wild idea of the day: could there be something like a Mastodon/fedi “Wading Pool” for newcomers?
….a carefully moderated, protected environment, test-drive server instance for the sole purpose of allowing people to gain an initial understanding of what the fediverse was going to be like *before* they actually had to choose a server?
That would technically be easy to do, Mastodon servers can already optionally run in "isolated" mode where they do not federate with anything. The admin can optionally federate with specific instances if they want to demo federation.
@UlrikeHahn This is from 2022. I found it when I first signed up. I'm not sure if the information is still relevant.
@PattyHanson @UlrikeHahn thank you for posting that! I think these kinds of write-ups are essential but it’s still the case that people can inadvertently pick a server that gives them a terrible experience and they leave (rightly) leave forever.
We tell them that they they can “always move later”, but that’s burdensome too. So that made me wonder whether we could do better than just describe things, but actually give experience, without them having to think or read much
