14 ms·

Mastodon 3.2

274 points by jrepinc 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rglullis 6y ago
Ah, so this is why there is a seemingly-random post to Pleroma on the front-page as well. Competition is good. I just wish this competition stays healthy and these projects cooperate more to fight against the centralized social networks instead of each other.
- stryan 6y ago
  Pretty sure Gargron and lain talk on a semi-regular basis and are on good terms with each other, so hopefully it will.
  - gargron 6y ago
    Correct, we're on good terms.
- ve55 6y ago
  Honestly I was just randomly going around the Internet and found a Pleroma instance and thought it looked cool, so submitted it. I didn't see the Mastodon submission beforehand, which I'm also a fan of. I do think it seems decently collaborative for now, so not too worried. Getting normal users to use anything other than the large winner in an area (Twitter, Reddit, Discord, etc) is what the true challenge is imo.
- WrongThinkerNo5 6y ago
  As long as they rot out their own foundation with all the authoritarian corporate woke stuff, they will never succeed against the centralized corporate networks. I even wonder if the whole corporate "woke" stuff is kind of like aggoring zombies in their defense, because you simply cannot be successful in defeating centralized corporate powers and all their massive advantages, when you are fundamentally undercutting and sacrificing the very premise of the supposed alternative to them. "We need to fight authoritarian corporate centralization … by being like them" is not a winning strategy. You may as well not even waste your time with such a fundamentally flawed approach. They are mutually exclusive architectures, once you expose yourself to the virus of centralization even a little bit, it is only matter of time before you "turn" and it overcomes and destroys your decentralized or distributed network from within.
Vaslo 6y ago
I’ll be that techno neophyte and say that I don’t really understand how to use Mastodon properly. I’m able to get on and read posts but no idea if I’m where I want to be. I want to be on a very free speech and open server, even at the cost of having some human trash posting nonsense on there. What’s the best approach? I’m tired of seeing a handful of kids at Twitter decide what is appropriate to post or not.
- drexlspivey 6y ago
  Mastodon is federated which means you want to pick an instance that follows the moderation principles you adhere to, the instance you are on determines your "local" timeline while the federation of all the instances is the "global" timeline. This link should be a good start to decide which instance you want to join https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/
  - zanny 6y ago
    The joinmastodon.org site curates the instances it recommends to only show ones that don't permit racism, sexism and transphobia. OP seemingly wants those on their instance so they won't find it there, and they also won't find them in the global timeline on the "mainline" fediverse because those instances are banned for obvious and good reasons. You can, however, probably find links into the alt-right sphere fediverse on the chans. And they would be federating together so you can trace those instances to find one you, uh, want.
    - robjan 6y ago
      I don't think GP is looking for an alt-right instance, probably just one where you aren't treading on eggshells all the time. The people on the Fediverse do have a bit of a reputation for cancelling people who they disagree with, most notably Wil Wheaton [0]. [0]: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/100639540096793532 https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/100639540096793532
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
mxuribe 6y ago
I like the personal note feature. Somewhat CRM-esque, and i can see it being quite handy. I'm a pleroma user (run my own single-person instance), and before that used/ran a gnu social instance, but i have always felt that what gargron and the early mastodon folks have done for bringing more attention to the fediverse for laypeople is a wonderful thing! Kudos to the mastodon folks for this update! The more options that exist for the fediverse, the less relevant the centralized silos become (i know, there's a looooong way to go, but still).
wronglebowski 6y ago
If I just wanted to host my own instance for my family to post news and updates on would that be a suitable use case for Mastodon? I realize it can be federated, but just a singular isolated FB/Twitter clone would be ideal.
- danielheath 6y ago
  It’s a rails app. I love rails (and activitypub), and I use rails for work frequently, but it comes with substantial operational load (postgres, redis, worker nodes, process supervision, media storage, backups, high ram use, etc). If that doesn’t scare you off, then go for it! If you don’t want the federation, I’d suggest looking for something lighter.
  - shoover 6y ago
    It’s a little heavy, but I can say it runs fine in a 1 GB VPS, with the addition of a 1 GB swap file to compile the front end during installation and upgrade.
    - cytzol 6y ago
      I'd go a little bit further here: I run Mastodon on a 1 GB VPS as well, but I found I had to make the swap file permanent to stop it from running out of memory. It's not super heavy but it is heavy, and even though swap is slow, it still runs fast enough.
- shoover 6y ago
  Yep. There are even settings to require a login to view any content, designed for private instances such as for classrooms, which effectively locks down the instance. That’s how I use it for my family.
- rglullis 6y ago
  It certainly is a valid use-case, but if you want something that is simpler to manage, look at pleroma and the Soapbox frontend. Pleroma takes way less resources and you'd be able to run on a Raspberry PI. Another thing to consider, though, is to not run something like a social network and instead just get matrix and create group rooms for your family? Everyone would still be able to share updates and even call each other. Not only you eliminate the need of Facebook, but also WhatsApp/Messenger.
