13 ms·

Ask HN: Who are your favourite people to follow on Mastodon?

• rocky1138 9y ago
  That rocky1138 guy is a great person to follow https://kwat.chat/rocky1138 https://kwat.chat/rocky1138 cough
  • ColinWright 9y ago
    Maybe you can help me here. I'm on a Mastodon instance: https://mathstodon.xyz/@ColinTheMathmo https://mathstodon.xyz/@ColinTheMathmo I've clicked on your link, but from the page I get I can find no way to follow you. What should I be doing? Do I click the "Subscribe" link at the top left? Given that your page doesn't look at all like the Mastodon I'm used to, it's not at all clear. Advice welcome.
    • RX14 9y ago
      You can click subscribe and put in your mastodon address ColinTheMathmo@mathstodon.xyz, or you can search rocky1138@kwat.chatin the mastodon search box and click follow from there.
      • ColinWright 9y ago
        Right, that search in the search box worked - thanks. Now following!
    • vigliag 9y ago
      You can copy-paste the profile url in mastodon's searchbar, it'll open that profile in the UI of your mastodon instance, so you can follow it as you normally would.
      • ColinWright 9y ago
        Your words "the profile url" don't mean anything to me. The URL I have - as quoted above - when pasted into the search bar gives no results.
        • vigliag 9y ago
          That was exactly what I meant, sorry if it was unclear. Copy-pasting the http URL in the search bar works for me. I am however on a different instance, mastodon.social, no idea what may be causing the different behavior.
          • ColinWright 9y ago
            OK, so interpreted you correctly, but it didn't work on my instance. Fair enough - not really worth pursuing, but worth being aware of. Thanks.
• cjslep 9y ago
  I typically follow people I've had a number of meaningful conversations with. If looking for techies, they're scattered across several instances. The i.write.codethat.sucks instance I am on I think is on the smaller side.
• howenterprisey 9y ago
  Those famous outside of Mastodon: https://mastodon.technology/@brion https://mastodon.technology/@brion (major MediaWiki contributor), https://mastodon.xyz/@johnonolan https://mastodon.xyz/@johnonolan (Ghost.org founder), https://mstdn.io/@xahlee https://mstdn.io/@xahlee (of xahlee.info, which gets posted here a lot), and https://octodon.social/@pzmyers https://octodon.social/@pzmyers (PZ Myers, the blogger). Organizations: https://mastodon.technology/@kde https://mastodon.technology/@kde, https://mastodon.social/@Purism https://mastodon.social/@Purism, https://status.fsf.org/fsf https://status.fsf.org/fsf, and https://mastodon.technology/@conservancy https://mastodon.technology/@conservancy Those who make interesting posts: https://cybre.space/@theZacAttacks https://cybre.space/@theZacAttacks, https://mastodon.social/@natecull https://mastodon.social/@natecull, and https://dev.glitch.social/@MightyPork https://dev.glitch.social/@MightyPork. I'm https://mastodon.technology/@danielhglus https://mastodon.technology/@danielhglus, by the way. And browsing the local timeline of https://mastodon.technology https://mastodon.technology with the unmung tool (direct link: http://www.unmung.com/mastoview?url=mastodon.technology&view=local http://www.unmung.com/mastoview?url=mastodon.technology&view...) might turn up some interesting people to follow as well.
  • gemma 9y ago
    To tack on some more folks well-known in the outside world (some of these signed up last year and aren't active now): - Michael W. Lucas, author: https://bsd.network/@mwlucas https://bsd.network/@mwlucas - Amanda Rousseau, malware researcher: https://mastodon.social/@malwareunicorn https://mastodon.social/@malwareunicorn - Brendan Eich, creator of Javascript: https://mastodon.social/@BrendanEich https://mastodon.social/@BrendanEich - John Scalzi, author: https://mastodon.social/@scalzi https://mastodon.social/@scalzi - Jenn Schiffer, artist and dev at Glitch: https://toot.cafe/@jenn https://toot.cafe/@jenn
• Uhhrrr 9y ago
  Just Mastodon, or anything in the fediverse?
