interview with The Verge that he doesnt want to be in that situation "where a single node is much, much bigger than the other ones" explaining the nature of decentralized social network and the process of sing up..Some changes like the possibility to even register in mastodon.social are for a brief period of time, lets hope this is the case. Maybe a strategy to accelerate the growth in front of the new options to the birdsite.
Had I not heard @Gargron talk about this with Nilay Patel, I'd go straight to agreeing. I agree with his belief this'll ease people getting in the door, after which they'll be inclined to transfer elsewhere.
That strikes me as a bad step and also going against the Federated idea. I thought the idea was a multiplicity of servers of different interests and textures.
This move seems definitely a desire for monopolization.
i think that this move could be a good way for people to join the app/ site off rip. We, as a larger community, should encourage users to make more accounts on different servers.
Overall, the more people that join the app would be best for everyone involved
I definitely see the concerns though. And I also agree that this move kind of goes against the idea of mastodon, but the platform still gotta grow somehow
nononononono @Gargron why??? I understand that this makes it easier for people to join for people who don't know what the fediverse is and how it works, but come on. Why mastodon.social? Why not show a random server that complies with some rules like the ones you have on joinmastodon.org? Or why not make a contest, or a voting or something else? mastodon.social already is big and this will just harm the fediverse in the long term
New people should have the option of being randomly assigned from a curated list by default, determined by locale (eg Canadians get send to social.coop or mstdn.ca). Promote mastodon.social as a secondary option from their app, sure.
I understand the concern, but so long as the option for instances to exist within Mastodon it shouldn't be a problem. I hope this is just a way to make things easier for tech illiterate people. Once Mastodon makes it harder for new Instances to exist with it THEN the alarms should go off.
I understand the plight, but everyone I know tries Mastadon, sees they need to choose a server and give up. It’s lacks clarity and it’s a step that doesn’t provide clarity as to why it exists. It’s where I paused and searched to figure out what I should choose, only to timidly choose the most common option as I don’t know any better. Perhaps improving ways to migrate servers would ease issues later on.
I guess I wonder why small-instance admins aren't seeking out and inviting people they think would be good fits for their instance's culture. From among the already-signed-up I mean.
This is a concern, but if it helps to know that @ addresses are visible on posts and people who want to explore will probably investigate what are those funny other addresses. People who are not set for this exploration deserve a soft landing. Perhaps they should offer a default @trail.mastodon.social that eventually you have to leave if you do not feel ready to choose a server yet…
@chad I don't think that's a bad idea, the whole "omg which server do I choose" is a frequently cited barrier to entry. Makes sense that the creator of the app would default to a server they control and can be reasonably certain will provide new users as good as an experience as they can get (e.g. a server that isn't overloaded and doesn't have weird moderation rules).
Once people are used to the service they can move their accounts if they want.
Disagree. People can be paralyzed with indecision when there are too many choices, especially when they don’t really know how Mastodon works yet. I definitely agonized over choosing the “right” instance last winter, so I just gave up on that and went with mastodon.social, and it was freeing and allowed me to jump in. It’s helpful. After a few weeks, I knew what I was doing. I planned on migrating, until I found out my previous posts don’t come with me. We need to fix THAT.
I don't have a problem with the official app directing people to the project's main instance. But the "Pick my own Server" button should be given similar contrast.
I had an account I never used years ago on an instance that disappeared without notice. When I signed up for THIS account I purposely chose the Mastodon project's main server to hopefully avoid my instance disappearing on me again.
Some people are confused by having to choose a server and just give up.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I 100% agree with your assessment.
I really hope this was a honest mistake (maybe some misunderstood usability concern?) and they will revert this change. mastodon.social is NOT the "default instance" and never was. While it's large, many Mastodon users live on a different instance (me included). That's a feature, not a bug.
Might be interesting read, I am absolutely sure there is no bad intentions and it also isn't set in stone. Compelling arguments will be heard, I would bet a lot on this 😀
I get what you're driving at, but on the other hand, a perennial problem with Fedi is adoption rate. Having a proven server available by default helps increase that adoption, like a tutorial.
@trinsec I agree with the post but I think they're trying to do everything that they can to "make it easier for newbies". Yes, it's a mistake, but I don't know if there are better solutions for them yet. It is definitely the easy way out of that problem though.
That is worrisome. It might be just a gut feeling, but I'd be much more comfortable if the highlighted server were a temporary, 3rd party instance that requires a move in say, 3 months or so.
no, you’re wrong. What’s harmful is making mastodon difficult to sign up for by the average user, therefore deterring potential new users, pushing them to yet another propriety twitter clone. We need people to use FOSS social media for the first time, and then teach them how it works, not the other way around.
I'm really 50/50 about this. On one hand I can absolutely see how this is/can be a problem. On the other hand, the server selection stuff has been one of the biggest problems for adoption. So I don't know the solution. Is the solution to say "fk those people that can't handle the server stuff"? I don't know. Does the email "protocol" have issues because major players own most people's emails? Yes, because small email providers are often blocked or marked as spam.
@donmelton One solution to the problem could be replacing the “join mastodon.social” button with a “help me pick a server” button. This could open a wizard with a few questions about the users interests, etc, and then end with a list of a few appropriate server options? This could solve the overwhelming amount of choice, without directing new users to any one particular server
Pick my own server ---- or ---- Join mastodon.social
Then it would be better. And "Pick my own server" should be highlighted by default. Otherwise, not that bad for a quick start, because you can change anytime later, but, to get the thing behind the #fediverse and first read about it, you are more concerned with the matter, when you have to choose a server from the start, without easy clicking.
I think this is primarily a UX problem. New users that do not know much about how the fedrigeres works, are discouraged from joining at the step of selecting their instance. The recommendations / discovery of instances does not really help. I’ve seen this myself. Offering a default is a good approach - maybe switch the two buttons. New users should not be driven away - neither because it is not clear ho to continue nor because a necessary focus on diversity.
"Pick my own server" makes the impression of picking an *own* server, so most people will skip that. That's really not how things should be, why did the choose these words? It should be "Pick another server" instead. #Mastodon
This isn't harmful at all – no more so than the existence of the Mastodon app itself.
It's just an "easy mode" for people to sign up without having to understand a bunch of stuff first. Good for people who have heard of Mastodon and gone to the app store and typed in "Mastodon" without doing all this homework people think they should be doing.
As they learn, they might make different decisions. Or not! (I've stuck around on .social)
I see a lot of people think this is a good thing. And that users will start there and then move away. Have you met people?! People don't post their contents on a server, just so they leave it behind and go to another one. Not to mention saying "pick my own server" make user think its for server admins/owners.
What if after a while the app become exclusively for mastodon.social? Is that ok too? what of mastodon.social become popular and then unfederated?
People who've never used Mastodon are the *least* equipped to choose a server. They have no idea what different servers are like or where the people they're interested in will turn out to be. It stopped me from joining for years. Within months of joining I could see where my friends were, what I liked, and what it meant to be on a specific instance, and move.
This makes joining easier. Moving should be easier too.
I agree with what you are saying here, Perhaps the reasoning is to address the confusion people were reporting. Perhaps something like "you can move data to another instance at a later date" needs to be added. So people are aware they can do that.
I see it personally with the other eye, when I made a friend discover mastodon I told her to choose a server and she literally answered me « what is a server? « , I think it’s rather good for people who don’t know computer science to go to mastodon without taking the lead.
I posted a whole rant about server choice just an hour before finding about this change. I agree that forcing new users to the same monolithic instance is a terrible idea, but I also think "Welcome new user who doesn't yet know anything about this place, choose a server now, here are a thousand options" is a big obstacle.
What I'd suggested was rather just assigning a nearby instance, maybe based on geolocating IP address or something, and if that doesn't give a satisfactory result, then have them enter a few interests and use that as a keyword search on instance descriptions. The choice is a good thing, but it's also a huge mental block for new users. Migration is fine, and people should be actively encouraged to find the right instance, but not while they're still trying to figure out if they even want to be here.
I see your concern, but easy usage for new people is also quite important. The complexity of servers is one of the main complaints of new users. So I think this change is good.
Important topic! I’ll try to write a blog response later to do it justice, but in short:
I support Mastodon’s move here. The risks you mention just aren’t the same with open source software.
If this change led to Mastodon having 100 million users this year, that’d still be a net positive for the fediverse and the open web, in spite of Mastodon’s non-ideal outsize influence.
At the slightest hint of bad practice on Mastodon’s end, we could switch clients, move, or fork.
I feel like this will just kill mastodon.social faster too, because it's already borderline unmanageable, and in the process, souring the experience for everybody who's in there and don't know they can move out
One of the most often mentioned complaints by people is onboarding to Mastodon is the cognitive load of needing to choose a server. Making it easier for them to use mastodon.social might seem problematic, but it may be an acceptable UI tradeoff to bootstrap the network at first.
