Gregory's Server@Mastodon that new first screen on the official app is horrible tho. You should not prioritize a server over others, this just makes it more centralized.
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46 comments
@luana @mrhamel @Mastodon As each instance is a separate service provider with different policies and regulations (depending on hosting location and nationality of the owner), I can imagine Mastodon gGmbH doesnโt want the legal trouble of automatically directing people to instances outside of their control. The curated server list and account migration is still available, but then the responsibility lies with the user.   We shouldn't want to be like Apple, Google or Microsoft anyway. We're different and proud of it. Right? @IAmDannyBoling @luana @Mastodon All depends on how you want to gain adoption. Adding friction by making a user select from a myriad of unknown servers would make the process all the more difficult. That new user may not know the admin/moderation team, and their account could disappear tomorrow without a trace. Mastodon is not novice friendly. I'll repeat: Nobody is "adding" friction. It's already there. And it hasn't prevented millions of people from signing up. Could it be made easier? Probably. But if it's done like Big Tech wants it done, THAT will assuredly kill Mastodon. @vi @luana @Mastodon @mrhamel @peterkal @luana @Mastodon @mrhamel @vi In my case, I was not able to set up the redirect from my banned account, so what I could export was the list of people I followed, but not my followers (or properly, I could export a csv list of them too, but no way to say 'hey, I've moved' and they're still following the old account instance) I don't see an easy solution here @luana @mrhamel @Mastodon  @jr @luana @mrhamel @Mastodon Different instances have different sets of rules. With Matrix, I also had the experience that others have had here as well: Overnight, the domain and thus the account including content was gone. @oliver @luana @mrhamel @Mastodon yeah I mean you could have gone not totally random, but joinmastodon.org already has a list, that know technically more or less okay servers with interest fields and language. So you could have just asked the user for their primary post language and what stuff they are interested in and select a random server from the list based on this facts... @IAmDannyBoling @luana @Mastodon What's more important to you, the ease of adoption into the ActivityPub federation, or decentralization to the point that the platform is unusable by anyone but geeks and nerds? Nobody's asking for it to become /more/ decentralized. It's fine just like it is, and apparently that's not a problem for millions of users who aren't geeks or nerds.  @luana @Mastodon There must be a way to create an easy centralized sign-up method that assigns people to instances randomly (spread the love). Maybe include a short questionnaire to increase the odds they can be assigned to an instance they can relate to (say check off words on a list with key words expressing interests).  @AskPippa @luana https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/4870 these issues have been under discussion for over 5 years. Eugen does not give a fuck and is clearly angling to build himself a techbro fiefdom on .social. the only way a good, usable fediverse instance chooser will come to exist is thru a third party not affiliated with Mastodon. @deutrino @AskPippa @luana yeah, one of the great things about federation is we are able to build alternatives to things we don't like about it. I think this is especially true for the onboarding experience. We should build our own decentralized onboarding experience that helps non technical users pick a good instance they'll enjoy being on  @pcouy @deutrino @AskPippa @luana @AskPippa @deutrino @Urban_Hermit @pcouy There are plenty of alternative apps. But guess which one will appear first and mislead people when new users search for โmastodonโ for the first time in the app store? @luana when I was a new user in December I read the app reviews and chose Tusky. Then I tried to figure out how to start a new account through that app, but it didn't seem to be an option. I chose a specific server later because I thought about it for a week, did a few searches, and when I saw some very clever people quoted in search results and I wanted to be on the server they were on. @deutrino @luana I may be naive here... What if several instances got together, created a central sign-in form with randomization, and did a proof-of concept test just to see whether it could work? And advertise it a bit so newbies would know to try it for joining? @AskPippa @luana @Mastodon https://www.fediverse.to/ , I think is the best idea for now. |
@luana @Mastodon Let me know how it goes telling Google not to make Gmail a recommendation for Chrome and Android, and Apple's iCloud for every device.