sam
@sam@chven.us
Great news! Perfect place for a reminder to ✨️ bridge ✨️ your Bluesky account to other open social networks by following @ap.brid.gy - it's that simple.
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:p2y466m63svxixp56gglbrlm/post/3lavvsmumjs2u
The thing I love about this post and all its replies, is the stark difference in replies in answer to Brent's very reasonable question.
Some folks:
* It's the starter packs / easier onboarding!
Other folks:
[I'll let you read those replies]
https://mastodon.online/@BrentToderian/113478939656417633
If you think it's the starter packs / easier onboarding, then that leads you to want easier onboarding for Mastodon👍🏿
If you think it's a character flaw or moral failing in people that choose BlueSky, that leads to doing nothing🤷🏿♂️
I love BlueSky, mainly because it's now our best bet at Twitter not being as influential in the US midterm elections (that are coming up sooner than we think).
I like to brag and boast when I am right about a call, so it's only fair to admit when I'm wrong: I really thought Mastodon would get it together on the onboarding and trust and safety front.
In fairness, Mastodon is getting it together... but just far too slowly to matter. A slow "yes" is often the same outcome as a "no."🤷🏿♂️
@mekkaokereke yeah, we're constantly fighting the fact that a lot of the trust & safety aspects in both Mastodon and ActivityPub in general were left languishing for so long.
Hopefully the new ActivityPub Trust & Safety Taskforce can make some forward improvements here through reports & recommendations.
Though funding for work is definitely also a factor here, it's obviously possible to do more faster with a budget of $30+ Million vs $600k/year
@mekkaokereke Sadly, I get the impression that the window of opportunity for Mastodon to be the great Twitter replacement might have closed.
It's just so quiet in here right now, especially compared with BlueSky.
That might change over time?
I think what a lot of people wanted was just a better moderated Twitter. And that's something Mastodon ultimately failed to deliver, particularly with the default apps.
I think perhaps it's time to focus on Mastodon better at being its own thing. A place for slower, more thoughtful, longer form conversations.
And to keep chipping away at the moderation and other issues that have held it back.
I certainly think there's merit in better federation between the Fedi and BlueSky.
But these are just a few disjointed thoughts...
@ajsadauskas @mekkaokereke I have tried to get lefty media guys and political parties interested in Mastodon -- and they seem to not get it. Wondering what else to do.
@mistergibson @mekkaokereke There was a whole wave of Australian journalists and prominent #auspol Twitter users who moved to Mastodon when Elon first bought the bird app.
Some moved back to X, others moved on to Threads and BlueSky.
Many who tried Masto for a time ended up on BlueSky.
I think there's a few reasons why that happened.
The onboarding journey and the default app, especially two years ago but still today, just weren't great.
There have also been issues with moderation and harassment.
There's issues, like quotes, that were supported by other Fedi apps but not Mastodon.
With credit to the Mastodon developers, some of those issues have been fixed, just nig nearly fast enough.
I definitely think there's value in Mastodon and the Fediverse more broadly.
But I'm now a lot less sure that role will be "the new Twitter".
@ajsadauskas @mistergibson @mekkaokereke I get the sense that a lot of people don't like the effort to find people to follow which is why they are now raving about starter kits on Bluesky.
@markrprior@ohai.social @ajsadauskas@social.vivaldi.net @mistergibson@mastodon.social @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io Software lives or dies by how easy people find it to accomplish their tasks. If a Starter Kit helps the less able/less time-rich of us settle into a new social network,
@Uraael @markrprior @ajsadauskas @mistergibson @mekkaokereke
Well said. When I started here, I had a hard time finding people to follow. That changed over time, and the people I now follow are ones I treasure.
A starter pack would have made that process so much easier.
It is easier to edit that start with a blank white page.
Still working, though, on building more of a voice for myself, and go beyond posting a weekly photograph.
