7 ms·

"I use Linux and I like FOSS and I am still an oldschool BSD nerd, and I also like regional communities." FOSStodon is the obvious choice https://fosstodon.org/

by vdddv 6y ago

"I use Linux and I like FOSS and I am still an oldschool BSD nerd, and I also like regional communities." FOSStodon is the obvious choice https://fosstodon.org/public https://fosstodon.org/public But I think the article actually misses the main point about Mastodon. You an follow and interact with people on any instances.

stingraycharles 6y ago
But then why is it so important to choose the right server? The author asserts that choosing the right server is essential to your experience of Mastadon, is that not the case? Also the author says that I should choose a community between 500 and 5000 people, which fosstodon exceeds. All in all, my point is, there are so many choices and decisions to make before I can even create an account and experience it. It’s fairly common knowledge that people actually don’t like choice. When you go to a restaurant and see a menu with 100 choices, people actually enjoy their meal less than when there would be little choice; they have this nagging feeling of “was that other choice perhaps better?” For me, Mastadon has the same problem. Too much choice is a bug, not a feature.
- jstanley 6y ago
  I think it's easier to discover people on the same server as you, that's all.
- andrewzah 6y ago
  There's a feed for the server you're on. So if you pick a "bad" server (aka the culture there is different from what you like), that becomes useless, more or less. Of course you can always just follow whoever and only pay attention to your following feed. Also, some nodes maintain blocklists of other nodes. [0] So while you can still follow those people and see them in your following feed, posts from users on that node will -not- appear in the public feed (posts from nodes in the federated network). https://instances.social/ https://instances.social/ exists to help you find a node but I'm not sure how up to date or accurate it is. [0]: https://github.com/Gargron/mastodon.social-misc https://github.com/Gargron/mastodon.social-misc
- barkingcat 6y ago
  This is not the case.
- Jabbles 6y ago
  As Mastadon increases in popularity, how do they plan to make the choice of server easier? If 5000 remains a rough optimal size, how will then how will the next 10M users choose from 2000 servers?
  - lokedhs 6y ago
    Probably my having a few (or one?) very large servers where most people join. As much as I wished that wasn't the case, most people just want to join an established network and don't care about federation as a concept. A long as a single server doesn't take over altogether, however, I don't think there is a problem with large servers.
    - Jabbles 6y ago
      Surely the problem with large servers is that they're difficult to moderate, difficult to grow a sense of community, and all the other problems that lead the OP to suggest that 5000 is a vague upper limit. If you are going to go with bigger servers, what is Mastadon doing to support them (socially, not technically)?
      - lokedhs 6y ago
        I think really huge servers will need a different moderation system. It wouldn't be the responsibility of the Mastodon team to manage or even design that. Also, mastodon.social has about half a million users, and they are having performance problems. I'm guessing if you want to scale that up by a factor of 10 or 100 you're going to need new infrastructure.
        Jabbles 6y ago
        Surely the Mastodon team are very concerned with moderation? Given that everyone agrees it is vital for the success of the project (or any social network), why would they consider it outside their purview?
        6y ago
- syntheticnature 6y ago
  I will admit, during my foray into Mastodon I tried a server at the low end of the author's size range, and I would say selecting the 'right server' has some impact from my experiences, but not in the way described: A month after I joined, they had a disk crash and my account was gone. It looked like everyone recreated from scratch, so I did the same. Two weeks later and without notice they restored a backup, overwriting everything that had happened since. I continued, but with rapidly declining interest to accompany my total loss of trust. Two more months later the server was down permanently.
- zrm 6y ago
  > It’s fairly common knowledge that people actually don’t like choice. This is a misunderstanding of what people like. What people like is good defaults, because choosing is work. When 90% of everything is crap, nobody even wants to see anything but the 10% that isn't. They don't even want to see anything other than the one option which is the best for them, if somebody can give them that without making them do the work. The problem is that the best option is not the same for everybody. Even if it's the same for 70% of people, that lets you make that option the default and make 70% of people happy, but the other 30% still need the option to do something else. And sometimes there isn't any one option that can satisfy any majority of people. Then there isn't any better alternative than giving people a list of options to choose from. But you could still put the list in a better order. Put the "editor's choice" options near the top and the crummiest ones near the bottom. If someone is in Queens, show them the regional server for New York City on the first page and the regional server for Los Angeles on the hundredth page, and a link next to it that says "show other regions" and leads to a regional map. That sort of thing.