Tenobrus 6y ago
Does anyone know how I can filter out non-english posts from Mastodon? I set up an account and followed some people back in 2017, but it's unusable for me now since I can't read 70% of the content in any of my timelines.
- link0ff 6y ago
  What is really missing is a "Translate" button under non-english posts.
  - plussed_reader 6y ago
    Who do you give the message for the translation? Big G? Babel?
    - link0ff 6y ago
      It's a matter of time when free self-hosted neural networks trained for translation will appear.
      - numpad0 6y ago
        Discussions leading to this comment might be useful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24007390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24007390 Basically a real translation require a conscious machine or at least one closely resembling it.
        ShamelessC 6y ago
        I agree that perfect translation might require GAI, but don't let perfect be the enemy of good. An AI just needs to be better than existing approaches to be somewhat useful.
        erik_seaberg 6y ago
        Translating some common words would at least tell me which toots might be interesting enough to manually feed to a state of the art translator.
throwawaysea 6y ago
What is the point of Mastodon if its creators practice the very censorship that centralized platforms like Twitter and Reddit practice? I feel like I can’t trust a platform/protocol whose controllers harbor anti free speech views. https://reclaimthenet.org/mastodon-blocks-gab/ https://reclaimthenet.org/mastodon-blocks-gab/
- yborg 6y ago
  >I can't trust an open protocol and platform that lets me set up a server and peer with Gab today with no restriction It's Gab that didn't get the point of Mastodon, thinking they could somehow monopolize (and monetize) the Fediverse, and then getting mad when they found out a decentralized peering system doesn't mean a captive audience they could firehose.
  - fwn 6y ago
    Just to highlight: That quote is partly rewritten to say something different.
- zaptrem 6y ago
  The point seems to be increased privacy/no tracking/ads. Also, there's no penalty to starting your own server with entirely your own rules.
- egypturnash 6y ago
  It’s decentralized censorship. Run your own and you’re free to accept anything you like. Be warned that if your instance’s about page says you’re all for “free speech”, a lot of other admins will casually block your entire instance if you and/or your users start violating their rules of behavior, what with a general tendency for “free speech” instances to end up as havens for trolling and racism.
  - WrongThinkerNo5 6y ago
    You are fundamentally missing the point. That mentality though perfectly exemplifies the inherent and likely existential flaw in Mastodon or any other alternative technology that says "diversity" and "equality" and "inclusion" out of one side of their mouth, while out of the other side comes "your color and views are unacceptable and contrary facts are not allowed" … and it's all said, totally without even a shred of self-awareness of their tyrannical, let alone hypocritical nature.
nikolay 6y ago
Wow! This is some heavy piece of software... given the managed hosting has something like 20 reqs/sec. Are we back in the 90s?!
FreakyT 6y ago
I still can’t believe they expect anyone to take Mastodon seriously when the main action in the app is called “tooting”. Yes devs, we get it, it’s a hilarious fart joke and you’re so clever.
- procinct 6y ago
  I thought it was supposed to be more like a mastodon tooting with it’s trunk?
  - FreakyT 6y ago
    Well of course, but since the word can mean both things, it’s a pun regardless of whether or not the devs intended it to be one.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- felbane 6y ago
  I'm 99% sure that word was chosen because it's the onomatopoeia for a mastodon blowing its trunk and it's very similar to the word "tweeting".
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    True but it doesn't really matter. When your brand name is synonymous with something unpleasant, most people won't try to decide whether it's intentional or not. There's a reason why you typically wouldn't pick words that have offensive/unpleasant meanings when branding commercial products.
anw 6y ago
I'm happy there is a way to get people off of Twitter, but I do not see Mastodon having a (good) long term future. I have tried Mastodon off and on several times. For the few amount of good posts I've found in my interests (art and music), venturing out of those interests feels as if I'm wading into a toxic sludge of angry children who can't see beyond their nose. It seems to be that the Twitter format leads itself into being a great place for angry people to constantly barrage their woes at the immovable world [0]. I understand that the world is cruel and unfair, but I also do not want a constant 24/7 cry of lament that only people who meet every criteria of every type of victim-hood can have a bad day and anybody else is an evil pig who doesn't deserve to live, let alone speak. This can be seen in both to the left-wing and right-wing instances as they both see themselves as perpetual victims from those in power (police, companies, government, soceity on the left, and media, companies, government, society on the right). This kind of vitriol is already seen enough on Twitter. Seeing it even more so in self-enclosed echo chambers like some Mastodon instances just drives away any potential for normalcy, and therefore realistic ideas or normal conversation coming into their community. The loudest voices drown out others, claiming to have the right answer before they know the question, and not hearing out any arguments or facts that could possibly counter them. I wish the best for those who join, but hope we find better means of communication than what is currently here. Perhaps a method where there is more talking and hashing out ideas rather than following trends and hashtags. [0] Somewhat reminiscent to this video by The Onion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjonGtrCyVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjonGtrCyVE
- kabacha 6y ago
  This gets very apparent when you take a peek at ruleset of many instances. For example my instance mastodon.technology just added a rule: * No unsolicited advice to strangers. when someone asked what's wrong with recommending alternative software to people who complain about software the reply was: > sometimes people just want to scream into the void Which summarizes this micro-blog screamverse perfectly. The fact that this sort of behavior is _encouraged_ is actually quite disgusting in my honest opinion. I've never used much Twitter but to me it already seems that Mastodon is just as toxic as Twitter and it seems to be by design.
art4ur 6y ago
That audio player looks fantastic.
- kabacha 6y ago
  It does look great though now that I think of it I've never seen anyone share audio on mastodon before; maybe this new change could help build musician communities on Mastodon.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
MikeD9 6y ago
Something I read on the internet the other day: Rails is so old technology and it does not scale. It's days are numbered but until then, let's use mastodom for private social network, host our projects on github.com, use stripe for our payments, get funded on kickstarter, stream our videos on twitch.
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  You were being sarcastic , not sure why you're downvoted. Yes, it's pretty ignorant to say you can't build stuff of scale with Rails, there are so many multi billion companies running on Rails it's getting ridiculous. Shopify is slowly becoming the size of Oracle in terms of market cap. So the next argument is yes you can build it with Rails but why not choose something productive AND performant like (Go / Elixir / Kotlin / Crystal / Node etc etc). I think you can build anything with anything nowadays. Rails is still one of the leading options, it's a productive, battle tested, mostly stable, well maintained and overall nice framework to build on. Can you build product X with something other than Rails? Yes you can. Does that mean X is definitely superior to Rails ? No it doesn't.
rawoke083600 6y ago
The name always just sounds like some kinda "steriods" :/
nurettin 6y ago
My Mastadon experience: click fediverse, try to filter out sheets and sheets of scrolling chinese, japanese (both authentic and weeaboo), spanish terrorist propaganda, whore ads "in the bay area", anime style drawings of nude underage girls, bots spamming their sensor readings, teens pouring their hearts out into long poetry or whining about their sleep schedule, looking for anything interesting. Sometimes I come across a bot that infrequently posts some interesting art or news, or the account of some geniune productive person who isn't into self-aggrandizement, but those are few and far between.
- rglullis 6y ago
  Quick solution to your problems: 1. Find the genuine productive people you are interested in following and follow them. 2. Don't use/ignore the fediverse timeline, especially if you are on a big instance. That would be like trying to use twitter by checking the firehose. 3. Profit.
roenxi 6y ago
As is traditional, I can't work out what it does from this webpage. Is this thing some sort of client or some sort of server?
- gargron 6y ago
  It's a whole package, a default user interface is bundled with the server. If you want to learn what Mastodon is, check out https://joinmastodon.org https://joinmastodon.org
- ClikeX 6y ago
  It's a self-hosted Twitter alternative. With the added benefit that the different instances can share posts with each other. So you could be part of one Mastodon instance, but still see posts from others on the other instances.
seemslegit 6y ago
Come for the fun of having to setup and admin you own server, stay for the feeds of furries pics and posts in languages you don't speak.
stiray 6y ago
/rant For those that dont agree (downvoters), feel free to self host mozilla sync server and for added fun, try to do it on freebsd - then you will understand my point. For developers on mastadon - I hope you did get my point and will improve this as it might considerably increase your usage base. My biggest problem with all "those" platforms is that I want to have it self hosted. I expect one directory/executable (no, not docker) with everything I need to run it, instead of fishing for different parts all over package managers etc. I will exclude database from this. Or nginx/apache proxy configuration. Same issue as matrix - i would love to run it but what is too much is too much. Maybe once the golang engine is finished, if they dont blew it and make a huge dependency tree for nodejs. I am so sorry but if I proceed with the philosophy that projects have for the deployment, I will run out of storage and spend my whole life just updating packages. Not to mention if I decide to not use it. I think that all complex projects are doing the same mistake for last 20 years: they always ignore the "packing" or the end distribution form that their project will have at the end - a huge number of different blobs with 3rd party dependencies are created and it is just expected that this is trivial for end user to set up and maintain. /rant off
- amatecha 6y ago
  You might be interested in something like Cabal[0] or Secure Scuttlebutt[1]... Take a look at least, if you haven't heard of them already. Even if you don't dive in, still super interesting regardless! [0] https://cabal.chat/ https://cabal.chat/ [1] https://scuttlebutt.nz/ https://scuttlebutt.nz/
- heavenlyblue 6y ago
  Do you expect the developers to build twice the backend interfaces to satisfy a single use-case? Now you could say it should be easy, but if it is easy then you could become a maintainer of the implementation.
  - asutekku 6y ago
    It’s more of the fact that the approach the devs chose is suboptimal.
- 6y ago