  • Uhhrrr 9y ago
    BTW, https://sealion.club/craig https://sealion.club/craig. Mostly I post music that I have recently found and like.
  • rocky1138 9y ago
    Anything in the fediverse, of course. It's just that everyone knows Mastodon, so it's low-friction to title the question with it.
• BadassFractal 9y ago
  I really want to get into Mastodon, but I cannot decide which one I would want to join. Is there one that's say best for.. gaming? Or one best for the arts? I tried to use their search but it's hard to tell which one I'd actually want to be part of.
  • howenterprisey 9y ago
    For the arts, definitely mastodon.art. For gaming, I couldn't find any good (uptime-wise, and English) instances for just gaming, but https://mastodon.gamedev.place https://mastodon.gamedev.place (gamedev) or https://boardgames.social https://boardgames.social (for the other kind of gaming) came up while I was looking. I used the list at https://instances.social https://instances.social.
  • dielan 9y ago
    Lots of people across the fediverse like gaming. You just need to pick an instance that isn't heavy on censorship so you don't find yourself trapped in a small sandbox. Many Mastodon instances suffer from this problem so you might want to try some of the older GNU Social instances that federate with a wider audience like loadaverage or quitter.se
  • zigg 9y ago
    Have a look at https://instances.noct.zone/ https://instances.noct.zone/, a hand-curated list of a number of the more popular instances and their themes. But really, you can join anywhere, don't think about it too hard. You can always follow anyone from anywhere. I have a very diverse follower/follow list, instance-wise.
  • FourthEstate 9y ago
    Join one, participate in any of them. That's the beauty of Mastodon.
  • retzkek 9y ago
    I too couldn't decide, so I started my own private instance recently (it was dead simple with the docker stack), and sometimes I feel a bit isolated and wonder if I should have joined an established instance instead. I suppose that's the burden one takes upon with a private instance: you have to actively go out and find people to follow and interact with. The advantage of course being that you're not bound by any sort of community rules or norms, and all the other advantages of hosting your own services. In any case my main goal was to get myself to write more, regardless of who's reading it, so to that end it's been successful.
• singingwolfboy 9y ago
  Janelle Shane: https://wandering.shop/@janellecshane https://wandering.shop/@janellecshane She runs the http://aiweirdness.com http://aiweirdness.com blog, which is delightful
• sedachv 9y ago
  https://bsd.network/@ed1conf https://bsd.network/@ed1conf for useful tips about the standard Unix editor Pretty much every other account on https://bsd.network/ https://bsd.network/ https://mastodon.social/@qrs https://mastodon.social/@qrs for retrocomputing and CG pictures
• akkartik 9y ago
  I've been mostly hanging out in this subculture of Forth/Gopher folks: https://mastodon.social/@crc https://mastodon.social/@crc https://mastodon.social/@vertigo https://mastodon.social/@vertigo https://social.coop/@h https://social.coop/@h https://mastodon.social/@natecull https://mastodon.social/@natecull Ok, that's not much of a list. I tend to have favorite threads rather than favorite people: https://mastodon.social/@natecull/99158138073364070 https://mastodon.social/@natecull/99158138073364070 https://mastodon.social/@natecull/99765851805118639 https://mastodon.social/@natecull/99765851805118639 https://social.coop/@h/99191538225584742 https://social.coop/@h/99191538225584742 https://social.coop/@h/99097437322507669 https://social.coop/@h/99097437322507669 https://mastodon.social/@natecull/99135181901636906 https://mastodon.social/@natecull/99135181901636906 https://mastodon.social/@natecull/99118398192730050 https://mastodon.social/@natecull/99118398192730050 https://a.weirder.earth/@enkiv2/99667688333089676 https://a.weirder.earth/@enkiv2/99667688333089676 https://niu.moe/@enkiv2/99270035409991776 https://niu.moe/@enkiv2/99270035409991776
  • enkiv2 9y ago
    I love that there's a really rich gopher-centric community on the fediverse. It should be noted that the gopher people overlap heavily not just with forth but also with experimental hypertext.
