|
Top-level
 The tl;dr (because TL! it's TL) is that, for this group: - people feel stressed and anxious when they get yelled at for breaking rules and norms they didn't know about - it's hard to find people and conversations, and specifically hard to follow people across instances - people want better organic and algorithmic ways to connect with each other - instance-picking stresses people out, and a lot of the sign-up and settling-in processes are confusing and/or too much work for unknown returns 163 comments
Lastly! I squeaked this post in under a rapidly dropping door—I'm going to be really busy for a day or so and then offline for awhile. If you ask questions after today and don't hear back, that's probably why! Please be cool with each other and don't make me come back to screaming fights in my replies. <3 Re. the second "couldn’t find people or interests" group, I viscerally feel this. I set up an alt-account to indulge in therapeutic socialising around the (big) football (soccer) team I follow. The experience has been excruciatingly difficult in many ways. It's been a job. I'm two week into relentless *work* to drum up even a little consistent sociability. It's been almost zero fun. If I were normal, I'd have given up on day two. Two idea I think would make it easier (cont)... 1. Hashtags are indeed essential in the absence of an algorithm. But people either forget to use them, or just don't because they've been conditioned not to. It would help enormously to have a mechanism by which we could auto-tag posts; i.e. insert one of more tags quickly based on what I'm posting about. In addition, it would help if tags copied into replies, like handles do. (cont)... 2. I'd like to be able to search a hashtag and get back a list of accounts that have used that hashtag within x days or have that tag in their profile. Ordered by "frecency". I'd then like to drill in to see their tagged posts. Perhaps the biggest difficulty I've found on my alt-account is that even though I've been through the pain of finding and following around 200 people who have used a relevant tag, my timeline is frustratingly irrelevant to the point of being chaotic. (cont)... So I have to resort to clicking about to manually search for my hashtags. Which yields better results. But then I'm missing the stuff people don't tag (which is a lot). So yeah, it's very difficult. I'd also say it's all very time bound. Posting stuff while America sleeps means you're posting into the void, because those posts aren't surfaced by an algo in the morning. A tactic I've often used there is to boost my own posts to give them a second wind. I said "lastly" but then my replies become almost immediately overwhelming. It's great that a lot of people like this/want to argue about it/are thinking about it! But I am just one brain so I'm going to miss a lot of things, apologies. @kissane Thank you for your work on this. Like many Bluesky/former Mastodon users I had a really tough time with the sign up and paralysis over which instance to choose. The first one I chose (mastodon.social) was huge and overwhelming. I didn’t even understand the fediverse AT ALL at that point. Fast-forward to late last year, when Twitter changed hands. I changed my instance to a regional one (made much more sense) and have been pleased with it. /1 @kissane That being said, there are definite steps one can follow to make Mastodon a better experience. I’m still no good with hashtags (trying). Also, I try to be more in the moment about social media. I’ve learned to let it all go. If I can’t move or save my posts when I leave an instance or deactivate/delete a social media account, that’s fine. It simply isn’t important to me. I understand that isn’t the case for many others. /2  @kissane this would never happen with one of the established big players like say twitter @kissane Yeah, this. Over the years I have had a couple of instances just disappear, and it has taken a few tries to find an appropriate instance. At this stage I think it works better for me than twitter ever did, but I can see why folks find getting established and sticking round a non straightforward experience. @kissane yep, and this is why I tell friends to avoid servers where the admin is also the sole moderator. Amusingly, I've been accused of being "against" small servers for this stance - thus demonstrating your first point about being yelled at. Anyhow, thanks for putting the work into this. Hopefully seeing it all gathered in one place will result in some self-reflection in certain quarters. Do you think that the ability to transfer an account to a new instance would at least help the "fedugee" problem?  Really appreciated this info. A thought I've been having recently is that perhaps part of what makes people so burned out on politics is the media's tendency to accompany stories with "authoritarian strict father (in the Lakoff sense)" images. As someone who consumes a lot of politics content, since about 2016 my feed has been filled with these images. A feature like Slack's of option to suppressing link previews, and a norm of using it, could help. 1/2 My personal and professional reasons for being on social media are such that CW for politics did almost drive me away. I believe this political *information* needs to be more widely known. But I've recently had the realization that the supporting visuals are a different thing. We don't need to be spreading those. 