274 points by jrepinc 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Ah, so this is why there is a seemingly-random post to Pleroma on the front-page as well. Competition is good. I just wish this competition stays healthy and these projects cooperate more to fight against the centralized social networks instead of each other.

stryan 6y ago
Pretty sure Gargron and lain talk on a semi-regular basis and are on good terms with each other, so hopefully it will.
- gargron 6y ago
  Correct, we're on good terms.
ve55 6y ago
Honestly I was just randomly going around the Internet and found a Pleroma instance and thought it looked cool, so submitted it. I didn't see the Mastodon submission beforehand, which I'm also a fan of. I do think it seems decently collaborative for now, so not too worried. Getting normal users to use anything other than the large winner in an area (Twitter, Reddit, Discord, etc) is what the true challenge is imo.
WrongThinkerNo5 6y ago
As long as they rot out their own foundation with all the authoritarian corporate woke stuff, they will never succeed against the centralized corporate networks. I even wonder if the whole corporate "woke" stuff is kind of like aggoring zombies in their defense, because you simply cannot be successful in defeating centralized corporate powers and all their massive advantages, when you are fundamentally undercutting and sacrificing the very premise of the supposed alternative to them. "We need to fight authoritarian corporate centralization … by being like them" is not a winning strategy. You may as well not even waste your time with such a fundamentally flawed approach. They are mutually exclusive architectures, once you expose yourself to the virus of centralization even a little bit, it is only matter of time before you "turn" and it overcomes and destroys your decentralized or distributed network from within.