by vdddv 6y ago

stingraycharles 6y ago

But then why is it so important to choose the right server? The author asserts that choosing the right server is essential to your experience of Mastadon, is that not the case? Also the author says that I should choose a community between 500 and 5000 people, which fosstodon exceeds. All in all, my point is, there are so many choices and decisions to make before I can even create an account and experience it. It’s fairly common knowledge that people actually don’t like choice. When you go to a restaurant and see a menu with 100 choices, people actually enjoy their meal less than when there would be little choice; they have this nagging feeling of “was that other choice perhaps better?” For me, Mastadon has the same problem. Too much choice is a bug, not a feature.

jstanley 6y ago
I think it's easier to discover people on the same server as you, that's all.
andrewzah 6y ago
There's a feed for the server you're on. So if you pick a "bad" server (aka the culture there is different from what you like), that becomes useless, more or less. Of course you can always just follow whoever and only pay attention to your following feed. Also, some nodes maintain blocklists of other nodes. [0] So while you can still follow those people and see them in your following feed, posts from users on that node will -not- appear in the public feed (posts from nodes in the federated network). https://instances.social/ https://instances.social/ exists to help you find a node but I'm not sure how up to date or accurate it is. [0]: https://github.com/Gargron/mastodon.social-misc https://github.com/Gargron/mastodon.social-misc
barkingcat 6y ago
This is not the case.
Jabbles 6y ago
As Mastadon increases in popularity, how do they plan to make the choice of server easier? If 5000 remains a rough optimal size, how will then how will the next 10M users choose from 2000 servers?
- lokedhs 6y ago
  Probably my having a few (or one?) very large servers where most people join. As much as I wished that wasn't the case, most people just want to join an established network and don't care about federation as a concept. A long as a single server doesn't take over altogether, however, I don't think there is a problem with large servers.
  - Jabbles 6y ago
    Surely the problem with large servers is that they're difficult to moderate, difficult to grow a sense of community, and all the other problems that lead the OP to suggest that 5000 is a vague upper limit. If you are going to go with bigger servers, what is Mastadon doing to support them (socially, not technically)?
    - lokedhs 6y ago
      I think really huge servers will need a different moderation system. It wouldn't be the responsibility of the Mastodon team to manage or even design that. Also, mastodon.social has about half a million users, and they are having performance problems. I'm guessing if you want to scale that up by a factor of 10 or 100 you're going to need new infrastructure.
      - Jabbles 6y ago
        Surely the Mastodon team are very concerned with moderation? Given that everyone agrees it is vital for the success of the project (or any social network), why would they consider it outside their purview?
        6y ago
syntheticnature 6y ago
I will admit, during my foray into Mastodon I tried a server at the low end of the author's size range, and I would say selecting the 'right server' has some impact from my experiences, but not in the way described: A month after I joined, they had a disk crash and my account was gone. It looked like everyone recreated from scratch, so I did the same. Two weeks later and without notice they restored a backup, overwriting everything that had happened since. I continued, but with rapidly declining interest to accompany my total loss of trust. Two more months later the server was down permanently.
zrm 6y ago
> It’s fairly common knowledge that people actually don’t like choice. This is a misunderstanding of what people like. What people like is good defaults, because choosing is work. When 90% of everything is crap, nobody even wants to see anything but the 10% that isn't. They don't even want to see anything other than the one option which is the best for them, if somebody can give them that without making them do the work. The problem is that the best option is not the same for everybody. Even if it's the same for 70% of people, that lets you make that option the default and make 70% of people happy, but the other 30% still need the option to do something else. And sometimes there isn't any one option that can satisfy any majority of people. Then there isn't any better alternative than giving people a list of options to choose from. But you could still put the list in a better order. Put the "editor's choice" options near the top and the crummiest ones near the bottom. If someone is in Queens, show them the regional server for New York City on the first page and the regional server for Los Angeles on the hundredth page, and a link next to it that says "show other regions" and leads to a regional map. That sort of thing.