While I appreciate the point you're making here, I don't think the right answer is to simply return to the old default, which constituted a major sticking point for even those new users who were technically literate. Instead of pushing for a reversion, why not simply ask for the app to suggest a server at random from a reasonable number of carefully curated ones? That pool could gradually grow over time to avoid the over-concentration issue.
And expected change. That you where forced to choose a server was one of the biggest painpoints in the signup process. So I'm relatively happy that there is a default in place.
However, yes this creates another drawback as you told here. Hmm
Oh, c'mon @Gargron this instance is already melting down whenever there's a peak in activity, at least make that a random instance from a curated list or something 🙄
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand this goes against the principles of the fediverse. On the other hand, too many people have an irrational fear of the server selection process and maybe this helps with it.
The better thing would be to have a "give me a random server" button which selects a server based on your ip address.
All the points here are good and valid. It's also valid that picking a server is intimidating for most new users.
What I'd like to see is a list of servers willing to be 'default' servers for lack of a better term, then the app picks one at random while preserving the option for 'other'
The point is not to spread the users as much as possible. This is nonsense. The point is that you can chose your instance and can migrate wherever and whenever you want. This design decision is good.
I’m not sure why “pick a mastodon server the same way you pick an email server” isn’t pushed as the best solution. Just let them pick a username and a server from a list of servers that meet certain basic criteria (minimum number of users, minimum age, same primary language). And streamline the process of migrating, so message history can be moved easily (can even have ability for destination instance to have a filter list to reduce risk of content that doesn’t align with policies).
maybe you're right but it also has a bright side, even i as a power user (probably) was confused a lot when i was trying to make a mastodon account just for the shear amount of servers there was. at list by this way it's easier for normies to get started with mastodon and still viable for power users to choose other instances. tldr: if you're really aren't a power user most probably you'll be choosing mastodon.social as your server
Having a server chosen for you is a necessary step imo. Friends haven't followed me over from Twitter because they weren't sure what server to pick and decided it's too complicated. I think a good compromise would be to have a list of trusted instances and the app will choose one of them at random by default with the option to browse the others, similar to how Windows lets you choose your default web browser.
Everyone participating in this thread and on the Github ticket should be aware of the history of Mastodon development, namely that staff ignores 99.9% of everything said to them and proceeds to do whatever the fuck they want.
Also, many of these ideas have been discussed extensively, years ago.
We've been talking a lot (in different issues and on the network) about the experience of brand new users joining Mastodon, so I made this issue to summarize some of the current problems, and also ...
I do get why you find this concerning, but ... I think this is a strategy to make it easier for those who have never dealt with this kind of environment to join. One way to make it better, might be to add some sort of drop down that lists topics & could direct them to related servers. Sort of adding/automating what you do.
Or it will let people get a taste of the Fediverse and then change servers later. The whole pick an instance thing was too confusing for me for years. This take is incredibly gatekeep-y 🙁
I think they'd be best served by having people join mastodon.social, just so people "get here", and then recommend that they get a secondary server as well, right from the get-go.
Like, Join Mastodon and get your mastodon.social account, now check out some servers local to your area or like your interests.
I do that. I have an account at several servers as well as my own family instance.
It's nice to be on sfba when I'm in a local mood, but if I want to get more info about tech stuff or some other stuff that's more common elsewhere, I may switch accounts. And I certainly don't want my family seeing me gripe about politics!
y'know, JoinMastodon.org already has a list of approved servers adhering to a strict enough covenant...
So why not take that list, and make something like instances.social out of it.
So many social networks already ask you your interests upon startup, it would just make sense for the Mastodon app to ask your interests in order to narrow down the instance selection. A few questions could suffice, and it could highlight one out of the results to reduce indecision.
As long as other servers exist, and all our Masto data is portable, I don't have a problem with a default bucket server for new accounts on Mastodon.
A lot of users of social media don't care to shop around when they have already picked an app to use. When it's the Official Mastodon app, of course the Mastodon org is going to suggest their own official servers. And frankly, most users are going want the default server.
I think you are letting your ideals get in the way of reality.
Personally, I would suggest a random approach for showing a random Mastodon server. This will ensure that all servers (who wish to appear on the main page/app) get a fair share.
Also, not one server is overwhelmed by the sudden flow of traffic.
This smells very #bigtech. This is like opening your generic email client on an Android device (not Gmail app), and seeing a big giant "Sign up for Gmail" button. Most email clients at least have multiple buttons for various popular email hosts. Almost like multiple "Sign in with..." authentication.
Mastodon should at least be similar: several buttons for a short list of the bigger more reliable "Popular servers". Followed by an equality visible "Browse More Servers" button.
the entire point may be missed if it's only 3 nerds using the network. If you want more people joining it needs to be easy to join. Let people in, discover how things work, and help them find the right instance for them.
U R right. I remember when I started using Mastodon, mastodon.social wasn't even available to create new accounts. I guess they got more money now to pump up that server.
having a default to rely on is good ux, although for fedi, having 2 or 3 potential default instances would be optimal : shows people can be on multiple instances, while still having defaults for easy onboarding (what most people want)
I see the need to make the process of joining easier for attracting a bigger user base. I know that my choice was not informed by anything other than a guess. Perhaps a process to move to another ‘home server’ could be made easy and exploring the alternatives ‘a thing’.
@sophie I’d have quite liked a “pick for me” option that asked some questions then suggested a server. It could even use the answers in constructing an initial profile.
interesting points. I accept the need to make it easier. Presumably it wouldn't be that difficult to build in a list of 'general' starter servers that can be cycled through on page load to give many more options.
It would be nice if there were two or three more randomised suggestions from major servers maybe with a one-line intro. I wish they went for the tutorial island approach and then presented a list of options, but people may be turned off if they have to "work." It's a hard balance. Onboarding is definitely the major issue here.
Yo veo esto como una manera de simplificar unirse a Mastodon. Elegir un servidor sin entender bien bien cómo funciona esto es una tarea abrumadora. Si simplemente pudieran registrarse en uno entender cómo funciona todo esto y que luego pueden cambiarse de servidor como quien se cambia de ropa interior. Obviamente, habrá mucha gente que no se cambie de servidor porque simplemente estará bien así. Pero algunos de ellos se cambiarán a instancias que encajen mejor con sus gustos o se crearán varias cuentas. También estaría bien que según tu ubicación te haga registrarte en la instancia generalista más grande de tu zona. Así evitaríamos que muchos usuarios entren en una sola instancia.
Those, who are used to centralized networks, tend to use official apps and official servers. They want it to be centralized, they don't want to read rules, they want to proceed directly to the content. And, probably, this is the issue to solve. As you can see, when it was an option to choose a server, they tend to choose mastodon.social.
One more thing. Mastodon (and Fediverse) is neither a community nor a social network. It is a tool to build a community or social network.
A community is a group of people willing to communicate. They can use different servers, protocols, tools.
A social network is about you and the people you would like to communicate with. A social network is you and your connections on Fediverse, LinkedIn, Twitter, chats, work, emails, etc.
So, do not mess with the terms. Fediverse is not a social network. Mastodon.social is not a community.
I think that if mastodon wants to be a social network of the masses, you have to be prepared for more action in that direction to follow.
It's not a nice thing, but the reality is that most people don't care about open source. If that happens, it's up to the open source community, here on mastodon, to make sure that open source principles continue to be valued, even if most users of the platform don't seem to care.
I believe it is a topic for a long discussion outside of this thread.
Let's get back to the point. They obviously choose a server by the slogan and popularity. And then tend to demand other servers to conform to their rules. And they demand their admin to protect them. Same as Twitter, right?
In my mind, the major threat to decentralized social media is simple; huge incumbent platforms have network effects that are almost impossible to overcome. These platforms are the opposite of…
I'm sorry, but with all due respect, that "Growing the bars" chart is incredibly misleading. I don't know whether you are doing this deliberately or accidentally, but it's a terrible approach.
Presenting promotion of mastodon.social as equivalent to promoting Mastodon is just "fediwashing".
Asking people to choose a server is a goal in itself. It makes them aware of the issues involved. Skipping that step is missing the point completely.
It would be like an environmental group deciding that lifestyle changes are putting people off the environmental cause, so they drop the lifestyle changes and decide to just "greenwash" instead.
You're using the same "let's get the supporter numbers up, damn the cause" logic.
Yes some servers will let you down, but that's why it's important to use curated lists and not just choose something at random. (I've tried to start my own at https://fedi.garden and there's nothing to stop others doing the same.) Curated lists can demand reliability etc.
Your suggestion is like saying we should all eat at McDonalds because it has the most consistent standards, and independent restaurants might give you food poisoning.
@dimitrisk @spreadmastodon I appreciate all the thoughts! I hope that you or others are able to make progress on the projects I list at the bottom, which would concretely help in keeping the fediverse decentralized. Beyond that it sounds like we'll need to agree to disagree on this one topic, but I appreciate your work in helping people learn about the fediverse. I've found many of your posts helpful.
seems fine. The few people i know who do get past the confusing "choose a server" part usually ends up finding a more suitable community for themselves and moving there eventually anyway
2. Tell people to sign up on the website. Mastodon's official site at https://joinmastodon.org is still asking people to choose a server, and is very professionally laid out. (I've also got my own amateurish effort at https://fedi.garden.)