Vaslo 6y ago

I’ll be that techno neophyte and say that I don’t really understand how to use Mastodon properly. I’m able to get on and read posts but no idea if I’m where I want to be. I want to be on a very free speech and open server, even at the cost of having some human trash posting nonsense on there. What’s the best approach? I’m tired of seeing a handful of kids at Twitter decide what is appropriate to post or not.

drexlspivey 6y ago
Mastodon is federated which means you want to pick an instance that follows the moderation principles you adhere to, the instance you are on determines your "local" timeline while the federation of all the instances is the "global" timeline. This link should be a good start to decide which instance you want to join https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/
- zanny 6y ago
  The joinmastodon.org site curates the instances it recommends to only show ones that don't permit racism, sexism and transphobia. OP seemingly wants those on their instance so they won't find it there, and they also won't find them in the global timeline on the "mainline" fediverse because those instances are banned for obvious and good reasons. You can, however, probably find links into the alt-right sphere fediverse on the chans. And they would be federating together so you can trace those instances to find one you, uh, want.
  - robjan 6y ago
    I don't think GP is looking for an alt-right instance, probably just one where you aren't treading on eggshells all the time. The people on the Fediverse do have a bit of a reputation for cancelling people who they disagree with, most notably Wil Wheaton [0]. [0]: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/100639540096793532 https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/100639540096793532
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]

mxuribe 6y ago

I like the personal note feature. Somewhat CRM-esque, and i can see it being quite handy. I'm a pleroma user (run my own single-person instance), and before that used/ran a gnu social instance, but i have always felt that what gargron and the early mastodon folks have done for bringing more attention to the fediverse for laypeople is a wonderful thing! Kudos to the mastodon folks for this update! The more options that exist for the fediverse, the less relevant the centralized silos become (i know, there's a looooong way to go, but still).

wronglebowski 6y ago

If I just wanted to host my own instance for my family to post news and updates on would that be a suitable use case for Mastodon? I realize it can be federated, but just a singular isolated FB/Twitter clone would be ideal.

danielheath 6y ago
It’s a rails app. I love rails (and activitypub), and I use rails for work frequently, but it comes with substantial operational load (postgres, redis, worker nodes, process supervision, media storage, backups, high ram use, etc). If that doesn’t scare you off, then go for it! If you don’t want the federation, I’d suggest looking for something lighter.
- shoover 6y ago
  It’s a little heavy, but I can say it runs fine in a 1 GB VPS, with the addition of a 1 GB swap file to compile the front end during installation and upgrade.
  - cytzol 6y ago
    I'd go a little bit further here: I run Mastodon on a 1 GB VPS as well, but I found I had to make the swap file permanent to stop it from running out of memory. It's not super heavy but it is heavy, and even though swap is slow, it still runs fast enough.
shoover 6y ago
Yep. There are even settings to require a login to view any content, designed for private instances such as for classrooms, which effectively locks down the instance. That’s how I use it for my family.
rglullis 6y ago
It certainly is a valid use-case, but if you want something that is simpler to manage, look at pleroma and the Soapbox frontend. Pleroma takes way less resources and you'd be able to run on a Raspberry PI. Another thing to consider, though, is to not run something like a social network and instead just get matrix and create group rooms for your family? Everyone would still be able to share updates and even call each other. Not only you eliminate the need of Facebook, but also WhatsApp/Messenger.

Tenobrus 6y ago

Does anyone know how I can filter out non-english posts from Mastodon? I set up an account and followed some people back in 2017, but it's unusable for me now since I can't read 70% of the content in any of my timelines.

link0ff 6y ago
What is really missing is a "Translate" button under non-english posts.
- plussed_reader 6y ago
  Who do you give the message for the translation? Big G? Babel?
  - link0ff 6y ago
    It's a matter of time when free self-hosted neural networks trained for translation will appear.
    - numpad0 6y ago
      Discussions leading to this comment might be useful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24007390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24007390 Basically a real translation require a conscious machine or at least one closely resembling it.
      - ShamelessC 6y ago
        I agree that perfect translation might require GAI, but don't let perfect be the enemy of good. An AI just needs to be better than existing approaches to be somewhat useful.
      - erik_seaberg 6y ago
        Translating some common words would at least tell me which toots might be interesting enough to manually feed to a state of the art translator.

