I think that does introduce some complexity and in those cases the need for multiple accounts perhaps.
I’ve been following Rabble online, one of the originators of Odeo that became Twitter. He’s behind an effort called planetary.social which is a peer-to-peer based network and yet another option for federation that would focus on providing users a single, device-based identity. Well, I could be wrong there, I’m going from memory, but I think that’s the idea. That single identity could/would be then used amongst federated services/networks. As a peer-to-peer it’s an interesting formulation that actually works offline when needed.
I bring that up not to be confusing but I think coming off of Twitter, we have a situation where many of the “influencers” have spent years on Twitter building up a large base of followers, really, an “audience”. And so, in that world, leaving such a thing behind is hard to do. “What!! Why would I go to Mastodon and start over! I have no followers there!! Many of my followers might not follow!!” In other words, they have a stake in staying on Twitter even if it is technologically inferior or has deep problems of another nature.
Going forward, be it Mastodon, Planetary.social or some other emergent network, I think it makes sense to consider portability and interoperability. Sorry if I’m not being clear! It sees to me we’re at a potentially significant pivot point in regards to how we organize the internet and social networks in particular. It makes sense to be more considerate rather than just staying or jumping to the next new thing. I’ve been drawn to Mastodon because it seems to be more resilient, flexible and future proof as a network. Dispersing the financial responsibility to users is a good thing and this is also done by the same mechanism by which stability is increased… more servers.
Fair point. A related question: are there cases in which I should maintain both a mastodon.social and a scholar.social account? When Mastodon first got popular, I made accounts on all the instances I thought might be relevant to me (indicative of my confusion on the matter…)
Funny. I’ve been on Planetary since launch and I still don’t know what it is.
I totally agree… interoperable protocols are particularly important. One of the reasons I continue to have big hopes for Blue Sky, Twitter’s foray into decentralized social networks.
I guess I would just consolidate to mastodon.social for example. But if you would like to separate Follower lists and also your posts maybe separate accounts can make sense also.
Ah yes planetary.social… the one scuttlebutt app. I tried https://www.manyver.se/ many times. But didn’t clicked for me with all the nodes etc. the app also was not stable enough for me. The community was/is nice!
Now that I’ve been on it for a while, I’m more confident that it’ll take off in a big way. May not supplant Twitter, but I think it might become a significant alternative.
It hasn’t take long to get the hang of it, even though the methods and terminology are different.
Some significant big Twitter names have made the jump, and they’ll pull an awful lot fo users with them.
Admins and mods have done a good job of increasing capacity to support the flood of new users
It’s a much, much nicer place to hang out
There are risks:
It needs money to maintain itself
Once the advertisers wake up to it, it may attract a lot of garbage
We don’t know yet how long the moderation model will be able to resist the potential avalanche of shitposting that’s destroyed Twitter
The clients need work, but I’m confident that’ll come. FWIW, I’m using Mastonaut on MacOS and (mostly) Metatext on iOs/iPadOS. On all platforms, the browser interface works well
It is easy, albeit time consuming (some manual copy and pasting of Usernames) to merge accounts on different servers/Instances.
It’s important to fill out your Profile. Use hashtags for your interests/communites. Write an intro post; use hash tags. Consider pinning and updating that post over time.
I’m more optimistic tan you. I don’t doubt that there will be significant problems if Mastodon becomes a mass-user network. But it will still benefit from the lack of a monolithic overlord making decisions in their own selfish interests.
And even if it doesn’t, it’ll be a pleasant place to hang out for a while - as Twitter was, for a while
To be fair, when Twitter was in its early days it was also chaotic. I’ve not really seen anything to suggest that Mastodon is having “unusual” problems, it’s just the common fare that happens with rapid expansion.
I wouldn’t get too hung up on which server you join. You can always switch if you change your mind, but in any case you can follow people on other servers.
I actually partially like it specifically because it reminds me of Twitter’s early days People are nicer and there’s a sense that “we’re all in this together”, like when the fail whale used to show up on Twitter.
Having been a part of a web exodus before, I’d like to think the tech giants will learn a lesson about how these communities are only valuable because of the people in them, but I’m guessing they won’t
This dev has abandoned his mastodon client twice, which was buggy and overpriced anyway. All of his apps are short lived and bug ridden. Don’t think this one is going to be different.
I feel like you. I do however think that Mastodon has far more of a forum feel than Twitter ever did, and that will hopefully help. (Also Twitter was great for a few years before the commercial entities got involved!). I know plenty of forums (including this one!) that have not descended into chaos and fascism
Of course, I know some forums that have been ruined too. But good community expectations go a long way to “regulating” behaviour and I’m hopeful that as long as people reinforce what is expected when users err, it will be kept a sane space.
To be fair as well, many of the problematic elements will remain on Twitter, since they are presumably not unhappy! Not unlike how my local town’s FB is a dumpster fire because the only people who use it are horrible. It’s a positive feedback loop, but it goes both ways - if we’re all nice there’s no space for rude people!
I see a lot of new folks talking about client apps and while there are some excellent ones to choose from, have you spent any time using the website? I think it’s an excellent experience. If you’re on an ipad, laptop or computer try out the Advanced web interface which you can turn on in preferences. It provides horizontal column/panels that can be pinned with lists, hashtags, notifications or whatever else you want to keep handy. A fantastic feature on larger, wider screens.
If I stick solely with the website, will my timeline pick up where I left off between sessions, across devices (i.e., will it sync?)? Lack of timeline sync has been the biggest point of friction using the various apps, so far, for me.
No, as far as I can tell it does not sync between devices. Generally, if I come back to a device if I left a tab open, it will be in the same area. It does not auto refresh so that may be a setting. I tend to do most of my browsing from my iPad so it’s less of an issue.
People are nicer and there’s a sense that “we’re all in this together”, like when the fail whale used to show up on Twitter.