@markrprior @ajsadauskas @mistergibson @mekkaokereke
I haven't been too fussed about finding people here, I also never got into Twitter for the same reason. There, it felt like the twitbelievers showed up in public physical spaces and kept saying that engagement in some form was a must or it was a waste of potential.
I've yet to come across anyone with a tattoo or a promise of how this place will change my life, I like it this way.
@ajsadauskas @mekkaokereke @mistergibson It's blasphemy here to want to track how much traffic gets driven back to your website from social media posts. You're also not supposed to care about likes and boosts. But most people who write for a living or represent the public want some idea whether what they're posting is resonating.
I came here because the R community did, and I like it! But I still need other platforms for other topics & likely always will
@smach @ajsadauskas @mekkaokereke I fully support experimentation regarding the Fedi. Time to bust out the code editor?
@mistergibson @ajsadauskas @mekkaokereke I created my own searchable, sortable table of work-topic-related posts, including likes and boosts, back when I was still working to easily see which of mine were most popular. It's still running 😃
https://www.machlis.com/mastodon.php
Didn't bother trying to track traffic to my articles here, I knew adding tracking code or using short links would bug people.
@ajsadauskas @mistergibson Sadly, unless we figure out how to make the fediverse appealing to normies that maybe aren't very political, Twitter-level traction ain't happening. Like, ever. The ideologues who seem to wish nobody ever migrated here from Twitter don't help matters any. I don't know how to solve any of that.
@mistergibson @ajsadauskas @mekkaokereke Mastodon never really got over being hostile to "politics", broadly defined. The old "CW politics!" thing has mostly gone now but the legacy of it lives on. Especially many of the older/higher follower users still won't boost politics without a CW
@ajsadauskas @mekkaokereke you aren’t here for Community, are you?
You are looking for Information over flow and a dopamine fix of Algorithmic Validation thru forced engagement by Twitter Aunties.
Datavore! Infomaniac! Never satisfied. Consume and be consume.
You are the customer.
You are the product .
@MishaVanMollusq @mekkaokereke Do you mean me personally?
If that was my big concern, I would have been on X or Instagram these past 2+ years instead of here.
It's more that I'm disappointed that many people who I respect, some of whom were regular Mastodon users for a very long time, have recently stopped posting here.
They're now on BlueSky.
There was a real opportunity with Twitter imploding for the Fediverse to fill that void.
That means decentralised, open source, non-commercial social media based on open standards could have been the standard.
That window of opportunity is now nearly closed.
And honestly, I feel disappointed that's the case.
I think there is an opportunity for Mastodon to be the place for slower, more thoughtful, longer form conversations with a stronger community.
And maybe that's what Mastodon was better suited to all along?
@ajsadauskas @MishaVanMollusq @mekkaokereke
I will suppose in a few months Bsky's VC money will run out. How will they fund the servers then? Sell user info? Ask for donations? Show ads? Sell the whole platform to Google?
The possibilities are endless, but all options are bad for the users. It will drive some more users here.
@ScottStarkey @ajsadauskas @MishaVanMollusq
This is a super fair question! I don't think it's true that "All options are bad." But it's an equally fair question for Mastodon. How are we gonna pay for Mastodon stuff?
The core Mastodon team is underfunded. People working on Trust & Safety features are underfunded. Moderators are underfunded. Admining an instance is too expensive. Etc.
Some money comes with strings, but some strings are really chains.
We need other ways to pay for stuff.
@ScottStarkey @ajsadauskas @MishaVanMollusq
BlueSky has said that their plan is to charge a subscription price for premium features. I think the math does work out for them. We'll see if they can execute, but so far, they've been pretty good at both execution and not bloating their operational costs (assumptions based on team size and infra).
They may still have a blind spot with race, but it's relatively less than most other options at the moment. And they're hiring Trust and Safety folks.
@mekkaokereke @ScottStarkey @ajsadauskas @MishaVanMollusq Mastodon isn't just underfunded though. It's also helmed by a person who is resistant to changes from anyone outside, and actively pushes back against changes that would benefit everyone. If you gave Mastodon a pile of cash today you still wouldn't see a lot of progress.