    • akkartik 9y ago
      Indeed! Hence your Xanadu toot train in that list :)
• iuguy 9y ago
  Some of my faves: * djsundog@toot-lab.reclaim.technology * qrs@mastodon.social * cypnk@mastodon.social * mulander@bsd.network * jk@mastodon.social * tinker@infosec.exchange In case anyone's vaguely interested I can be reached at stevelord@mastodon.social. I mostly post about hardware hacking and conferences.
• dielan 9y ago
  I typically just shout into the void and follow most people who engage with my posts. Its a big network out there
• myst 9y ago
  What is Mastodon?
  • mikekchar 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software)
  • dielan 9y ago
    Its a recent new server software and client for the StatusNet "fediverse". StatusNet and the protocols it uses are very old, and a small community of users have been there for like a decade. Its a federated social network. It is like a cross between Twitter and email. Anyone can start a server and set their own community rules and guide lines. If you or someone on your server remotely follows someone they like on another server then your servers will federate and posts from both will be in the public timeline. Eventually you will have a full timeline of many servers. Though your admin can silence or outright block other instances. Most GS veteran admins prefer their users just block people, as full instance banning is an extreme measure and against the spirit of federation. This is also a future-proof approach to social networking because if your server and its admin are malicious you can either start your own or just move and you still can contribute to the same network of people as before. Recently a guy named Eugen who goes by @gargon@mastodon.social made Mastodon and a patreon account to support its development. It has a troubled history, as the early adopters of Mastodon were Twitter and Tumblr users from the far-left pro-censorship crowd. They didnt understand how federation worked but they were paying Eugen's bills so he focused on redundant administration tools instead of more critical fixes (its ok now tho). Many popular Mastodon servers for example cybre.space, witches.town(now dead), and others they maintained big instance block lists and they live mostly in a bubble as they did not agree with the hands off, self moderation (blocking individuals) approach of older GNU Social sites. This bubble is really small though and is not sustainable. Now, even though Eugen and his audience might prefer Mastodon servers not federate with GNU social servers not every masto server uses a huge instance block list. Anyone can host a masto server same as GS.
    • forty8bits 9y ago
• rayalez 9y ago
  I have made HackerNewsBot [1] (it publishes stories with 100+ points), comedy bot [2] that reposts jokes and showerthoughts from reddit, writing prompts bot [3], and webcomics bot [4]. My favorite people to follow are: @Chrishallbeck@mastodon.social (webcomics artist) @lumen@mastodon.social (writes jokes) @Gargron@mastodon.social (creator of mastodon) @cwebber@octodon.social (author of ActivityPub) And a few cool engineers: @Valentin_NC@mastodon.cloud @HerraBRE@mastodon.xyz @markhughes@mastodon.social @chrisBorg@mastodon.social @surma@toot.cafe @nolan@toot.cafe Also come follow my account [5], I don't post often, but I tend to share updates on my projects, cool startup/webdev related stuff, and some digital art. I should get back on mastodon and post more stuff... [1] https://mastodon.social/@hackernewsbot https://mastodon.social/@hackernewsbot [2] https://mastodon.social/@comedy https://mastodon.social/@comedy [3] https://mastodon.social/@webcomics https://mastodon.social/@webcomics [4] https://mastodon.social/@WritingPrompts https://mastodon.social/@WritingPrompts [5] https://mastodon.social/@rayalez https://mastodon.social/@rayalez
  • NoGravitas 9y ago
    I follow several of your bots! One feature request: webcomics bot should provide links to the original when posting, so that people can find webcomics they want to follow regularly.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • Mithaldu 9y ago
      Yeah, straight-up reposting images in bulk like that is one of those crimes that people do thoughtlessly, but all over the place without even realizing it's a copyright violation, or not even caring that it is one. The bot should be posting links to the comic pages and let mastodon's multimedia stuff extract preview images. Anything other than that may be "convenient", but is ultimately entirely self-serving at the detriment of the people whose work the bot is using. How do you feel about fixing that, rayalez? Also, for anyone wondering why this matters, further reading from an incident last year: https://twitter.com/aurahack/status/902363519672360962 https://twitter.com/aurahack/status/902363519672360962 - https://twitter.com/i/moments/901869159931187200 https://twitter.com/i/moments/901869159931187200
• niche_tech 9y ago
  Mastodon is never going to be a thing.