Content warning: https://gadgeteer.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot_20221114_143708-400x364.jpg Free Software gives everybody the right to use, study, share and improve software. This right helps support other fundamental freedoms like freedom of speech, press
Free Software gives everybody the right to use, study, share and improve software. This right helps support other fundamental freedoms like freedom of speech, press and privacy.
Tax Savings – Similar applications don’t have to be programmed from scratch every time.
Collaboration – Major projects can share expertise and costs.
Serving the public – Applications paid by the public should be available for everyone.
Fostering innovation – With transparent processes, others don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
Content warning: https://gadgeteer.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot_20221114_143708-400x364.jpg Free Software gives everybody the right to use, study, share and improve software. This right helps support other fundamental freedoms like freedom of speech, press
Police using cell phone tracking data in popular apps for 'mass surveillance on a budget'
Police have used “Fog Reveal” to search hundreds of billions of records from 250 million mobile devices, and harnessed the data to create location analyses
Local law enforcement agencies have been using an obscure cellphone tracking tool that gives them the power to follow people’s movements months back in time.
As the author of this article says - free software should be dependant on free software architecture - I recommend https://codeberg.org as an open-source alternative to Github. Sadly Github is no longer a platform that can be trusted.
moving away from github is kinda pointless if anyone can just rehost your code on github. even big projects like ffmpeg and the linux kernel are there as mirrors.
I can respect those not wanting to be on github, but doing it only for this reason is silly.
I'm not a copyright lawyer, but as far as I know, you could basically go through copyrighted novels, and copy a sentence from each novel and stick them together as your own novel, and it will not be considered violation of copyright in most jurisdictions.
I think the same applies for code: as long as you stitch together lines of code from other people's stuff but you're using it for your own purpose in your own context, it probably will be okay.
Interesting. I would definitely be interested in what a copyright lawyer would think about this situation. But in general I'd think Microsoft has enough lawyers on their payroll to be on the safe side. Or maybe they just hope that they can pretend that the AI is magic and it makes it not stealing?
Yeah, but stuff like this only makes me expect more and more abuse from Github. And if we don't want this - one way of showing that is to stop using their services. If they see a huge dip in usercount or a hose of deleted repositories that were migrated away - maybe it'll make them think a bit.
It may be pointless as Gothic can grab our code anyways (why should they care where is it hosted, if they don't care how it's licensed?), but it sends a message to them: "your business will suffer if you keep doing this". Will it do anything? Probably not. Do I care? No. I'll be using Codeberg and supporting them with my money rather than GitHub.
I agree. Also, by nature, open source software becomes better when there is a community around it.
There was a time when Linux gaming was nothing more than a pipe dream. It is now able to thrive because of what community-led projects like WINE, Lutris and quite a few others did to keep it alive.
There's a really nice Fediverse admin on here called @stux who provides lots of free decentralised public services (public instances of Mastodon, PeerTube, Pixelfed, Matrix, Nitter, Invidious, Searx etc).
Stux is spending hundreds of euros a month so that these services remain free and operational.
Apparently Stux has had a tough time finding work recently, but has their own small business which provides web hosting.
If you're looking for a small indie hosting provider, this might be a really good choice as the money raised will help keep the Fedi going too:
Alright, the overwhelming positive response has convinced me of my summer project: "tty1", a blog chronicling my journey toward using the terminal only for my computing experience.
It'll likely be mostly a series of articles showing my CLI replacements for different apps, with a *possible* finale where I go a week with only the distro I've customized over the course of the articles.
I'm gonna start by coding the site from the terminal; follow me to get updates. 😀
When you're posting hashtags that contain multiple words, it's a good idea to capitalise the first letter of each word. This helps blind people who use screen reader software to know what the hashtag actually says.
For example #DogsOfMastodon is much easier for screen reader users than #dogsofmastodon, even though they're technically the same tag.
This kind of capitalisation is usually known as "CamelCase". CamelCase doesn't just help blind people, it also makes hashtags clearer for sighted people too!
Using CamelCase won't affect your post's visibility (because searches ignore capitalisation) but it will improve the post's accessibility, so you'll get more people reading it.
Honestly, calling it camelCase confused me as a programmer and there a lot of other programmers around. Careful, or you'll end up with python people like myself #using_underscores.
I've generally heard this called TitleCase, which maybe isn't exactly right, but is at least more accessible than PascalCase and doesn't overload an already similarly defined word like camelCase.
I'm pro-CamelCase (or whatever it's being called), but it's worth noting that the stock Mastodon web client tends to auto-complete hashtags into the all-lowercase form if you use the drop-down menu feature thingy.
I don't know if it always prefers lowercase, or if it just uses the most popular form of that particular hashtag, or what... but I think it signals to users that the auto-completed form is the "correct" one when perhaps it's not always preferable.
@minekpo1@mastodon.social @powersource@sunbeam.city
I think "PascalCase" vs "camelCase" is if you're discussing programming?
This is post is aimed at non-programmers, and CamelCase is perhaps easiest to remember and understand 🐫 😁
If you say ca…
I've always been a big fan of using camelcase for variable names when programming, never thought much about using it for hashtags though. I will most certainly start.
@minekpo1@mastodon.social @powersource@sunbeam.city
I think "PascalCase" vs "camelCase" is if you're discussing programming?
This is post is aimed at non-programmers, and CamelCase is perhaps easiest to remember and understand 🐫 😁
If you say ca…
BactrianCase works, as what camelCase is named after is Dromedary camels, which is why it's sometimes called dromedaryCase. Bactrian camels have 2 big humps while Dromedary camels (the kind you think of when you think "camel") have one small and one big hump.
Pic 1 is a Bactrian camel, pic 2 is a Dromedary camel.
To be honest, it's probably moot whatever we decide, as the phrase "CamelCase" has already become the standard when talking about accessibility in text.
may also reduce the obviousness of such misfortunes as "susanalbumparty" and "pokemonmastersex". but then again maybe just word hashtags better because someone's gonna type in lowercase
1.73K Posts, 541 Following, 12.8K Followers · Posting tips and hints about Mastodon and the Fediverse 🌍
@ or DM me if you have any questions, suggestions or comments 📨
There's no such thing as a silly question, if you're having difficulty usin…
Friendica is compatible with Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse. It also lets you follow RSS feeds as if they are people to follow, and new items from the feed appear in the timeline alongside posts from the Fediverse. I was planning to post about it tomorrow.
Thank you for the detailed answer! - But I don't want to change the instance just because of that.... Maybe Mastodon can do it sometime in the future, who knows.
301 Posts, 3 Following, 54.2K Followers · Highlighting interesting accounts to follow on Mastodon and the Fediverse 🌐
For recommendations organised by topic, see my website at https://fedi.
Unfortunately my Feedbro RSS reader shows "No title", which is technically correct as toots have no title, but wished I could have an excerpt as title for the feed in order to have meaningful "headlines".
It would be nice to be able to embed my Mastodon feed into a WordPress widget. But using the .rss URL, every entry has "Untitled" at the top as the link. Hm.
This is great!! I added the FeedBro extension to Firefox and I'm using it so I don't miss posts from some accounts that I want to see updates on quickly. And one of them is Fedi.Tips, BTW
Is it possible to have the opposite ? I'd like to follow rss feeds through mastodon. I've found this https://mastofeed.org/ but since I don't know who they are I'm not using it for now
No, but you can do this in Friendica which is also part of the Fediverse.
You can follow RSS feeds in Friendica by just pasting the feed address into the search box and then clicking "Follow". Posts from the feed will start showing up in your Home timeline as if they were from a Fedi account, you can even share them.
By the way, Friendica accounts can follow Mastodon accounts, and Mastodon accounts can follow Friendica accounts.
Social reading and reviewing, decentralized with ActivityPub - GitHub - bookwyrm-social/bookwyrm: Social reading and reviewing, decentralized with ActivityPub
If you're used to centralised networks like Facebook, you may be wondering why Mastodon and the Fediverse are spread across thousands of sites. Why not just have a single site where people sign up?
There are many important reasons, but maybe the most important is this:
Networks on single sites tend to be bought by bad people when they get popular 😠
It happened to Instagram (bought by Facebook), it happened to Whatsapp (bought by Facebook), it happened to YouTube (bought by Google). It can happen to ANYTHING built entirely around one site.
No matter how much you trust the people who run a site, when someone offers them billions of dollars they may just take the money.
Decentralised networks, where there is no central site, are much more resistant to buyouts.
No one owns the global email network, thousands of indie players like @Tutanota and @protonmail are able to offer alternatives, and if one provider behaves badly you can switch to a different provider.
@Tutanota @protonmail Part of why mastodon instances cannot be bought out is because they are not corporations. Just communities funded by the users. 🤓
It's definitely great that we aren't being run by corporations. But single instance communities can still be at risk of selling out to corporations.