throwawaysea 6y ago

What is the point of Mastodon if its creators practice the very censorship that centralized platforms like Twitter and Reddit practice? I feel like I can’t trust a platform/protocol whose controllers harbor anti free speech views. https://reclaimthenet.org/mastodon-blocks-gab/ https://reclaimthenet.org/mastodon-blocks-gab/

yborg 6y ago
>I can't trust an open protocol and platform that lets me set up a server and peer with Gab today with no restriction It's Gab that didn't get the point of Mastodon, thinking they could somehow monopolize (and monetize) the Fediverse, and then getting mad when they found out a decentralized peering system doesn't mean a captive audience they could firehose.
- fwn 6y ago
  Just to highlight: That quote is partly rewritten to say something different.
zaptrem 6y ago
The point seems to be increased privacy/no tracking/ads. Also, there's no penalty to starting your own server with entirely your own rules.
egypturnash 6y ago
It’s decentralized censorship. Run your own and you’re free to accept anything you like. Be warned that if your instance’s about page says you’re all for “free speech”, a lot of other admins will casually block your entire instance if you and/or your users start violating their rules of behavior, what with a general tendency for “free speech” instances to end up as havens for trolling and racism.
- WrongThinkerNo5 6y ago
  You are fundamentally missing the point. That mentality though perfectly exemplifies the inherent and likely existential flaw in Mastodon or any other alternative technology that says "diversity" and "equality" and "inclusion" out of one side of their mouth, while out of the other side comes "your color and views are unacceptable and contrary facts are not allowed" … and it's all said, totally without even a shred of self-awareness of their tyrannical, let alone hypocritical nature.

nikolay 6y ago

Wow! This is some heavy piece of software... given the managed hosting has something like 20 reqs/sec. Are we back in the 90s?!

FreakyT 6y ago

I still can’t believe they expect anyone to take Mastodon seriously when the main action in the app is called “tooting”. Yes devs, we get it, it’s a hilarious fart joke and you’re so clever.

procinct 6y ago
I thought it was supposed to be more like a mastodon tooting with it’s trunk?
- FreakyT 6y ago
  Well of course, but since the word can mean both things, it’s a pun regardless of whether or not the devs intended it to be one.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
felbane 6y ago
I'm 99% sure that word was chosen because it's the onomatopoeia for a mastodon blowing its trunk and it's very similar to the word "tweeting".
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  True but it doesn't really matter. When your brand name is synonymous with something unpleasant, most people won't try to decide whether it's intentional or not. There's a reason why you typically wouldn't pick words that have offensive/unpleasant meanings when branding commercial products.

anw 6y ago

I'm happy there is a way to get people off of Twitter, but I do not see Mastodon having a (good) long term future. I have tried Mastodon off and on several times. For the few amount of good posts I've found in my interests (art and music), venturing out of those interests feels as if I'm wading into a toxic sludge of angry children who can't see beyond their nose. It seems to be that the Twitter format leads itself into being a great place for angry people to constantly barrage their woes at the immovable world [0]. I understand that the world is cruel and unfair, but I also do not want a constant 24/7 cry of lament that only people who meet every criteria of every type of victim-hood can have a bad day and anybody else is an evil pig who doesn't deserve to live, let alone speak. This can be seen in both to the left-wing and right-wing instances as they both see themselves as perpetual victims from those in power (police, companies, government, soceity on the left, and media, companies, government, society on the right). This kind of vitriol is already seen enough on Twitter. Seeing it even more so in self-enclosed echo chambers like some Mastodon instances just drives away any potential for normalcy, and therefore realistic ideas or normal conversation coming into their community. The loudest voices drown out others, claiming to have the right answer before they know the question, and not hearing out any arguments or facts that could possibly counter them. I wish the best for those who join, but hope we find better means of communication than what is currently here. Perhaps a method where there is more talking and hashing out ideas rather than following trends and hashtags. [0] Somewhat reminiscent to this video by The Onion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjonGtrCyVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjonGtrCyVE

kabacha 6y ago
This gets very apparent when you take a peek at ruleset of many instances. For example my instance mastodon.technology just added a rule: * No unsolicited advice to strangers. when someone asked what's wrong with recommending alternative software to people who complain about software the reply was: > sometimes people just want to scream into the void Which summarizes this micro-blog screamverse perfectly. The fact that this sort of behavior is _encouraged_ is actually quite disgusting in my honest opinion. I've never used much Twitter but to me it already seems that Mastodon is just as toxic as Twitter and it seems to be by design.

art4ur 6y ago

That audio player looks fantastic.