  • dethos 9y ago
    It already is! If you want to discuss it further say something to: "@dethos@s.ovalerio.net"
  • ohtwenty 9y ago
    Explain? I mean it's running and there's a sizable amount of people using it?
• mcjiggerlog 9y ago
  I don't quite understand the relationship between the various instances on Mastodon. Once you join an instance are you stuck on that instance for life? What happens if you want to participate on another instance? Can I reply to comments on other instances?
  • MayeulC 9y ago
    Just like email addresses, you can have multiple ones, and speak with everyone else (AFAIK). What changes is that you also have a timeline (like a mailing list that goes in a folder) for your local instance, and one for the instances it federated with. As far as I know, a lot of people have different accounts for their different centers of interest.
    • Mithaldu 9y ago
      That comparison doesn't map gracefully though, given that people don't "subscribe passively" to a single email account, and email users don't (outside of mailing lists) generally broadcast.
  • dielan 9y ago
    Nothing is stopping you from making a new account but there is no account migration. Assuming you and your instance admin arent bad people (as in, your old account isnt deleted or banned) you can make a new account and put a link to your old one in your about me section of your profile. Everyone you see on the public timeline is on a server that contains at least one person someone om your server follows. Thats how servers get to know each other. If you go seek out and follow someone on madeupname.social and youre the first to do so them you have caused new federation! Its a good thing. Interract with as many people as you care to and your instance will benefit. This isnt like Reddit where subs will ban you for contributing in any way to subs they dont like. Its just not like that
  • ohtwenty 9y ago
    So yeah, you can talk with other instances. And if you want to migrate you should be able to download am your stuff and migrate follower lists etc
• ohtwenty 9y ago
  https://retro.social/@ajroach42 https://retro.social/@ajroach42 For cool retro computing stuff, and general archival-of-tech stuff
• ColinWright 9y ago
  I'll be following up on several of these recommendations. In the meantime, I can be found here: https://mathstodon.xyz/@ColinTheMathmo https://mathstodon.xyz/@ColinTheMathmo
• alex_duf 9y ago
  My favourite is this one: @MicroSFF@mastodon.social I'm here: @alexduf@mastodon.xyz
• kral 9y ago
  If someone is interested, I'm the amin of an instance focused on functional programming: https://functional.cafe https://functional.cafe
  • twodave 9y ago
    This post pushed me over the edge--created an account. https://functional.cafe/@dave https://functional.cafe/@dave
    • csixty4 9y ago
      And since @dave was taken I snagged @daveross :P
  • sridca 9y ago
    Looking at the local timeline of functional.cafe there is hardly any tech related toots, much less functional programming. Is this expected of Mastodon networks? I noticed the same thing with bsd.network.
    • kral 9y ago
      That's why I called it “café” Jokes apart, I'm trying my best to make it a more technical instance, but I can't control what the users toot. I just hope that someone joins a tech instance to talk about tech...
    • lokedhs 9y ago
      I'm @loke@functional.cafe, and I certainly post about other things outside my main programming interests. So far no one has complained about that. I think the point of an instance with a topic has more to do with the fact that people on that instance tend to be people with similar interests to you, not that every single post is about that topic.