@fancysandwiches @mekkaokereke @ScottStarkey @MishaVanMollusq In an ideal world, Mastodon (and other Fedi apps) would be developed by a member-owned nonprofit with a democratically elected board.
You want to attend the AGM? You want a vote on how Mastodon is run?
Okay, that's, say, $5 per month.
Instance-level memberships and memberships from other Fedi projects cost more.
Second, the nonprofit has a commercial arm that offers managed instance hosting, and support.
The nonprofit would also raise funds through a grants, gifts-in-wills, events, regular donations over $5 per month, and large donations from major donors.
@ajsadauskas @fancysandwiches @ScottStarkey @MishaVanMollusq
It's like you're reading the Nivenly charter!
@fancysandwiches @ScottStarkey @ajsadauskas @MishaVanMollusq
This is going to sound a little like Eugen apologia, but it's how I feel. 🤷🏿♂️
Mastodon *is* changing. Eugen makes different decisions now than in 2019, and different decisions in 2019 than 2017. It is changing!
But... the challenge is that the *rate of change* is much slower than *I* would like.
That doesn't necessarily mean that I should get what I want! Especially when there are other options (BlueSky, other Fediverse, etc).
@ScottStarkey @ajsadauskas @MishaVanMollusq @mekkaokereke That's why I don't want to join Bluesky: it'll inevitably be ruined by the usual profit-seeking actions.
@ajsadauskas @mekkaokereke
The instance I’m on had to add capacity recently for an influx post US election . It’s not a million in a week but steady growth that’s hopefully sustainable for them
@ajsadauskas @mekkaokereke i think the people who are only leaving twitter now are after a similar experience. Bluesky isn’t quite the same but it meets their expectations…for now
BlueSky has broken social media assumptions in a key way that is impossible to ignore. The typical 90% lurkers, 9% commenters, 1% posters isn't holding over there. There's a much higher ratio of posters and people interacting. Their 1% is closer to 30%. That's astronomical.
In that way, it's not a Twitter replacement. It's something different. I won't say "new," because those engagement ratios are closer to "old internet," and what I think Mastodon could be one day.
@mekkaokereke @franksting Genuine Question: Is it time to create an app on the Fedi that's more of a direct one-to-one old Twitter replacement (like BlueSky is)?
And then evolve Mastodon to be a better app for longer-form conversations?
On the other point: I think both are true.
I've seen the comment numerous times from different people that BSky "feels" like early Twitter/pre-Musk Twitter.
And it has a lot of the features ex-Twitter users on here have been asking for, for years (quote posts!).
At the same time, full credit to BSky for their on boarding, with the starter packs making it easy for people to find people they want to talk to. That is something Mastodon should definitely replicate.
@ajsadauskas @mekkaokereke threads is much bigger and whose growth will continue to be fueled by those who people want to just read their idols and celebrities e.g. https://mastodon.social/@randahl/113483764349423985
@mekkaokereke @ajsadauskas which is why I said they’re seeking a similar experience but it’s not the same. It’s probable that many of these people don’t stay and end up on Threads, which is another algo focused feed more like their recent experiences.
@mekkaokereke I think the distinction between BlueSky as an org set up to suffer the same enshittification arc as Twitter and BlueSky as a platform and a suite of features really needs to be thought about for the next big thing.
The BlueSky platform does some things right that others should learn from. I was looking over the ActivityPub docs today to try to distinguish whether the moderation stuff we want is even doable here.
@gooba42 @mekkaokereke When you look at the ATProto design and the approach they are taking to decentralization it may not be the case that Bluesky (the public benefit corp) going down a bad path will definitely lead to a migration here. Hosting your own data (a Personal Data Server) is a lot less resource intensive than a solo Mastodon instance because of differences at the protocol level. There might be a decent ecosystem for self hosting, choosing relays, etc. by the time that happens.