kabacha 6y ago
It does look great though now that I think of it I've never seen anyone share audio on mastodon before; maybe this new change could help build musician communities on Mastodon.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

MikeD9 6y ago

Something I read on the internet the other day: Rails is so old technology and it does not scale. It's days are numbered but until then, let's use mastodom for private social network, host our projects on github.com, use stripe for our payments, get funded on kickstarter, stream our videos on twitch.

joelbluminator 6y ago
You were being sarcastic , not sure why you're downvoted. Yes, it's pretty ignorant to say you can't build stuff of scale with Rails, there are so many multi billion companies running on Rails it's getting ridiculous. Shopify is slowly becoming the size of Oracle in terms of market cap. So the next argument is yes you can build it with Rails but why not choose something productive AND performant like (Go / Elixir / Kotlin / Crystal / Node etc etc). I think you can build anything with anything nowadays. Rails is still one of the leading options, it's a productive, battle tested, mostly stable, well maintained and overall nice framework to build on. Can you build product X with something other than Rails? Yes you can. Does that mean X is definitely superior to Rails ? No it doesn't.

rawoke083600 6y ago

The name always just sounds like some kinda "steriods" :/

nurettin 6y ago

My Mastadon experience: click fediverse, try to filter out sheets and sheets of scrolling chinese, japanese (both authentic and weeaboo), spanish terrorist propaganda, whore ads "in the bay area", anime style drawings of nude underage girls, bots spamming their sensor readings, teens pouring their hearts out into long poetry or whining about their sleep schedule, looking for anything interesting. Sometimes I come across a bot that infrequently posts some interesting art or news, or the account of some geniune productive person who isn't into self-aggrandizement, but those are few and far between.

rglullis 6y ago
Quick solution to your problems: 1. Find the genuine productive people you are interested in following and follow them. 2. Don't use/ignore the fediverse timeline, especially if you are on a big instance. That would be like trying to use twitter by checking the firehose. 3. Profit.

roenxi 6y ago

As is traditional, I can't work out what it does from this webpage. Is this thing some sort of client or some sort of server?

gargron 6y ago
It's a whole package, a default user interface is bundled with the server. If you want to learn what Mastodon is, check out https://joinmastodon.org https://joinmastodon.org
ClikeX 6y ago
It's a self-hosted Twitter alternative. With the added benefit that the different instances can share posts with each other. So you could be part of one Mastodon instance, but still see posts from others on the other instances.

seemslegit 6y ago

Come for the fun of having to setup and admin you own server, stay for the feeds of furries pics and posts in languages you don't speak.

stiray 6y ago

/rant For those that dont agree (downvoters), feel free to self host mozilla sync server and for added fun, try to do it on freebsd - then you will understand my point. For developers on mastadon - I hope you did get my point and will improve this as it might considerably increase your usage base. My biggest problem with all "those" platforms is that I want to have it self hosted. I expect one directory/executable (no, not docker) with everything I need to run it, instead of fishing for different parts all over package managers etc. I will exclude database from this. Or nginx/apache proxy configuration. Same issue as matrix - i would love to run it but what is too much is too much. Maybe once the golang engine is finished, if they dont blew it and make a huge dependency tree for nodejs. I am so sorry but if I proceed with the philosophy that projects have for the deployment, I will run out of storage and spend my whole life just updating packages. Not to mention if I decide to not use it. I think that all complex projects are doing the same mistake for last 20 years: they always ignore the "packing" or the end distribution form that their project will have at the end - a huge number of different blobs with 3rd party dependencies are created and it is just expected that this is trivial for end user to set up and maintain. /rant off

amatecha 6y ago
You might be interested in something like Cabal[0] or Secure Scuttlebutt[1]... Take a look at least, if you haven't heard of them already. Even if you don't dive in, still super interesting regardless! [0] https://cabal.chat/ https://cabal.chat/ [1] https://scuttlebutt.nz/ https://scuttlebutt.nz/
heavenlyblue 6y ago
Do you expect the developers to build twice the backend interfaces to satisfy a single use-case? Now you could say it should be easy, but if it is easy then you could become a maintainer of the implementation.
- asutekku 6y ago
  It’s more of the fact that the approach the devs chose is suboptimal.
6y ago