• jordigh 9y ago
  I'm nobody important, but I really am loving the atmosphere in Mastodon. I'm @JordiGH@mathstodon.xyz Come say hi! :-)
• hakabahitoyo 9y ago
  http://mastodonusermatching.tk http://mastodonusermatching.tk recommends infinite users for you.
• FourthEstate 9y ago
  For the news, journalism and freedom of the press inclined I've posted an invitation link below that will allow you into FourthEstate.social. Expires in 12 hours. https://fourthestate.social/invite/SQtFxnjp https://fourthestate.social/invite/SQtFxnjp
• mycoborea 9y ago
  Anxiously awaiting biologists, bioinformaticists, and other scientists to arrive to Mastodon en masse. So far scientists seem to be firmly entrenched in the blue bird site. Any recommendations along these lines would be sincerely appreciated! I am squatting at https://mastodon.social/@brendes https://mastodon.social/@brendes, lurking silently until more scientists show up.
  • jordigh 9y ago
    I see more scientists over at scholar.social, have you joined and checked out their local timeline?
    • mycoborea 9y ago
      Never heard of it—thanks so much.
  • FourthEstate 9y ago
    The only ones more entrenched than academics/scientists are the ones with the little blue checkmark, journalists.
• jordigh 9y ago
  Was Sage Sharp previously known as Sarah? Did they transition? I just want to know if it's the same person. It would be a big coincidence if they were not.
  • fdrs 9y ago
    yes, they are
  • dang 9y ago
    Since that person is no longer in that list, we detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16743065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16743065 and marked it off-topic.
• kovek 9y ago
  How to find people to follow? Is there a hashtag on mastodon to ask about finding certain people based on certain interests?
  • zigg 9y ago
    You can search on #introductions and see a lot of people making often-hashtag-laden posts describing themselves.
  • ohtwenty 9y ago
    There's #ff or #followfriday for suggesting, but i've seen it used to ask for suggestions as well.
    • zigg 9y ago
      There's also Freya, the Follow Friday bot, who will randomly throw you suggestions and let yourself be added to the pool. https://botsin.space/@FollowFriday https://botsin.space/@FollowFriday
  • ColinWright 9y ago
    On the left there is a search box. Type in a hashtag and it will give you a list of possible hashtags. Click on one of them and the search results come up in the right-hand column. Your instance may vary, but that works on mine, and is effective. Either that or follow a few people and then see who they boost. Follow those boostees if they look interesting. Growth is slower and more organic, but it's a good way to keep growth under control and not end up with a firehose.
  • forty8bits 9y ago
    Another user in this thread posted a comment[1] containing a link to http://www.unmung.com/mastoview?url=mastodon.technology&view=local http://www.unmung.com/mastoview?url=mastodon.technology&view... which no doubt will come in very useful for browsing local timelines of other instances to find interesting users. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16742180 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16742180
  • 9y ago
• FourthEstate 9y ago
  https://fourthestate.social/@jeff https://fourthestate.social/@jeff
• slipstream- 9y ago
  here's some interesting people I follow: @crowd42@infosec.exchange @tinker@infosec.exchange @xeb@mastodon.social @lain@pleroma.soykaf.com I'm @slipstream@mastodon.social and @Rairii@cybre.space :)
  • thomnottom 9y ago
    I second @tinker@infosec.exchange. Followed on twitter and was glad when they showed up on Mastodon.
• ddevault 9y ago
  People https://mastodon.social/@eevee https://mastodon.social/@eevee - good tech blogger https://mastodon.art/@Curator https://mastodon.art/@Curator - admin of an art-based instance who boosts lots of cool art https://framapiaf.org/@davidrevoy https://framapiaf.org/@davidrevoy - artist behind https://peppercarrot.com https://peppercarrot.com https://octodon.social/@emersion https://octodon.social/@emersion - friend of mine who works on cool projects with me Orgs https://mastodon.xyz/@Liberapay https://mastodon.xyz/@Liberapay https://mastodon.art/@Krita https://mastodon.art/@Krita https://mastodon.technology/@kde https://mastodon.technology/@kde Bots https://apoil.org/@NextLaunch https://apoil.org/@NextLaunch https://apoil.org/@nasa https://apoil.org/@nasa https://apoil.org/@ESA https://apoil.org/@ESA Me https://cmpwn.com/@sir https://cmpwn.com/@sir How to follow -> click "remote follow" on any profile and fill in your account details.
