Mastodon (Not the Band) Classic or Dud

Are you joining the servers

Thinking about it! Various friends there already so I'm asking around.

tried this some years ago last time twitter was Over and i didnt like it. would prefer to just stick to various web forums for my posting

Literally zero interest.

Would rather go back to tumblr than this

people are saying its not very intuitive - they seem lost - weird that join a server instead of just "having an account"

Well, FWIW

https://spaceballs.masto.host/@nedraggett

Search: lasted about 27 million years

Destroy: wiped out by the last Ice Age

i couldnt figure this out, why not just go and sit in a meadow idk

So is this thing in the vein of IRC, where you'll only see people if they join the same instance/server as you? That seems quite the opposite of what social media is, in some ways.

Or can you be on multiple servers?

lol i would absolutely follow ned anywhere . . . apart from spaceballs, which is just awful

I'm at https://mastodon.online/@quartzcity

can we start a mastadon ILX? haha.

Ha. Not my server! I just needed an entry point.

Basically as I am sensing it now, to answer Trayce’s question — you can talk internally on your server but you can also basically talk to anyone on another server if that server doesn’t block yours for any reason. And basically as you follow people you create your equivalent of a Twitter feed, and there are list options etc. And you can set your posts to public or private. So it’s nowhere near as easy an entry as Twitter but once you get the hang of it it functions as it in practical terms. Seems worth a go.

can we start a mastadon ILX? haha.

Yeah are they like minecraft or dischord servers - ie you have to actually have physical server space? I can seeyou have to moderate, which sounds unfun. I dunno - Masto looks very small. I've known about it for years but the only people I knew who ever bleated about it were hackers/devs and assorted nerd ne'er do wells.

its a bunch of connected fiefdoms instead of a dictatorship

surely we have a baron(ess) among us

so to speak

I like the old school FidoNet-powered-by-gnutella feel of the place.

Let’s go

i've been on mastodon on and off since 2017 (it was mentioned somewhere and i was curious): in 2018 there was a little mini-excursion there among three overlapping social circles i'm in, i forget even why (tho it was partly triggered by ppl that some of us followed being twitter-banned) -- it was a little nine-day wonder and then faded (the accounts in question crept back onto twitter w/new names and thrived, slightly less abrasively)

since then had two instances die under me (both small)

• the first i'd picked totally randomly, it was extremely japanese which made my federated experience soothing (i read no japanese) and its mod one day decided he didn't want to mod any more and kicked everyone off (he gave plenty of warning and moving between instances is p easy)
• the second i'd picked bcz a tiwtter-exile i enjoy following wz pals w/its mod and it had an entertaining shitposty vibe; i then went on mastadon hiatus for a long time and when i returned this second instance had vanished (i think there was beef involved? the tale is probably on reddit somewhere)
• so then i signed up a second time, this time to mastodon.social, so that i'd have some kind of microblogging bolthole when elon musk got round to destroying twitter 4 years later as i knew he always would (mastodon.social is the default instance, large and mainstream, headed by mastodon founder eugen aka gargron, and currently down a lot as it handles many many flustered sign-ups)

— mastodon is larger than two weeks ago but it is still very very small and very curiously shaped: it lacks several features dear to journalists and also to harassers which will be combination aggravation and relief
— twitter's sense of centrality was of course a vasr value but as a practical unchallenged fact it is always going to be wildly contested; as a straight-forward quality it was never long for this world and eventually came apart (which is basic politics: the ineluctable fact of empires is that they die)
— it is still somewhat flimsy (cf the outages plus eugen is just one person and can't move at speed) and also somewhat leaky i believe (my feeling abt strangers reading my DMs is that since they're probably even more annoying than my public posts tweets and toots THEY'RE WELCOME HAHA… but i understand many have actual reasons for minding abt privacy and so on) (like centrality, privacy is an ideal verging on a myth, but it's not a bad myth after all)

(FB is of course much bigger but even b4 u start in on its many other flaws it's also massively pre-siloed -- yes it's very centralised as a corproate entity but users have no sense of or access to that centrality)

er so anyway dubdobdee at mastodon dot social, as long as it can be accessed i will never quit any platform, least of all ilx or indeed twitter

https://media.tenor.com/U5RwBfkG6t8AAAAM/elmo-flames.gif

in conclusion and tl;dr i arrived somewhere on the internet before ned so i win

I joined mastodon.lol sever but for the last couple of days the app just says 503 so either the server has busted or Mastodon lol?