@mekkaokereke it's definitely the starter packs; what made my experience here on Mastodon great from the start was that I imported lists of dozens of accounts of people I didn't know, but who were posting about topics that I was interested in.
I figured I'll get to know them eventually and can always unfollow. I effectively built my own starter pack and it was a blaze.
Mastodon started to be fun, as soon as I followed about 300 people and most new users never get to that.
@weddige @mekkaokereke Yeah, especially coming from Twitter where everything is aggressively pushed to you, there’s a big learning curve having to curate your own feed. A bunch of people I know IRL created accounts here two years ago, but got frustrated at the lack of content out of the box and left.
@Lyle @weddige @mekkaokereke There are ways around this, potentially.
On signup, select 5 hashtags that align with your interests.
Now select 5 Lemmy groups that align with your interests.
Okay, here's a list of users who have posted to one of those hashtags, or Lemmy groups, or have replied to a post using that hashtag.
@mekkaokereke There is also all these conservative people who think that the present state of Mastodon is a feature and that any changes will lead to deterioration (a.k.a. more users).
@violanders @mekkaokereke I posted about the bridge between Bluesky and Mastodon both here & there. Some enthusiastic response here *but* also the “don't post that stuff here” guy. No negative response there.
It doesn’t seem fair to blame “Mastodon” for one user - except that kind of thing seems to happen a lot. And it gets tiring. It's nice not to have to worry about the “I'm a long-time user and you should all do things the way I say” crowd.
The original starter pack is to simply peruse the list of accounts your friends follow and look at the various profile summaries. Click thru on intriguing ones to see what their post history, and follow them if you’d like. 🤷♂️
This shit isn’t rocket science. https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/113475452486944907
@rscottjones @AkaSci I know @FediTips or @FediGarden do something like this. I think?
@donburnside @rscottjones @AkaSci
You might mean @FediFollows ?
@FediTips @rscottjones @AkaSci @FediFollows that’s the one! Thank you!
Journalist: Do you believe that Israel has a right to exist?
UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese:
How has this not been repeatedly showing up in my timeline?
I found the information in other places, but I'd still like to find that toot again!
“Butter is made with milk? What? What else? Cheese is made with milk? My mind is blown.”
🇬🇧 🇺🇸 " As the trial nears its conclusion, a guilty verdict could result in fines and prison time and disqualify Le Pen from running for president in 2027. " DO NOT THREATEN ME WITH A GOOD TIME!
🇫🇷 "Alors que le procès se rapproche de sa conclusion, être jugée coupable signifierait une forte amende et une peine d'inéligibilité pour Mme Le Pen pour la Présidentielle de 2027" - PUT**N OUI NOM DE NOM !!
@ParadeGrotesque Can I vicariously gloat if Le Pen is convicted?
@ParadeGrotesque I'm not sure if having Bardella stand in 2027 is preferable
@ParadeGrotesque what do you mean a convicted felon cannot be president? That's crazy talk!
That's the French for you! All of them are crazy! C-R-A-Z-Y
@ParadeGrotesque that way you'll never get a capable pres...
Last year I insisted my CS students stop using replit & learn to run their projects in python, java on their computers. They HATED it. I felt old fashioned, didactic. "This is just a company trying to get you hooked on their service, you all know how they throttle your virtual machines just to get you to sign up? That's a bad sign."
This year a couple of them thanked me for doing this in the hall the other day. "You were right, Mrs. Futurebird*"
I coud cry for joy.
*no they don't call me that
Along these same lines... I enjoy https://trinket.io/ for teaching python with my 5th graders, but I would love to have an application on their machine where they could run code. If they had Macs that'd obviously be Thonny which is excellent. Today I will start trying to find out how to do this with locked down middleschool chromebooks.
I will learn to love the the cromebooks. I must. Otherwise this simply won't work.
I do not "hate" chromebooks.
Chromebooks are powerful computers that can do many things.
God I wish they just had some kind of Dell PCs.... I get why school IT loves chromebooks but it's not fun for ME.