2/2 @JMMaok This is extremely interesting and something I've literally NEVER seen anyone raise, which is one of the reasons I really value this place. @kissane I really think the whole instance thing is needlessly stressful. Masto makes a big deal about it, but honestly it doesn’t really matter. You can follow people across instances just fine. The only thing that matters from a new user perspective is number of characters per toot and bespoke emojis. Instance picking felt like I had define my identity by one thing. Then it turned out, it doesnt seem to matter, which is exactly what you’d wonder if the instance was well run  @robotmonkeys @kissane yeah, I suspect the most important factor in picking an instance is what they block - pick one that will be safe for you. But they tend to make themselves after communities, giving the impression that's what matters. Who actually checks their instance feed and so on? @kitten_tech @kissane even then, you don’t know, and you certainly don’t know who anyone is when you sign up.  @kitten_tech @robotmonkeys @kissane I’m new to the fediverse. And the 1 thing that is confusing to me is, you say you can follow others and read posts across instances. But how do you find those people? Where do you go to see them or to follow them or to read posts. Something like Instagram or Twitter has an algorithm that shows you things that it thinks you might like. here you have to go looking. @Tekk @kissane same way you find them anywhere else. Look at who gets boosted and people you know and who they follow. My experience is that you need only one or two seeds to create a decent follow list. I say that as someone that managed to import a partial list from Twitter before it was shut down, but honestly I try not to look back, and instead find all new people. @robotmonkeys @kissane that reminds me. By the way, thank you for the info. But that reminds me what does boost and favorite do I’m using the Ice Cubes app. @Tekk @robotmonkeys @kissane I use Icecubes too. Boosting is sharing the toot with everyone who follows you, giving it wider exposure. Favouriting is just letting the toot author know that you liked it. Your followers won’t see it.  @Yup_Its_Holly @Tekk @robotmonkeys @kissane it's not mentioned but worth mentioning: the Local and Federated timelines on an instance of any size should give you a public feed to start off with. Apparently that got hidden by default on some clients which is silly and confusing. @robotmonkeys @Tekk @kissane it is absolutely not the same as anywhere else. The actual process of finding people across instances is unique to the fediverse. @robotmonkeys @kissane if I search for a specific hashtag does it show me posts in the instance I am in or across fediverse? @Tekk @robotmonkeys @kissane Following hashtags is also kind of important to sort of kind of create your own algorithm and it isn’t something that seems to be emphasized for new users.  @robotmonkeys I think instance-picking doesn't matter until it does. You've had no problem with the instance you chose (and TBH, Hachyderm looks like a solid choice!), I've had no problem with mine, either, but I've heard stories of plenty of other people who ended up with awkward mods, or on the wrong end of defed drama or whatever. Smaller instances miss more messages, etc. In short, I'd be wary of saying "instance choice doesn't matter" in general, just because it didn't matter for you! :)  @kissane So much of this just feels like folks who would have otherwise gravitated to AOL and never leave AOL discovering the actual internet for the first time 30 years ago. @BalooUriza @kissane yeah as much as we like to opine, the fact is that one piece of software can't and shouldn't be for everyone. That said many of these are basic UX complaints that should be considered, like discoverability and communication. @wilbr I don't disagree but I think this is more of a social problem than a technological one. Same with moderation. Assume good faith if not given clear indication otherwise, and be gentle to folks who skipped from AOL directly into Facebook without stopping. @kissane While being yelled at is not fun and likely needs to be cut down, a lot of these other things subtly point towards key differences in what people want from a social network. I'm noting two big divides. Number 1: a lot of people want to be tracked. They don't say it explicitly, but they're asking for features that only work if the network is doing tracking. Number 2: people want the "right to post", but they really don't want to be partake of the governance required... @kissane Some examples for Number 1. > ...the way it could throw things in front of me that I never would have even thought to go look for on my own That's tracking. > Discoverability/self promo is limited Tracking > Quote-replies ... is how I decide are important follows. Tracking Likewise, Number 2 pops up a variety of places. But note how not a single quote includes lines like "I helped fund my instance but disagreed with the board of governors" ... @kissane ... sadly, some instances of Number 2 were actually just misrepresented. > I was told picking a server didn’t matter... migrating is easy Of course it matters. > I’ve set up 4 accounts, each on a different server, and don’t know how to amalgamate all the people As above. Like why would you want to amalgamate all of the people? Unless you had some misinformation at the start that made this seem like a good idea. > the federation model is a mess and it’s impossible to use ... @kissane ... yes, the federation model is messy. It's trying to replicate human social structures, it's going to be messy. > discovered I was on some kind of different continent from my friends, and could not follow them, nor they Immediately felt frustration and disgust and never looked back But you didn't move to the new continent to be with your friends? To me, Mastodon participation is citizenship, not "userdom". A lot of the quotes belie that people don't want citizenship?   @kissane Maybe try speaking more for yourself, as I find NONE of the things you mention stressful about this place, and definitely DON'T want an algorithm showing me posts it calculates are in my interest, since 99% of the time, it will be wrong. Instance picking is a literal 5-minute issue that disappears as soon as you pick an instance, which is not difficult to do. And since most of the rules AREN'T RULES, they're opinions, you can ignore those just as easily as anything else. @whknott I just read and summarized 500+ replies from other people talking about their experiences. That is literally what the post I linked to is. 🤦🏻 @kissane There still a bunch of us that don't have a problem with anything you mentioned. Think that it might be you for like 10 seconds. More rules are going to mean more #enshittification, especially begging for an algorithm. @kissane 500 people out of ... what? 2 million? I might also think there's some response bias there. Don't act like you're speaking for all of us, because you are definitely not. @kissane I'm not insecure and there's no need to start with name-calling. Users can learn to manage their own timelines and stop trying to dictate experiences for other users. THAT is the biggest problem here. @wilbr I'm calm af. Everyone should speak to their own incompetence and stop ascribing emotions to me. I could give a shit what you people say or think, because I know how to manage my timeline, the way none of you seem to be able to do. Which is why you're muted. Have a nice day! @kissane @rolle But I have to say, I would never be this active on Twitter. The atmosphere there is just too oppressive? (don't know if that's the right term). It feels like that every time you tweet, you have the obligation to provide some value to your followers. You have to either create quality, professional tweets or entirely shitposts and parody. It doesn't feel like microblogging.  @raikas @kissane @rolle Ah yes, I had the jitters crawl my brain for months after leaving Twitter. But it’s now ex-twitter, literally. I like it here. Most for the calm of mind actually. Not feeling like an algorithm is watching your every move is liberating. You stop performing when you get here. And that is great.  @gimulnautti @raikas @kissane @rolle The principles of user-centric product development dictate that the team should give the community what it wants. What happens when it wants meth? 🤷🏻♂️ @paninid @gimulnautti @raikas @rolle @maya has a great post about this. https://maya.land/responses/2022/11/28/we-live-in-a-society.html I think it's crucial that we don't conflate "algos" with "evil algos," but also that whatever we do with recommendations and non-chrono feeds be handled with the kind of care we use with explosives. @kissane This makes sense. I work in software as a product owner specifically around making UI people friendly. I was able to stand up my own instance and threw myself in. However, I want people to join my instance for these very reasons.   - make norms more obvious when signing up Thank you for doing this work. 500 is a lot of data collection and takes quite a bit of time. Loved your tl;dr, too. @kissane I find it interesting having seen hundreds of people on bluesky argue for their "right" to use ableist slurs this week are also possibly the same people that had a hard time with feeling picked on because someone asked them to use a CW. that part i actually like, and consider it part of figuring out the social structures of a new social media. for me I've been more into bluesky definitely because of discoverability and its simplicity @kissane I can't say that my experience was much different than your results. I'm just too damn stubborn, have an instance that a friend runs, and hadn't really done Twitter much for quite some time. Weirdly enough, I've managed to eventually find people I knew there, and tons of new and interesting people I never would have found. @kissane 1-it is the internet and people asshats (they shouldn’t be, but they are) 2-I really like to hear more about. I’m curious about what makes it difficult? Are the search features not robust enough? Etc.. 3-to me organic and algorithmic is a contradiction in terms 4-I’ll give them that. I had lots of doubts and anxiety of making sure I picked instance that’s “best for me”. Different servers different cultures. Probably ties into point 1.  @kissane i think we need to make the norms more explicit but i don't know how to do that without making a really long document that people will just ignore |
Gregory's Server
something I didn't have room for in the post itself is that a non-tiny group of people have had instances blow up on them over the years, leaving them starting over again and again—this is especially destructive for newer folks, who don't always understand what's happening