For example, the Internet Movie Database was originally a community project, but it got bought out by Amazon within just a few years because it got popular 😔
As long as the Fediverse stays decentralised though, there's much less risk of this happening.
FreeCAD is a free open source 3D parametric modeller for tasks such as 3D printing, architecture, technical drawing etc. You can follow their official account at:
FreeCAD is good but somewhat quite large and kinda buggy on Mac. I'd also recommend SolveSpace which is free and much smaller, however it seems to have smaller set of features.
Mastodon is part of the Fediverse, a collection of alternative social networks which talk to each other. People on the Fedi can interact even if they're on different kinds of networks.
One of the newest parts of the Fediverse is @owncast, a free open alternative to Twitch. It lets you create live video streams with a chat bar for viewers to interact with the streamer.
Because it's part of the Fediverse, Owncast streaming accounts can be followed from Mastodon. Every time a stream starts, a post will appear on followers' timelines in Mastodon.
Lately, I've been ragging on Twitter – for good reason. Twitter is the last
mainstream social network I use on a regular basis.
I don't talk about Meta-affiliated networks for good reason.
This talk is titled "GNU poke, the free extensible editor for structured binary data," and was presented at LibrePlanet 2022 by José Marchesi.
José is a GNU hacker and maintainer. He is currently employed by Oracle as the Tech Lead of their toolchain/compilers team.
This talk is about GNU poke, which is an interactive editor for binary data. Not limited to editing basic entities such as bits and bytes, it provides a full-fledged procedural, interactive programming language designed to describe data structures and to operate on them. José will discuss these features and more.
I share my thoughts on why Linux Mint should use Debian GNU/Linux as its base distro. Website: https://ChrisWere.wales Masto: @ChrisWere@linuxrocks.online
In the beginning of the video you mentioned that you haven't been uploading because you concentrated on the Fediverse, Mastadon and Peertube. Am I missing something? I double checked your user here: https://share.tube/a/chriswere/video-channels and in the last two months I can see one video on "Fediverse exclusive videos". So am I following the wrong account?
Hi, my name's Chris Were and I enjoy making videos about Linux, open source software, Game of Thrones and many other topics. Please feel free to browse my videos.
I love PeerTube because you can have a channel for everything that you want to discuss. Many people are multifacited, which is excellent, and the way PeerTube allows for multiple channels, people can subscribe to what they want to, and you get more organic views, not stupid comments. I want to restart my YouTube channel, though I hesitate to do so, because the majority of the comments are people calling me or my friends who feature in my videos sometimes stupid, making fun of my visual impairment and my hand tremors that cause my camera skills to look idiotic, but I don't find that sort of attitude around here on PeerTube.
Either way, I have tried Ubuntu, and I don't much care for it, but that is more because my first Linux experience was OpenSUSE, which looks like Windows back when Windows was cool.
New here? Remember that Twitter is optimized to make you into passive consumers, by en(r/g)aging you with content that you don't choose yourself.
Here, that doesn't happen. But it also means you're responsible to find people to follow.
It will take some work.
If you're willing to put that in, you'll find a wide variety of friendly people that will be happy to have meaningful conversions and laugh and cry together with you.
Start by searching and looking at who other people follow.
If there's anything you want to know, if you have any questions, reply to this post or send me a message and I will try to find the answer 🤔 (And don't worry if you think it's a stupid question, there's no such thing!)
Are you new to Mastodon and the Fediverse?
Here's a starter guide for beginners:
-How to find people to follow on Mastodon and the Fediverse
https://mstdn.social/@feditips/106845949632684345
-Recommended Mastodon apps
https://mstdn.
Hey Is there a possibility to write several hashtags in a row? And why does each hashtag I write show up in my comments, or how can I turn this off? Thanks in advance peace
I think you're on a Friendica server so it handles hashtags a bit differently. If I remember right, they get moved to a separate section under the message?
I am not sure what you mean by "several tags in a row"? What happens if you just write several hashtags?
maybe im not new. but what file types are supported by masto? im sure graphics (png, apng, gif, jpg) does it support sending text files or code snippets (like js ir python). does it support matroska videos (mkv)?
People new to Mastodon, are you confused by all the different sites and servers you can sign up on?
Don't be, it's really easy!
You know email, right?
With email, you go to an email provider, sign up and they give you an address. Then, when someone wants to email you, you tell them your address. It doesn't matter if they use a different provider, because all the providers talk to each other.
Well Mastodon is the same, but with social media!
You can sign up on any Mastodon server and you'll get an address with that server's name at the end, something like @ username @ server
For example, I signed up on mstdn.social and my address is @ feditips @ mstdn.social
People who signed up on other Mastodon servers can interact with you by @-ing this full address. You can see people's addresses on their profile page (see the attached image for an example).
Mastodon servers are also known as "instances". It doesn't matter which word you use, they are the same thing.
You don't have to enter your username if you're logged into Mastodon and browsing people's profiles entirely within Mastodon.
You can avoid having to log in again by copying and pasting people's usernames into the search box, then interacting with them from there.
For example, while logged into Mastodon, try copying and pasting someone's Mastodon address into the search box and press enter. This will bring up their user profile which you can follow them from, or otherwise interact with. This also works with profile URLs.
The only time you are asked to enter your username is if you're looking at a public profile page without being logged in on that instance. This is the page that appears when you click on someone's profile image.
Just to show the difference, I've attached a couple of screenshots below: the first is your profile that appears to me while I'm logged in, and the other is your public profile page that appears if I click on your profile image.
Just to make clear, you can interact with users from other Mastodon servers by putting their address into the search box and pressing enter.
Their profile link will appear in the search results, click on it to see their profile. You can then follow them, read their posts or interact in any other way. Click on their profile's "..." button to see even more options.
See the attached image for an example.
You only need one account to interact with people, even if they are on another server. The whole point of Mastodon is that people on one server can interact with people on thousands of other servers.
Content warning: Mastodon Screenshot Tips + Funny Story Using Dark Mode... :)
It's a good FediTips - I've made some visual variations of your screenshots to help make it more easier to see
Summary of pictures:
- Add visible (lighter colours, yellow on black for example or just not dark colours)
- Larger font (you had space too) Also people can read picture from far away / without loading big picture! (using my screenshots I can read it from preview and learn quicker! I couldn't see writing before- too small)
Just to keep in mind - you're tips are doing great - just big and yellow will help magnify your magnificent work!
2nd funny story relating to this search box in the top left)
For a long time I am using my monitor on 0 brightness, 10 Contrast... Try it (so not 50:50 or 0:50 as normal but super low and eyes can work x10) and I'd realised (until asking you one day) that I'd never seen that box before because it was so dark on my screen!! LOLS
(modified examples attached)
- Includes cutting out parts occasionally (like 3rd panel as it's less important / can be included in other pics)... which also helps make preview bigger
Great - feel free to use my versions and repost (the cropped ones without 3 panels showing) And if you need something just let me know. For the dark monitor I can just up the contrast but now I know it's there I can still use in 'dark dark mode!' (L: But actually you have a point I'll try it now! Always useful thanks FediTips !!
The Fediverse is a collection of alternative social networks which are connected together through a common technical standard called ActivityPub.
People on the Fediverse can follow, comment, like or message each other seamlessly.
For example, the account @craftykat is on a video platform called PeerTube, but you can follow them, watch the videos, give them a like and comment on them without leaving Mastodon. Try it yourself!
Another example you can try interacting with is @Picturavis, which is on a photo platform called PixelFed.
When you use Mastodon, a lot of the accounts you talk to are actually not on Mastodon!
It can take a bit of time to get your head round this, because centralised social networks like Twitter or Facebook deliberately stifle interoperability.
The Fedi is different, no one owns it so there's no restriction on what people do with it. The ordinary user is all that matters on the Fedi 💪
I guess technically it's the ActivityPub Fediverse, but I'm trying to keep it simple for new users. The posts in this thread are aimed at people who have just joined Mastodon.
Obviously there's a historical perspective with other protocols, and experimental things like Zot etc, but new users are extremely unlikely to have any experience of those.
> For example, the account @craftykat is on a video platform called PeerTube, but you can follow them, watch the videos, give them a like and comment on them without leaving Mastodon. Try it yourself!
Depends on the desktop/mobile client, e. g. doesn't work with Twidere X.
If you're on Mastodon, you don't need to do anything special to interact with other Fediverse platforms.
Their posts will look just like Mastodon posts, and you'll interact with them the same way. You probably won't even notice you are interacting with anything outside Mastodon!
See the attached images below for an example of interacting with a PeerTube video from within Mastodon. The account used in the example is @yesterkitchen, you can try interacting with it yourself if you like.
By the way, to see what a post looks like on its home platform, click on its datestamp at the end of the post. This will open it in a new browser tab or window.
When you're signing up to Mastodon, the first step is to choose a site to sign up on. This is your server (also known as an instance), and your address will have its name at the end.