*whimpering continues*
chromebooks are so "do everything in the browser" oriented that if you take a screenshot do you know where it gets saved by default?
To the "downloads" folder!
I don't even object to this, that's the first place you'd look for a randomly saved file ... but still what does that say about how the OS works?
In what sense was a screenshot (or photo from the built in camera) "downloaded"? No wonder students struggle with these concepts.
@futurebird I have an old Intel Chromebook, and it's a great little machine for running Vivaldi, Gimp, Wine, and Calligra.
My big frustration is that audio doesn't seem to work in all Linux apps, and I can't pin Vivaldi web apps to the dock.
Anyway, I was just wondering this morning if Windows is trying to go in the same direction. I noticed that several teachers I sub for all have VLC to play DVDs and other media and there's no Windows media player(or is there? I don't use windows at home.) At my other job, I noticed a lot of file types want to open in Edge.
@sam @futurebird I'm pretty sure all new Chromebooks out there do officially support the built-in GNU/Linux environment, but the vast majority of (if not all) schools out there seem to block access to the Linux environment by default.
Windows Media Player is still included in Windows 11, but it's "hidden" in a separate "Windows Tools" Control Panel applet. I'm suspecting the reason no one uses it anymore is because it lacks support for some modern video/audio codecs, though idk for sure.
“My” is the new “i”
Alt...
Searching “my” on my iPhone
Australian apps really love naming things “My”
There are more
Top Hits:
My NRMA
mylD
MyAussie
My Telstra
This is cool being able to follow and interact with Bluesky accounts from Mastodon. I have another account where I can see people posting on Threads too. Excellent not having to join those services, just wish it was more open, eg "opt-out" to Fediverse access for Threads users rather than opt-in.
@timrichards is there an explainer on how to do this?
@franksting this is the basic info for Bluesky connections from here:
---
Got a fediverse account? Bridge it to Bluesky by following @bsky.brid.gy.
Got a Bluesky account? Bridge it to the fediverse by following @ap.brid.gy.
More at https://fed.brid.gy
@franksting And this is how people at Threads make their accounts visible here:
@timrichards so I can tell fediverse people that they can see my bluesky posts at @franksting.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy ?
@franksting I think your handle over there would be franksting.theblower.au.ap.brid.gy. Mine appears like this: https://bsky.app/profile/timrichards.aus.social.ap.brid.gy
Nobody has a child going to school as one gender and returning as another.
Trans people are not attacking women (or anyone else) in bathrooms.
Nobody is going through the hell of transitioning, putting up with the shit people give them etc for 'fun'.
All trans people want to do is just get on with life, doing what they want to do which harms nobody else whatsoever so they don't have to spend an entire lifetime miserable.
The rhetoric to suggest otherwise is 100% bullshit.
The goal with this project is to hopefully have another option for improving call reliability on Linux (and consequently Linux mobile).
New video posted yesterday!
I am an enjoyer of Shortwave, the IP/internet/streaming radio app that's part of the GNOME Circle. Maybe you would like it?
PeerTube: https://tinkerbetter.tube/w/2mwjFhu3tE7NAFKnFR7wYg
YouTube: https://youtu.be/Fnei-yR44UM
The Old Guitarist from Picasso’s “blue period” is my all-time favorite painting. Positioned vertically, the man looks old and gaunt. I feel his tiredness and poverty. Turn it 90 degrees, and I get a laid-back vibe - like a chill dude laying in his bedroom floor playing along to his favorite vinyls.
Pro tip: If you’ve ever watched the old TV show Bewitched, the horizontal position of this painting hangs over their fireplace.
Alt...
Picasso’s “Old Guitarist”
Alt...
Picasso’s “Old Guitarist” turned horizontally
This weekend really restored a lot of my faith in humanity, as well as my faith in this goofy corner of the fediverse.
You all are awesome. Let's get this.
edit: changes I make to style.css seem to update after a few minutes or more.
History