  • dhruvkar 9y ago
    If I were to setup my own instance, like you, how do I interact (read & write) with other, curated instances (e.g. octodon.social, mastodon.social etc.)?
    • WorldMaker 9y ago
      Remote follow enough specific people you are interested in and some of the rest of the instance's traffic will show up in your instance's Federated Feed as it interests them. Sometimes if the remote instance's entire feed is interesting I might set up a "read only" account on that instance to get an idea of people to remote follow from my main account. I've heard good multi-instance clients can help a lot with that, but I've not yet found a multi-instance supporting client I like.
      • dhruvkar 9y ago
        Okay, yeah, doesn't seem to be too many out there. So no real way to do this now, except what you described. You can follow specific people, but no local timelines of instances.
• ColinWright 9y ago
  And now to partially answer the original question, culled from the 200 or so people I follow, so I will have missed some I should have left in, and some of these might be of less interest to the HN crowd: https://octodon.social/@craigmaloney https://octodon.social/@craigmaloney - Linux, programmer, stuff https://mastodon.social/@natecull https://mastodon.social/@natecull - computery and other stuff https://mastodon.social/@rysiek https://mastodon.social/@rysiek - security https://mastodon.social/@Ronkjeffries https://mastodon.social/@Ronkjeffries - Well, it's Ron Jeffries https://mastodon.technology/@Ronkjeffries https://mastodon.technology/@Ronkjeffries - and again https://mastodon.social/@andrewt https://mastodon.social/@andrewt - Maths stuff and odd observations https://mathstodon.xyz/@virtuosew https://mathstodon.xyz/@virtuosew - Linguistics, odd observations And then there are the maths people: https://mathstodon.xyz/@peterrowlett https://mathstodon.xyz/@peterrowlett https://mathstodon.xyz/@Pecnut https://mathstodon.xyz/@Pecnut https://mathstodon.xyz/@christianp https://mathstodon.xyz/@christianp https://mathstodon.xyz/@icecolbeveridge https://mathstodon.xyz/@icecolbeveridge https://mathstodon.xyz/@mscroggs https://mathstodon.xyz/@mscroggs https://mathstodon.xyz/@aperiodical https://mathstodon.xyz/@aperiodical https://mathstodon.xyz/@j2kun https://mathstodon.xyz/@j2kun https://mathstodon.xyz/@csk https://mathstodon.xyz/@csk https://mathstodon.xyz/@neilbickford https://mathstodon.xyz/@neilbickford https://mathstodon.xyz/@JordiGH https://mathstodon.xyz/@JordiGH
• ekanes 9y ago
  Mastodon looks great, but one newbie Q holds me back - what if you join, participate, and after some years your the instance/community upon which you built goes under? Are you starting again from scratch somewhere else? Thanks for any help!
  • sleazy_b 9y ago
    Looks like
    • enkiv2 9y ago
      You can (and should) export & backup your following list. Migrating posts is complicated -- it's straightforward to export all your posts with third party tools, but you shouldn't expect to be able to move them to a new instance unless you're running it yourself, in order to avoid the possibility of faked histories. (I personally keep a backup of all my posts, and it's fairly straightforward to re-format them as a static html document if you feel like you need to re-host them for archival purposes.) Personally, I recommend keeping accounts on several instances, and posting to different accounts corresponding to your various interests. This makes it less irritating for members of your social group that don't want to hear about particular topics, makes migration in case of instance apocalypse easier, and encourages you to stretch out your identity a bit (rather than feeling like you need to stay 'on-brand' like people do on twitter).