All Mastodon servers are independently owned and run, but they allow you to talk to people on other servers. Even if there's just two people on a server, you can still follow millions of others elsewhere on Mastodon and the Fediverse from that server.
The easiest way to choose one is from the official Mastodon directory:
All of the servers listed are signed up to a covenant of reliability and responsible moderation (https://joinmastodon.org/covenant).
You don't have to use these, there are thousands of others out there, but these are maybe good starting points for beginners.
Don't worry too much about choosing though, you can always move your account to another one if you like. There's a post about how to do that here: https://mstdn.social/@feditips/107939441820299376
If you want, you can move your Mastodon account from one instance (server) to another.
Moving lets you take your followers, follows and some settings with you.
1.
You don't have to join someone else's server. You can always set up your own Mastodon instance.
It gives you maximum privacy, you can set your own rules, customise the server settings and provide your friends and family with accounts. Many co-ops and community organisations have their own Mastodon servers.
You don't even need any server skills, because you can use "managed hosting" services such as https://masto.host or https://federation.spacebear.ee. They do all the technical stuff like installation and upgrades, while you run things through the normal Mastodon browser interface.
(Of course if you *do* have server skills, you can install and maintain the Masto software from scratch yourself using the official documentation at https://docs.joinmastodon.org)
After registering and following you, first post i see is right on spot what i was looking for, to host my own instance 😀 Guess this is more then coincidence LOL
@yesterkitchen Also, question. Is there any data privacy agreement relative to Mastodon? I mean what if someone IDs me and I've got all this history on Mastodon, am I vulnerable? or? mulling over how much I want to invest where
It's a long topic but basically privacy here is much better than on Facebook or Twitter, as Mastodon isn't selling anyone's data and there are no ads either.
You also don't have to use real names or profile pictures.
You can control the privacy of your posts to be either public (visible to anyone), unlisted (visible to anyone but not shown on public timeline), followers only, and direct (only visible to people mentioned in the post).
It's a balancing act because if you keep your posts completely private no one will find them to discuss them, whereas if you set them public anyone can see it.
You can ask posts not to be catalogued by search engines by going to Preferences > Other > Opt out of search engine indexing, tick it and click "save changes".
Also bear in mind DMs here are not end-to-end encrypted (yet) so they shouldn't be used for anything safety-critical.
@yesterkitchen Thank you so much! #learningmastodon Wondering...do the Mastodon server admins have to agree to any "principles"? or could Google set one up? I appreciate that it's anonymous, but with AI and a decent parallel processor, it's not hard to figure out who everyone is.
Each server is independent and the owner decides the rules (though some are co-ops). You can see your server's rules by clicking on "about this server", and this also gives a contact email for the owner.
Google could set up a server, but most other servers would probably refuse to federate with it. Something similar happened a few years ago when a nazi server called Gab started up, but the rest of the Fediverse refused to federate with it and Gab was completely isolated.
A bigger danger would be if Google bought an existing server with lots of users, but hopefully everyone would jump ship from that server if it happened.
This is why smaller servers are encouraged, to reduce this danger.
By the way, your IP address and email are only visible to the admin of the server you log in on. None of the other servers have access to this.
So, if Google did start a server, it wouldn't give them access to anyone's details except those who signed up on Google's server (and none of us are stupid enough to do that 😉 ).
I guess they could try to mine some info from public posts, but they could do that anyway from anything public, from websites etc. This is why it's a bad idea to use your real name or real details in public online.
It's very unlikely they would do it anonymously, especially if it's a small server with just a few dozen or few hundred members. What would they have to gain?
Even in the worst case scenario, all they would know about you is an IP address and an email. If you use a temporary email and a VPN, and if you never post personal data, they would have zero info on you at all.
If you wanted to be hyper careful though, you can start your own server through a service like https://masto.host or https://federation.spacebear.ee. You don't need tech knowledge, it costs a few dollars a month.
Ooo...! I just did that! I had searched #coop, and saw "0" as in how many people are talking and was discouraged. But I see now that people might have posted a day ago. So I'll be busy following #coop people! thanks!!! #learningmastodon mastodon
the biggest confusion I had getting started with mastodon was whether I had to create logins for each instance, and then choosing the right instance as my primary. Maybe there should be a big flashing "I'm a n00b" cta button on each login/signup page.
There is a lot of behind the scenes stuff making it easier, for example the instances that the official website and official app suggests are all signed up to a covenant that guarantees uptime and responsible moderation (https://joinmastodon.org/covenant).
So, pretty much any instance from the official method of signing up should be okay.
Also, there's the option in settings to move your account to another instance if you change your mind.
But yeah, there is a fundamental difference between the centralised Twitter and decentralised Mastodon.
However, this is how email and telephones work, you don't need a separate phone for each network, so I think everyone is capable of getting used to the idea of decentralisation 👍
But don't I have to go sign in to the other servers to #explore and find people? the Federated feed has so much stuff I'm not interested. I can't find any of the groups that are supposedly on Mastodon...I will locate my pals eventually, when I ask them where they are, but I thought it would be easier to find #communities than stumbling on interesting people, which I've done now and am enjoying myself, but still wondering how to find people.
thank you...but we can't seem to actually join other groups on other servers without logging on. so they can "email" us on our mastodon "email", but if we can't find them without logging on/signingin on other servers how can they know to "email" us? I mean we can randomly look for peopel on the Fed Feed, but if we were going out searching and looking for actual communities, without logging in/signing in to other servers...? #ideas?
I also get confused when I click a new instance and it asks me to log in or create an account. Ability to create accounts on multiple instances is very new to me coming from twitter, where it is a single account (barring alts of course). Or are these things equivalent to alts?
Hi there... is there a way to join other communities without having to log in/sign up on the other communities? I shun additional sign in/logins...I'll stay put right here, if it means signing in or logging on to yet another anything... sorry for being so fussy...#overwhelmed
It's like email, you only need one account from one provider, you don't need to sign up on every provider.
Whatever happens on mastodon.art will also be visible from mastodon.social, which is the instance you signed up on.
If you're looking for art related posts, try searching for hashtags like #art etc. That will show you results from all across Mastodon including mastodon.art and thousands more servers too.
OK. I hearya. But I don't quite "get it". On Mastodon Social, I'm now following people. I get their toots on my Home Feed. But how do I find people who are NOT on Social, without signing in/logging on to the other servers? I found some in the community directory, that you all posted for me https://joinmastodon.org/communities #gratitude #thankyou. But some of these groups I could not access because I wouldn't sign in/log on to the other server. Also, how can I start a "community"?
I am not on mastodon.social, but you found me, and you are reading my post right now.
The process of finding and following people is exactly the same whatever server they are on.
You don't need to do anything special to follow people on other servers, just search for topics you want with hashtags and follow people you find interesting.
Go to your profile page and look at the people you follow, look at the addresses under their names. You will see loads of people who aren't on "mastodon.social".
done! also, is there a way to then refer to that post, if I want to refer to it later in another post? I ask because wondering if I have to keep uploading the same graphic and/or if I can refer to a post off-Mastodon by using a Mastodon URL somewhere off-Mastodon.
Go to the post you want to refer to, click on the "..." below it and select "copy link to post". The link will then be copied to your clipboard, and you can paste it wherever you want to share it.
You can then use this link to refer to that post anywhere. It will open even for people who aren't on Mastodon.
You don't need an account on all of these in order to interact with them.
Because they all use the ActivityPub open protocol, you can (for example) use a Mastodon account to follow someone on PixelFed or vice versa. That's why they are collectively known as the Fediverse, because they federate together at a technical level.
Also, this is an incomplete list, there are many other Fedi projects out there such as @funkwhale or @inventaire that are not direct alternatives but are their own thing.
If you're comfortable with using F-Droid (an alternative app store that only carries free open source software), there's an app called PixelDroid. They're also on here at @PixelDroid
However, the official PixelFed apps are still in development and haven't been released yet. I don't know when they will be available.
One of Diaspora's original developers sadly took his own life in 2011 just when the platform was really taking off. This was a huge blow, and (as far as I can tell) the project never really recovered from the tragedy. The other original developers eventually moved onto other projects, and handed Diaspora over to the community.
Diaspora's current development team doesn't want to use the ActivityPub standard, which almost all other Fediverse users are on. This means there is no way for Diaspora users to talk to Fedi users on Mastodon, PixelFed, PeerTube etc etc etc.
Diaspora's development seems to have almost dried up, and the number of active users on the Diaspora network today is only a few thousand.
It's a very sad situation 😟 and it's a major loss for the wider Fediverse.
* Loosely coupled communities, each enforcing its own policies. * Interoperation between micro-blogs, blogs, photo collections, and all other types of social media. * Timelines free of ads and spam. * First class privacy. * First class blocking and filtering. You see only what you want to. * Users pay for service rather than being monetised.
This is my review of the Friendica social network, and a follow-up to a previous video I did about the Fediverse. Friendica is my new favourite way to interact with social media, and in this video, I explain why.