I will probably delete the account and try again

mastodon.social has been up and down ftb large recent influx, i *think* the decentralised servers means that mastodon as a whole chugs on even when there's local outage so yes, maybe try another server aka instance (call it by its name)

it's *possible* that someone calling their server "lol" did not have a serious purpose to their project

I only joined because it was called that. Joke is on me.

When I go on account settings it does "Server upgrades, check back later <3".

Anyway, this looks like a good thread on it

Apparently there is a crossposter you can use.

To mirror my tweets to Mastodon, I use this cross-poster. Others are also available. I have it set to mirror all my Tweets except replies.

If I don't feel a Tweet was RIGHT for mastodon, i just pop over quickly and delete it after posting it here. Simples https://t.co/eTXBJFgczo

— John Bull (@garius) November 5, 2022

Once I got through the basics of it it all seems pretty reasonable enough. The mobile app version is quite nicely designed.

Useful general thread here (though speaking from a high follower standpoint) -- also notes how you can make Mastodon look like Tweetdeck, which suits me for sure.

Right. As a heavy tweeter/content creator who is now maintaining BOTH a Twitter and Mastodon presence, here is a short guide to what I have set up, how to do it and lessons I've learned, for others.

TLDR: It's been WAY less hassle than I expected thanks to tips from followers /1

— John Bull (@garius) November 5, 2022

Although that may be the same thread featured above! Well, repetition, etc.

I'm on the waitlist for mastadon.social, but yeah it would be cool if we could figure out how to get an ILX mastadon server; though, perhaps that would just be redundant?

Not really -- since you can move your accounts between servers as desired, having some sort of ILX server even as a stopgap might not hurt.

i meant redundant with ILX itself.

I joined and am hoping to a return to the simpler/more enjoyable days of Tumblr communities.

@sctttn✧✧✧@ms✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧

Try it as a URL!

Weird formatting there!

https://mstdn.social/@sctttnnnt

I don't get it at all, but I am here https://mstdn.social/@akmonday

@lathamgr✧✧✧@ravenat✧✧✧.c✧✧✧

that's right , I ravve

what the hell - diamonds??

@lathamgr✧✧✧@ravenat✧✧✧.c✧✧✧

@lathamgr✧✧✧@ravenat✧✧✧.c✧✧✧

please lord help

v

https://ravenation.club/web/@lathamgreen

ilx has disguised emails for like 15 years dude, write it out like i did

at lathamgreen at whichever dot whatever

great, lathamgreen is now the only person I am following on mastadon. I hope lathamgreen will not be pushing me disinformatioons.

u can say yes to my pending friend request and then follow me if u like :D

or not no pressure

I didn't get one (if that was directed at me). One thing I don't quite get: on mastadon.social, if I search for @quartzcity or @mrnedrick, I see your profiles aand am able to follow you. but this doesn't seem to be generally the case; for instance, tried to follow Damon K. but he's on a different instance entirely but I can't seem to do that without also having an account on that mastadon server? maybe I'm doing this incorrectly. we'll see how long I stay interested, I give it two days.

tried to find people but doesn't seem to work. looks very unlikely that I'll ever use it anyway, seems like a bit too much of a commitment to have a new social media app. anyway https://mastodon.world/@centuriesofsound

I’m on there - @Jelbu✧✧✧@m✧✧.t✧

It works for like 10 minutes of every hour as far as I can tell

Jelbugle mas to

yes sorry, this is me mark s (dubdobdee) talking to you akm (akmonday)

i'm in mastodon social, which may or may not be the same server as mstdn social (probably not the same, which might "explain" the non-connection)

it's telling me follow request is pending approval at the moment -- i know it sometimes takes time to clear (especially at the moment with lots of new ppl joining)

you dfon't need to have an account in more than one server to follow accounts in other servers, but with some inter-server hook-ups it is a bit more intricate (and apparently counter-intuitive, i remember having to puzzle it out when i first joined but can't now recall what the error was that i was making)