  • fenwick67 9y ago
    There's support for exporting and importing the people you follow and block lists. There's also a migration feature that lets you say "I'm at this new handle now" on an old profile. But I don't think it automatically brings your old followers with you. Note that these are only viable if you know ahead of time that the instance is going away (this is happening right now with witches.town which is closing at the end of April).
  • davefp 9y ago
    Basically, yes. I don't see that being any different to any other online service though. As others have said you can backup your data, which is a good rule of thumb everywhere.
• enkiv2 9y ago
  I wrote a bot that provides randomized follow suggestions (from its follower list) -- https://botsin.space/@FollowFriday https://botsin.space/@FollowFriday As for interesting people to follow (biased in favor of people who post interesting technical content) I recommend https://mastodon.social/@natecull https://mastodon.social/@natecull, https://cybre.space/@a_breakin_glass https://cybre.space/@a_breakin_glass, https://mastodon.social/@hisham_hm https://mastodon.social/@hisham_hm, https://mastodon.social/@tomharris https://mastodon.social/@tomharris, and https://hackers.town/@thegibson https://hackers.town/@thegibson I'm at https://a.weirder.earth/@enkiv2 https://a.weirder.earth/@enkiv2 at the moment.
• franzpeterstein 9y ago
  https://instance.business/@SuricrasiaOnline https://instance.business/@SuricrasiaOnline [...] Suricrasia Online is a Toronto-based ISP staffed entirely by anthropomorphic sharks in maid outfits. [...]
• jaequery 9y ago
  I think people will assume their data is safer with Mastadon. But in a way, your data might even be more insecure, as you have no idea what and who the Instance owner is, and what they will do with the data. Also, now the responsibility of securing the platform is in the hands of the instance owner, whom you have no idea how they have their platform setup. FYI, an open source project called Drupal, was recently affected with a a bug where millions of sites could be hacked. Now I'd like to know how Mastadon will combat these issues.
  • lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
    I think that fundamentally misses the point. No one is using a social network for "data security", the whole value add of twitter (and by extension mastodon) is the public nature. The value add of something like mastodon is you get to choose your instance owner (and it could be yourself) which means choosing your moderation scheme. As well as offering a more transparent social experience (ie no algorithmically generated timelines to push adds or "engagement"). Comparing Mastodon to a php CMS seems like an apples to oranges comparison in every sense.
    • jaequery 9y ago
      I get that. I haven't fully read the in and outs of Mastadon but from a glance, it reminds me of Wordpress with Pingbacks. Or quite simply RSS feeds, where user you follow is essentially subscribing to their feeds. But all that aside, at the end of the day, if you "are" a user in one of the instances, you are still at the mercy of the owner's technical skills to make sure your data is safe. If the owner one day decides he can't afford to pay his bills, or gets hacked and wipes out data, what would happen to all your posts? I believe it'd just disappear, but please do correct me if I'm wrong.
      • WorldMaker 9y ago
        There is a lot of overlap with RSS and Pingbacks, indeed. Mastodon today provides a tool to get data backups of your account's own data, at least, so in the case of a lost instance there may be some options. Plus, as with blogs there is the option to be your own instance owner on a custom domain you control. So the assumed risk level can vary to what you are comfortable with.
• igorkraw 9y ago
  Me, if you want to hear about books I read, papers I find while working on neuromorphic systems and in general my opinions... @ik@mastodon.host
• robobro 9y ago
  kaniini@pleroma.dereferenced.org is really neat. He worked on Alpine Linux, audacious, pkgconf and other stuff https://pleroma.dereferenced.org/users/kaniini https://pleroma.dereferenced.org/users/kaniini Lain, developer of Pleroma, is also rad: @lain@pleroma.soykaf.com https://pleroma.soykaf.com/users/lain https://pleroma.soykaf.com/users/lain
• stellarator25 9y ago
  mastodon.cloud/@occrp - because stories on organized crime and corruption are fun.