As always, my current social media contacts are always on my web site.
Detailing my experiments with the fediverse. You can join the services I mentioned using the links below: PeerTube, Mastodon, Diaspora, PixelFed, Also, my current accounts on these services can be found on my personal web site.
Hey Jonathan, thanks for the video about Friendica 😃 Glad to hear, that you experience it as light-weight running it from you home-server former notebook.
I have some additional piece of information about the video 😉
You mentioned the fact that one needs to add an abstract with BBCode to get a content warning. Which surely can be done differently in the UI, no question about that. The roots of the "abstract" lies in the projects history. Friendica can be used as a Twitter client of some sorts. Among other things this makes it possible that your postings on Friendica may directly posted on Twitter as well. While Friendica has some restriction to the length of a posting, it is far above the 280 character limit used on Twitter. So Friendica does some semi-intelligent automatic shortening of postings that are too long and adds a link back to the original posting on Friendica. But not everybody is happy with the outcome of the shortening, so the "abstract" BBCode was added to the BBCode tags Friendica supports, allowing everybody to control the short snippet to advertise for their posting on Twitter. Later on Activity Pub got the "summary" field in the meta-information of a posting and as the abstract is kind of equivalent of a summary, Friendica puts the content of the abstract into this field of the meta-information. Which is used as "content warning" by other projects in the Fediverse.
You mentioned the problems with the image upload. True, sadly true. There is an addon called "js_uploader" which allows you to upload more then one image at a time. And, I think especially for the uploading images from an event situation, Friendicas API does support clients that are designed for e.g. Mastodon. So if you have one of these on your smartphone that you've taken to the event and did some photos, you can use that to add the photos to a posting about the event, straight from your phone.
As you don't use the "community stream" feature much yourself, just let me add, that there all the public postings will be shown from either your node (local) or from any other server connected to your Friendica node (global). It makes more sense to have the stream on a node with more then one user, otherwise it basically mirrors that persons network stream.
A few days ago, @kev asked the community for help maintaining his side-project, 512kb.club. This got me thinking.
There are loads of maintainers out there feeling burnt out, but they can't abandon their project since people are depending on the project to be maintained.
In an effort to combat this, I built a website that lists projects looking for new maintainers. It's still quite empty and has some rough edges, so any feedback is very welcome.
OpenTTD is modelled after the original Transport Tycoon game by Chris Sawyer and enhances the game experience dramatically. Many features were inspired by TTDPatch while others are original.
My father has always been fond of model trains, and I remember watching him building a track around the Christmas tree when I was young. When Lego train sets were released, he and I transitioned to them for their convenience and inherent extensibility. We built and operated Lego trains and monorail tracks over the course of many years. I've often imagined a possible future in which I have a garage or a basement dedicated to miniature landscapes and electric whistling trains.
We recommend the 3-2-1 backup strategy: have your data in three different places, across at least two different types of media, with at least one off-site.
⚠️ Information for Prosody operators: There has been an OpenSSL security advisory published, which likely affects Prosody and other services you may run - allowing an attacker to trigger an infinite loop in OpenSSL (and any application using it, such as Prosody), causing it to stop responding and use a lot of CPU.
Keep an eye open for OpenSSL updates from your OS distribution. There is no Prosody upgrade needed.
BookWyrm is a Fediverse alternative to Amazon's GoodReads, letting you review books, share reading lists, discover new books and interact with other readers. You can follow at:
ÄNTLIGEN! It’s finally here! After 3 years of development and through some chaotic times, Prosody 0.12.0 is released!
What’s the significance of this release? Like many software projects, Prosody follows a “branch” development/release model.
Secure communications are especially important in times of crisis. Just being aware of surveillance has chilling effects in how we exercise speech, which is often under attack by all sorts of actors from criminals to our own governments.
In dark times, people need to be able to reach the light, reassure their loved ones, inform themselves and others, and escape the walls of propaganda and censorship. The internet is a crucial tool for all of that – don’t mess with it. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/wartime-bad-time-mess-internet
Like most people, we at EFF are horrified by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Also like most people, we are not experts on military strategy or international diplomacy.
#TIL that default #LUKS #encryption of storage media may actually be quite memory-consuming, to the point that lower-end devices will be unable to decrypt them simply because there's not enough memory to process the cipher:
I am working on my yocto distribution including cryptsetup in the 2.3.2 version
I am running such distribution on a board with 1 GB RAM and I am incurring in an "out of memory" error tryi...
Clearview AI (facial recognition tech) is after some popular companies (@Airbnb, @lyft, & more) as commercial business partners & @privacyint is calling on them to pledge to "never work w/Clearview, or use their dodgy database."
We asked some streamers why they choose to self-host their streams and be truly independent. It's great hearing about what they're doing and what they like about #Owncast.
Hear live streamers explain why they choose to use Owncast and operate their own, independent live streams instead of handing control over to the centralized...
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FediTips has moved!
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •There is technically still an option on the official app to "pick my own server", but it's much harder to read or notice, and new users will probably click the mastodon.social button without even understanding the other button.
Mastodon.social just passed 1 million registered users about a week ago, out of a total network of approx 7 to 11 million users (dependiing on how you count them).
Most of these users probably signed up via the official app.
(2/6)
FediTips has moved!
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •For the first time ever, the most common way to sign up on the Fediverse is now directing people to sign up on one specific server, rather than making them choose.
This will make mastodon.social grow even more quickly than it has before, and future waves of new Mastodon users may end up mostly there. It's very plausible this one server could become the majority of the Fediverse in the near future.
If that happens, the Fediverse would no longer be protected from buyouts by nasty people.
(3/6)
FediTips has moved!
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •But as we have seen from Twitter, such a setup leaves you at the mercy of Musk-type takeovers. For-profit social networks do not like federation, they hate it as they see it as competition. It is very likely that a commercial takeover of a majority server would defederate it, to prevent people leaving and simplify its maintenance.
(4/6)
FediTips has moved!
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •But eventually most people in that position will crack. Ever larger sums of money can make even the nicest people sell out.
If most of the Fediverse is on mastodon.social, it WILL receive more takeover bids. If it grows even further, these bids will become even higher.
(5/6)
FediTips has moved!
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •1. Tell new people to use third party apps, they are better anyway and have more features. More info at https://fedi.tips/which-apps-can-i-use-should-i-use-the-official-app-or-a-third-party-app/
2. Tell people to sign up on the website. Mastodon's official site at https://joinmastodon.org is still asking people to choose a server, and is very professionally laid out. (I've also got my own amateurish effort at https://fedi.garden.)
3. If you're comfortable using github, give a thumbs up at https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios/issues/1023
(6/6)
Which Mastodon apps can I use? Should I use the official app or a third party app? | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse
fedi.tipsOutOnTheMoors
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •(Yes, I'm on mastodon.social, but I joined when it was smallish.)
Seth Goldstein
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Ferles :neurodiv:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •First Dread Pirate Roberts
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Kevin Karhan :verified:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •It really comes close to the ancient #TweetDeck #mobile app and @mariotaku's #Twidere...
GunChleoc
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Lee 🌏
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Doesn't this help do this this, while also providing a way for people to just as easily pick their own server?
Your thoughts, people 🙇♂️🙏❤️....
David Slifka
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Here's why I welcome the change.
We are losing *so many* users to server choice. I only have anecdata and wish I had more. But just last night, a tech product manager emailed me his whole list of hobbies and interests, saying he was "at a loss" for how to join Mastodon.
If we don't grow the fediverse now, centralized competitors will win and nothing will change. (1/2)
Rodrigo Gambra
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •His solution would effectively transfer data ownership to every user, who could host his data anywhere and then authorise what applications can access it. It would ruin once and for all the "American way" of corporate-bully culture.
Andres Salomon
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Baruch 🇮🇱
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •June Blender
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Complexity of systems
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •I desperately hope this kind of thing doesn't happen to activitypub/Mastodon
nEo
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Charles Herold
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •So what is your solution?
Tadeo D'Oria 🇦🇷 💚🧡
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •It's like Linux, want to get more involved or dig deeper? You have ton of options!
Want to just use your PC and not be bothered by the OS? Install Ubuntu like the vast majority of users.
Asking too many questions or choices is an immediate negative for most people, having an easy default is great! It wasn't the end for Linux to have it, and it won't be the end for the Fediverse!
Hollie
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •AT-AT Assault 🏳️⚧️
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •IMHO, the website is better than any app. You get the full functionality of Mastodon, and the site is coded to display really well as a mobile webpage. I tried using like 3 different apps, not liking any of them. Why? Because I've been trained to assume the mobile webpage is dogshit.
Then I finally had the notion "what if I look at a mobile webpage?" IT'S REALLY GOOD.
skllzrmy
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •AskPippa🇨🇦
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Vint Prox
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •This wording is lethal, what were they thinking?
Florencio ⭐⭐⭐
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Jax
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •My first thought on reading this is that I should move servers. Perhaps a push to get people already on .social to move would help?