(there are actually also some servers which have entirely blocked other servers but that's unlikeley to be an issue for anywhere ppl are currently moving into)

Solve like we did and let mod bots operate. 50 strikes and you are out (one week only) xp

happy I'm not well known like Wesley

"In brief, he's tired of being harassed constantly by random internet people, and the straw that broke the camel's back was getting run out of Mastodon by malicious users reporting his account simply for being there."

https://wilwheaton.net/2018/08/the-world-is-a-terrible-place-right-now-and-thats-largely-because-it-is-what-we-make-it/

I did it: @AlfredS✧✧✧@l✧✧.s✧

l✧✧.s✧ you say?

It must be true.

Is Mastodon real?

I rely on Twitter for three professional niches: biology, computer science, and numerical analysis. When I write that “I rely on Twitter,” I mean it. Nearly every collaboration of mine in the past three-four years started on Twitter. It’s been extremely nice to have all three (mostly disconnected) communities on one website. I was skeptical about, despite their rehetoric, whether these communities would move. Yet I feel like the entire biology community (or the subset relevant to me) moved to Mastodon this weekend. Today I see that the computer science community is starting to strongly consider moving. The numerical analysis community? Hopeless. They’ll likely move back to Usenet, if anywhere (this isn’t a joke, they continued to rely on Usenet and Listserv until the late 2010s). I don’t know whether Mastodon will be my new “home,” but I do hope I find one.

It's already feeling very comfortable, I have to say.

mastodon feels like it can serve the academic niches just fine, i think whatever various media outlets/members of the media choose could become the true twitter heir tho and i think the federatedness of mastodon doesnt lend itself to ease of sharing stuff like that, at least not in its current form

Apparently, getting a password reset email has been an impossibility on Mastodon, even prior to the Twitter migration. I'm still logged in on my mobile, but it wouldn't accept my login on desktop, so I was trying to reset due to that. The first time I tried was mid-last week and I haven't received an email from them yet.

The other thing that's been difficult about Mastodon so far is my inability to see who other people are following. For instance, I found someone on Mastodon who I recognized from Twitter and was hoping to poach some of his follows, because there is probably a sizable overlap between the two networks and I thought that it would save me time grabbing all these names again. According to his Mastodon account, he's following 300+ people. But when I click on the list of people he's following, it only shows me 3 people.

yeah to me it seems like 'professional niches' is probably the most likely twittery thing to happen

media / pr outlets and celebs / sports / politicians / "good general punditry" probably not so much

when I click on the list of people he's following, it only shows me 3 people.

The three people you're seeing will be ones who are on the same server as you. This might not be possible on mobile, but on desktop you have to click through to the account's home page on its origin server, then you get a full list of followers/following from all servers.

In general I am enjoying Mastodon (the instance I am on has upgraded their tech so it runs smoothly now), but there are definitely some not-so-user-friendly elements.

I am following you, emil.y, right?

Yep, I'm EK on mastodon.lol - not posting much but hanging out there frequently.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/21/tumblr-to-add-support-for-activitypub-the-social-protocol-powering-mastodon-and-other-apps/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9uZXdzLmdvb2dsZS5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAATkfHMi1jSTpSQ_PwB9QsQP0qI4VKRXOkTSsbUFPKqLx3TQ5YDzvZ6RVnSPFoBK5sFl3HkTiNvlou_dc4Nzbk39wb9FJMQTnkOZqNJx-0eJ9i_DYeZu8AA5WxrBZP75wVSytaqSlJ80-WnlYzuprY1YZkGK3p45rvpaA8M4fUqn

and here comes sic on his fiery steed

I’m @0x00b1 on @fediscience.org if people want to follow me! I think Ned is the only person I’ve found so far.

