@FediTips The whole business with having to find your own server intimidates new users, especially nontechnical ones. I generally love Mastodon, but it's a shame that it's mostly for tech nerds right now.

If you care about reaching a diverse audience, you really have to avoid friction during the signup process. That's why I support defaulting to mastodon.social.

@FediTips Done

@FediTips I am on mastodon.online, while it it is not mastodon.social it is still run by the same people so perhaps this needs to made more clear to people.

@FediTips any servers for artits who don't like Nazis and love human rights and are neurodivergent but also like tech jusr not AI?

@FediTips "too big to defederate" is a *good* property for someone who doesn't want to lose all of my history of existence (I have dissociative amnesia) to some stupid high school drama level quibble.

@FediTips they are also doing strange things, like you cant say somebody is racist. So a bit right wing.

@FediTips the irony: it is on GitHub which shared the demise of getting too big and central for something decentralized

@FediTips

It is too big to moderate well. Just 2 days ago, I warned someone not to go there.

@FediTips
I wandered over here because the categorical server I joined was taken over by people with an agenda, and firm opinions on how everyone else should use the Fediverse. Also rude and threatening, and blocked this which had a half-dozen people I followed or vice versa.

Why did other people choose this server?

Encourage movement: promote specific interest groups.
We do need another photography server. Or three.

#tips #howto #hownotto #FailureModes #manners

@FediTips

I added this comment to the third issue:

https://github.com/mastodon/joinmastodon/issues/1052#issuecomment-3513813128

@FediTips all of this is a good reminder. I think maybe ideally mast.social could be a jumping off pad. maybe learn a few things and then move off. Something we haven't been able to do before because everything else locks you in. But I've been here, got a decent list of follows to read. I don't really need the firehose anymore.

@FediTips When I started here, I looked at a page of servers and wound up choosing the big one. I'm a musician, a programmer, I create video games, and I rant about politics. None of the smaller servers with focuses had that combo. I wondered if talking about other things would be disapproved of. A large, nebulous server seemed right for me to start with.

Later, when I decided to make a private server, I kept the old m.s account to use in power failures. I post new releases on both servers. Although m.s is growing, perhaps a good number of accounts are similarly dormant until needed.

One way to ease entry might be to have a page where a new user checks off their interests, and the closest-fitting instances are offered. They needn't all be mastodon. Servers indicate areas of interest (and also if they welcome general/political/off-topic conversation).

Fwiw, I'm considering opening up my servers to the public next year, should anyone be interested in moderating. Every bit helps, I guess.

@FediTips while I get your point to some degree , mastodon is still a decentralized service that allows with little friction to create and use whatever instance you want.

No matter how big or how many uses one instance gets no one is forcing you to use it. You start on the company owned instance and once you get comfortable you move on.

It’s clear the most vocal set of people are developers or at least Linux power uses are very comfortable with unstable and sometimes poor users experiences.

Poor non easy to use UE is not how one grows a social media network. Social media is as popular as it is because it’s so easy.

You complicate things you only alienate the mainstream .

If the company ever gated , blocked or just even deeply hid how to add or join servers in the Fediverse then I’d have a hard time.

But considering the current situation I believe our time and energy is best concentrated on bitching about other far more pressing issues.

@FediTips one way will be to propose two options : join a random server or join a specific server matching with your profile.
If the second option is choosed, then a small form appears, and the list of open servers which fits with your answers appears.

@FediTips
When I need a new server, I looked on the list of servers to pick one dedicated to my profile or with general purpose. None of them was open to new registration.
So I finally went to mastodon.social .

So is it the problem of mastodon.social or is it because they are not enough servers open ? Or because they are not well listed ?

@FediTips
Yeah, mastodon kinda sucks if you don't join a relatively like minded instance, joining mastodon.social is kinda silly, and I feel like promoting it does everyone a disservice.

@FediTips Thanks for this, gonna migrate off .social today

@FediTips I just recently started self-hosting so my brain is swimming Mastodon stuff a lot... 😵

Actually had a dream that mastodon social grew so big and then blocked all the other instances... Seriously... 💤 😴 🤯 🏃‍♂️‍➡️ 🖥️

p.s. To avoid repetition of replies:

-If people forget name of server they signed up on, it's written on the email they received when they signed up.

-Mastodon.social is in no way more reliable or easier than other servers with similar or better track records.

-If Mastodon gGmbH does not trust anyone else to run a server properly, why should anyone else trust Mastodon gGmbH to run a server properly? "Trust me, but I won't trust you" is a terrible argument in a collaborative project.

@FediTips If I can manage changing to a new instance, you can too.

@FediTips I feel like when people ask for randomly assigned servers, there's a strange forgetfulness about which specific problem the default server was meant to solve.

Among people who signed up in 2022, the biggest reason (by far!) why people involuntarily left – that is, wanted to keep using Mastodon but failed to – was that they changed phones or browsers or just wanted to sign in on another device, and couldn't because they didn't know what server they were on.

@FediTips
The best thing about being on a smaller server (instance)
is that your local timeline is not a fire hose.

@FediTips Wait, I just read this blog post:

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/05/a-new-onboarding-experience-on-mastodon/

And I gotta admit, that is a cowardly response. Their excuse literally just is, "Because it's easier!" You know what else is easier? Centralized platforms. Does that mean they're better? No. We pay for convenience with our freedom.

This line is especially stupid, "This gives us a far better chance of showcasing what decentralized social networks have to offer instead of having that person bounce and never hearing from them again." How does growing an instance to 30+% of the userbase "showcase what decentralized social networks have to offer"??? Doesn't that literally do the opposite? And then they buried their heads in the sand and haven't addressed it since. That's pathetic.

@FediTips We need a separation of Mastodon the software from Mastodon the service provider, it's an awful confict of interest.
They have the resource no other instance has, so there is no pressure to add better moderation controls that appreciate and respect the federated nature of moderating non-flagship instances.

@FediTips
It looks like you've been championing this issue for years now, but I didn't see any of the main people working on Mastodon address it. Is there a way you could get a direct response from them on why Mastodon.social (the instance they own) is the "default" instance on the app?

@FediTips I'm surprised Mastodon is still on GitHub and not some Forgejo instance.