Rand Strauss
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Mastodon is good. But it's designed to communicate without profit, not to actually fix anything. It's a piece of a good future. But PeopleCount is designed to deliver that future.
Jona
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Jeroen Baert
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Educating them on how to move their account afterwards and having that process be seamless is the way to go, imho.
taymaz :verified:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Andreas Ringdal
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Talya (she/her) 🏳️⚧️✡️
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Gustavo 🎮🔭🇵🇷
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •serklarvel
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Maybe @Gargron could clarify if possible.
JW prince of CPH
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •It's definitely correct that concentration increases vulnerability, but the remedy isn't to change the users - it's to give them the best possible entry & path to the preferable solution. This is what we/the 'verse must do.
Ministerofimpediments
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •The points of concern being (in no particular order);
That the instances in the list are/can take large amounts of new users gracefully and/or have capacity to support them. These can be updated/changed over time.
And that the mobile app has only a small amount of real estate to work with.
Urzl
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Is there a trustworthy way to do load balancing and spreading across open servers? Make the default "the lightest loaded non-dead instance in my preferred language" rather than any particular server but still provide a default.
I signed up where I did just because it was neither full nor empty.
Zekovski
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •- People who want as much users on Mastodon as possible -> let's make the onboarding really easy.
- People who want to keep it spread and federated.
This is a time we have to choose between the two.
Stewart Tolhurst
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •sunandshadow
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •If the size of the default instance becomes unmanageable, idle members could be auto-culled.
NeonkAaa
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •mastodon.social The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit
And the next one is mstdn.social
I see no real difference here — you afraid of concentrating people on a single server without choice. But new people will surely tend to choose the 1st or the 2nd one, even while they have a choice.
J.M. Bond
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •There needs to be more focus to explain the system & simplify the process or people are going to move past Mastodon. Just my two cents as a newbie, I could be wrong.
Insider UA
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Peter Merholz
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •m. libby
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Coming from 25+ years of using email, usenet, IRC-- all things where you have to "pick a server"-- that part of joining Mastodon didn't phase me.
BUT I really picked the wrong server for me the first time around, then went through two more before finding the one I really feel at home on.
Get people in the door. They can worry about picking a server after they get their feet wet.
And while they won't be able to port all their posts (because of AP), they will be able to move their accounts to new servers if/when Eugen finally sees enough zeroes on the check.
taxet
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •It still would leave the option for a simple solution for those who want it but makes picking a server the default and the first thing people see.
Stegosaurus
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Mx Amber Alex
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •rood
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •JamesTDG
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Alien software, human hardware
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Why would this be a problem then?
Algernon D'Ammassa
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Runyan50
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •elle mundy
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •ArdentArchivist
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •MaryPot
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Mutiny Crinshaw
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •🐌’s Pace
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Jeena
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •First Dread Pirate Roberts
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Elias Mårtenson
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Don't take me wrong, I agree with you on everything you said. I'd rather see less people join the Fediverse than seeing more centralisation around m.s. But if the goal is to bring more people in, something like this needs to be done.
Perhaps an option would be for instances to make their own application (which would just be one of the common applications, but branded to their instance).
That way, if you wanted to join mstdn.social, you just download the mstdn.social application.
A lot of people these days don't know the difference between an application and a website anyway, so this may actually be more in line with expectations.
Folker
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Peque
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •like other social media platforms do when you sign up). And then showed you a list of servers that for in that category.
Probably Paul 🌍
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •I've also syndicated longer posts using Hubzilla, to which I've installed ActivityPub so it's interoperable with Masto. Nomadic identity, baby. Shut me down now! 😎
@reiver ⊼ (Charles) :batman:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •(And there are a lot of UX problems.)
I've been doing a lot of UX testing of various parts of the Fediverse (including Mastodon).
I think @Gargron has definitely (also) noticed one of the UX problems — having to choose a server causes many people to give up and abandon the sign up process.
...
Let me ask you this —
Éamonn
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •The Peter Pan of Nerdery™️
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •petur 🔵😶
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •You can still pick another server but at least to non-tech users have a clear way forward.
Hughster
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •aismallard (relocated!)
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Dixzy
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •James Reed
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Louis :emacs:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •When I read it, it was clear to me in which direction Mastodon is heading. The app is just the beginning.
Mastodon's decentralization is key to safeguarding free speech and preventing greedy centralization (which is what happens right in front of us now). Central servers can easily become susceptible to censorship, surveillance, and data abuse. By supporting Mastodon's diverse community of servers, we can ensure that power remains decentralized and accessible to all. Let's prioritize decentralization over greed!
#Mastodon
jesuiSatire …ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •sad
Rye
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •I wonder if a compromise could look like cycling through a different default general-interest server every app update
David Bleackley
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Chris 🌱 :verified_purple:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Tim Chambers
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •That would be to round-robin which server gets that central place every X days. And set the standard for quality of service, clear branding, etc, to get that spot.
Víktor Bautista i Roca
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •will-r-s-hansen
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Kornel
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Maybe the app could suggest one of 3-5 top servers at random?
Luis M. Gómez C.
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Ehler
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •The Eddie Show 📷🎧❤️
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Leisureguy
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •This move seems definitely a desire for monopolization.
Matthias Rex 🦣
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •stux⚡
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •And only thing I wondered was..
Why…
pinecone
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Overall, the more people that join the app would be best for everyone involved
I definitely see the concerns though. And I also agree that this move kind of goes against the idea of mastodon, but the platform still gotta grow somehow
Farshid Hakimy
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •I understand that this makes it easier for people to join for people who don't know what the fediverse is and how it works, but come on. Why mastodon.social?
Why not show a random server that complies with some rules like the ones you have on joinmastodon.org?
Or why not make a contest, or a voting or something else?
mastodon.social already is big and this will just harm the fediverse in the long term
Harry
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Rob Bos
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Dreamer
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Flock of Cats 🐈 🐈 🐈 🌸
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •“Pick another server” would be better
SippingInk
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Extinction (our fate)
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •bigTanuki
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Perhaps they should offer a default @trail.mastodon.social that eventually you have to leave if you do not feel ready to choose a server yet…
Eric Gilmour
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Once people are used to the service they can move their accounts if they want.
𝓥𝓲𝓬𝓽🍓𝓻𝓲𝓪
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Luna Lactea
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •OffWorldGirl
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •I had an account I never used years ago on an instance that disappeared without notice. When I signed up for THIS account I purposely chose the Mastodon project's main server to hopefully avoid my instance disappearing on me again.
Some people are confused by having to choose a server and just give up.
盛开的雪豹🪻
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Peter Van Tine
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Wuzzy
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •I really hope this was a honest mistake (maybe some misunderstood usability concern?) and they will revert this change. mastodon.social is NOT the "default instance" and never was. While it's large, many Mastodon users live on a different instance (me included). That's a feature, not a bug.
Jürgen - يورجن (he,him) ⚣
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •R. L. Dane :debian: :openbsd:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Russell Harrower :verified:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Fripi
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Might be interesting read, I am absolutely sure there is no bad intentions and it also isn't set in stone. Compelling arguments will be heard, I would bet a lot on this 😀
https://zeitschlag.net/you-will-always-be-remembered/
You will always be remembered!
Nathan Mattes (Opinionated Notes)Tagaziel
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Nathaniel Harari
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •JohnW
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Amadeus Maximilian
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •I like the UX of giving the user an easy option. I've had friends not join Mastodon because the choice of server paralysed them. 😅
Andrea Grandi 🦕
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •As a supporter of mastodon.social, I'm not happy with this change.
Edward Fattell
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •HannaMarieMay
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •FurbyOnSteroids
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Sean
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •This could open a wizard with a few questions about the users interests, etc, and then end with a list of a few appropriate server options?
This could solve the overwhelming amount of choice, without directing new users to any one particular server
r3vilo
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Pick my own server
---- or ----
Join mastodon.social
Then it would be better. And "Pick my own server" should be highlighted by default. Otherwise, not that bad for a quick start, because you can change anytime later, but, to get the thing behind the #fediverse and first read about it, you are more concerned with the matter, when you have to choose a server from the start, without easy clicking.
Arnd Layer
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •New users that do not know much about how the fedrigeres works, are discouraged from joining at the step of selecting their instance.
The recommendations / discovery of instances does not really help.
I’ve seen this myself.
Offering a default is a good approach - maybe switch the two buttons.
New users should not be driven away - neither because it is not clear ho to continue nor because a necessary focus on diversity.
𝖆𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖔𝖐 🇨🇿🇪🇺
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •#Mastodon
Yusuf Toropov
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •regnad_kcin
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Tom Walker
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •It's just an "easy mode" for people to sign up without having to understand a bunch of stuff first. Good for people who have heard of Mastodon and gone to the app store and typed in "Mastodon" without doing all this homework people think they should be doing.
As they learn, they might make different decisions. Or not! (I've stuck around on .social)
Campaigning against this doesn't help new users.
Hirad
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Have you met people?! People don't post their contents on a server, just so they leave it behind and go to another one.