Hi there!

Have seen some actual funny toots today

My COmic SAns version of Moby Dick has been well-received on Mastodon

lol

👽 @joinmastodon official account has been banned on Twitter pic.twitter.com/qOSe7nRj2W

— Alex Barredo 📉 (@somospostpc) December 15, 2022

This guide should just have a link to this thread.

Here's a beginner 's guide to mastodon, the social network Elon Musk doesn't want you to know about, which you might want to use quite soon.https://t.co/o0XjdxS5v1

— Jayati Ghosh (@Jayati1609) December 16, 2022

is there an ilx-friendly server?

@TheMoviegoer✧✧✧@d✧✧.commun✧✧✧

But I'd be interested in an ILX-centric server.

https://dmv.community/@TheMoviegoeress

Is this better?

Yes

i signed up to a server but i'm on a waitlist and they haven't replied and literally every other server i've tried e.g. mastodon.lol has either removed their sign-up page or also operates a wait list :/

I see it as a quiet non-replacement for twitter

the thing that is kind of amazing is how non-commercial it is, at this point at least - not sure if /how that would change

Yeah, I think .lol is off-limits for a while. The guy who owns the servers has been overwhelmed.

try ravenation.club

nice

i found one btw

https://www.ft.com/content/de808736-2e05-4c3b-a53c-55b170ae9efd

Interesting - but can anything gold stay

wikipedia has. in fact i've just sent my annual donation.

I have read a few pieces pretty critical of their funding drives ie,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12/02/wikipedia-has-a-ton-of-money-so-why-is-it-begging-you-to-donate-yours/

sure, i mean i think the criticisms there are fairly benign, but i get the messaging can be aggressively needy in tone. it was more to your original point – 'can anything gold stay'. assuming that anything needs some sort of revenue to run, and if you don't want wealthy individual philanthropy backing it, or private business owning it, that means donations if the answer is going to be 'yes'. for me, wikipedia remains an extraordinary enterprise from the early days of the internet, extraordinary partly because it exists, but partly too because it's endured – that's the 'gold' part of the equation. it's a resource I use regularly, at least once a week, probably more like once a day, so putting in a yearly donation seems right, ensuring it can can continue to endure – that's the 'stay' part of the equation.

I too kick a few bucks in Wikipedia's direction every now and then, in gratitude that there's at least one major resource on the internet that's not trying to suck me dry of data in order to enrich some amoral billionaire dickhead.

it's an interesting dilemma - I am happy the Internet Archive is so steadfastly non-profit. There are so many people who are willing to work for free because they believe in something. Much money to be made in things like Chat GPT but then some impertinent upstart offers a free open source version. I have donated this year to internet archive and probably will to my mastodon instance

so have i got this right?

home: just people i follow
local: everybody on that server
federated: everybody on that server plus everybody they follow

two months from now i'll come back with another extremely basic question, fyi

no this is helpful, speaking as someone who is not yet on it

home and local: yes that's right
federated is all posts on all servers that your server has sight of (though maybe that's effectively the same as what you just said)

just got a reply from chris 'blondie' stein.
yeah, i aint leaving 'don.

also, i genuinely enjoy the low level laid back vibes of the place ..

A distinct plus

I only wish more people I know were using it!

People don't want to log off.

Mastodon is civil, respectful, supportive, and terminally boring. It lacks jouissance - the horrible but compelling excesses which drag us back here day after day.

— Tom O'Shea (@DrTomOShea) January 12, 2023

"that's why YOU say Doctor o shay!" - Local Merchant

yeah, enjoying the slower more laid-back aspect of Mastodon, I'm actually considering posting some stuff on there (something I don't do on twitter, where it just seems like any comment I would make would just get lost immediately).

I'm a bit short on free time atm, but I was looking at how to integrate ILX w/ActivityPub. It doesn't seem like a perfect fit, tbh, but it's interesting to think about. I'd be happy to partner with someone who knows how to set up a Mastodon instance as well so long as I never have to say toot

also I know why people are precious about it, but I really really wish the fediverse had search