Not to mention saying "pick my own server" make user think its for server admins/owners.
What if after a while the app become exclusively for mastodon.social? Is that ok too? what of mastodon.social become popular and then unfederated?
Lydia "Trivia"
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •This makes joining easier. Moving should be easier too.
Paul Sutton
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Léo Haf
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Allen Versfeld
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •What I'd suggested was rather just assigning a nearby instance, maybe based on geolocating IP address or something, and if that doesn't give a satisfactory result, then have them enter a few interests and use that as a keyword search on instance descriptions. The choice is a good thing, but it's also a huge mental block for new users. Migration is fine, and people should be actively encouraged to find the right instance, but not while they're still trying to figure out if they even want to be here.
Folker
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Zoe
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Erlend Sogge Heggen
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •I support Mastodon’s move here. The risks you mention just aren’t the same with open source software.
If this change led to Mastodon having 100 million users this year, that’d still be a net positive for the fediverse and the open web, in spite of Mastodon’s non-ideal outsize influence.
At the slightest hint of bad practice on Mastodon’s end, we could switch clients, move, or fork.
vylion:latest
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •abcxyz
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •oversizedpanda :unverified:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Dr Pieter Peach
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Making it easier for them to use mastodon.social might seem problematic, but it may be an acceptable UI tradeoff to bootstrap the network at first.
alapite
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Fabian � 🏳️🌈
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •However, yes this creates another drawback as you told here. Hmm
Purple :verified:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •(Combined with the fact that joinmastodon.org hasn't been listing or even responding to new servers for months!)
Not great to actually see this happening
phryk 🏴
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •// @feditips
newsorpigal
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand this goes against the principles of the fediverse. On the other hand, too many people have an irrational fear of the server selection process and maybe this helps with it.
The better thing would be to have a "give me a random server" button which selects a server based on your ip address.
Straadin :splatoon:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •What I'd like to see is a list of servers willing to be 'default' servers for lack of a better term, then the app picks one at random while preserving the option for 'other'
Mr. Bruno :verified:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •MaryPot
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Hope they see how un-Fediversal their choice is and change it.
Waterluvian
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Just do what the philosophy dictates: make your own FOSS app.
MOARCookies
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •wraptile
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •sascha
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •The point is that you can chose your instance and can migrate wherever and whenever you want.
This design decision is good.
Endareth
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •And streamline the process of migrating, so message history can be moved easily (can even have ability for destination instance to have a filter list to reduce risk of content that doesn’t align with policies).
RickDaly
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Linad :blobcatverified:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •tldr: if you're really aren't a power user most probably you'll be choosing mastodon.social as your server
Mike Buckley
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •legumancer Davy
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Marvin Nevarez
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •bytebro
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •deutrino
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Also, many of these ideas have been discussed extensively, years ago.
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/4870
new user experience · Issue #4870 · mastodon/mastodon
GitHubSpaceCat
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •I think this is a strategy to make it easier for those who have never dealt with this kind of environment to join.
One way to make it better, might be to add some sort of drop down that lists topics & could direct them to related servers.
Sort of adding/automating what you do.
Defiance!
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Josh (┻┻ ︵ vitriolix ︵ ┻┻)
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •tptigger
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •This take is incredibly gatekeep-y 🙁
Dan Morris
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Like, Join Mastodon and get your mastodon.social account, now check out some servers local to your area or like your interests.
I do that. I have an account at several servers as well as my own family instance.
It's nice to be on sfba when I'm in a local mood, but if I want to get more info about tech stuff or some other stuff that's more common elsewhere, I may switch accounts. And I certainly don't want my family seeing me gripe about politics!
TheCoolest
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •So why not take that list, and make something like instances.social out of it.
So many social networks already ask you your interests upon startup, it would just make sense for the Mastodon app to ask your interests in order to narrow down the instance selection. A few questions could suffice, and it could highlight one out of the results to reduce indecision.
Down10
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •A lot of users of social media don't care to shop around when they have already picked an app to use. When it's the Official Mastodon app, of course the Mastodon org is going to suggest their own official servers. And frankly, most users are going want the default server.
I think you are letting your ideals get in the way of reality.
TangoAndToys :noverify:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •I know it sounds silly, but if that's the number one reason new users found it "difficult" to join Mastodon, maybe solve one problem at a time.
Eventually people will learn they can relatively change instances afterwards.
Assuming those new users even stay on mastodon at all (I hate to say it, but that's a real concern too.)
John Samuel
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Also, not one server is overwhelmed by the sudden flow of traffic.
Vijay Prema
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Mastodon should at least be similar: several buttons for a short list of the bigger more reliable "Popular servers". Followed by an equality visible "Browse More Servers" button.
Pandathletic
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Eric Nicholls
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Games People Play
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Chris
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •sarah 🦦
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Clif Graves
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Sarah, The Website Therapist
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Darryl Collins 🚴🏻
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Nika Shilobod
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Prakash C
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •удалить
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Matrix.org
Matrix.orgRage Against Leaves
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Lu
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Si simplemente pudieran registrarse en uno entender cómo funciona todo esto y que luego pueden cambiarse de servidor como quien se cambia de ropa interior.
Obviamente, habrá mucha gente que no se cambie de servidor porque simplemente estará bien así. Pero algunos de ellos se cambiarán a instancias que encajen mejor con sus gustos o se crearán varias cuentas.
También estaría bien que según tu ubicación te haga registrarte en la instancia generalista más grande de tu zona. Así evitaríamos que muchos usuarios entren en una sola instancia.
NeonkAaa
Unknown parent • • •Those, who are used to centralized networks, tend to use official apps and official servers. They want it to be centralized, they don't want to read rules, they want to proceed directly to the content. And, probably, this is the issue to solve. As you can see, when it was an option to choose a server, they tend to choose mastodon.social.
And do not forget that "Fediverse != Mastodon".
NeonkAaa
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Mastodon (and Fediverse) is neither a community nor a social network. It is a tool to build a community or social network.
A community is a group of people willing to communicate. They can use different servers, protocols, tools.
A social network is about you and the people you would like to communicate with. A social network is you and your connections on Fediverse, LinkedIn, Twitter, chats, work, emails, etc.
So, do not mess with the terms. Fediverse is not a social network. Mastodon.social is not a community.
Phoeniqz
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •It's not a nice thing, but the reality is that most people don't care about open source. If that happens, it's up to the open source community, here on mastodon, to make sure that open source principles continue to be valued, even if most users of the platform don't seem to care.
Alberto Ⓥ
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •NeonkAaa
Unknown parent • • •NeonkAaa
Unknown parent • • •Let's get back to the point. They obviously choose a server by the slogan and popularity. And then tend to demand other servers to conform to their rules. And they demand their admin to protect them. Same as Twitter, right?
NeonkAaa
Unknown parent • • •David W.
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Brad Johnson
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •David Slifka
Unknown parent • • •@dimitrisk @spreadmastodon Here's some background on our thinking behind that decision.
https://medium.com/@davidslifka_86286/how-to-decentralize-social-media-6ae35a49ac46
How to decentralize social media - David Slifka - Medium
David Slifka (Medium)FediTips has moved!
in reply to David Slifka • • •@davidslifka @dimitrisk @spreadmastodon
I'm sorry, but with all due respect, that "Growing the bars" chart is incredibly misleading. I don't know whether you are doing this deliberately or accidentally, but it's a terrible approach.
Presenting promotion of mastodon.social as equivalent to promoting Mastodon is just "fediwashing".
Asking people to choose a server is a goal in itself. It makes them aware of the issues involved. Skipping that step is missing the point completely.
FediTips has moved!
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •It would be like an environmental group deciding that lifestyle changes are putting people off the environmental cause, so they drop the lifestyle changes and decide to just "greenwash" instead.
You're using the same "let's get the supporter numbers up, damn the cause" logic.
FediTips has moved!
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Yes some servers will let you down, but that's why it's important to use curated lists and not just choose something at random. (I've tried to start my own at https://fedi.garden and there's nothing to stop others doing the same.) Curated lists can demand reliability etc.
Your suggestion is like saying we should all eat at McDonalds because it has the most consistent standards, and independent restaurants might give you food poisoning.
Fedi.Garden
fedi.gardenFediTips has moved!
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •"If we reach a point where undue centralization became an issue, or seemed even foreseeable to become an issue,"
Undue centralisation is very foreseeable now.
Mastodon.social currently has about 14% of the Fediverse both by raw numbers and MAU.
If there is another wave on a similar scale to last November, that could push mastodon.social over 50%.
Why?
Because this time round the official app is telling everyone to just sign up on m.s
David Slifka
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Nat
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •soafen 🌸
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •windust
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •https://mstdn.social/@feditips/110233289512157360
FediTips has moved!
2023-04-20 21:35:12
Dave/Loebas :verified_pride:
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •Sometimes these apps offer you even more features.
kaleb
in reply to FediTips has moved! • • •This is mastodon.social app
not mastodon network app
I like #tusky