6 ms·

I've been trying out Mastodon for the past 2 days. I like it, but it honestly has some problems that will prevent it from growing outside of niches. The main on

I've been trying out Mastodon for the past 2 days. I like it, but it honestly has some problems that will prevent it from growing outside of niches. The main one being discoverability. There's simply no easy way to discover other users on the platform. And from what I understand, this is by design. You can search hashtags, but not everyone uses hashtags. And the results that appear seem to be most recent, and not most liked or most boosted. It requires a lot of "work" to find interesting people and/or friends on the platform. And most people don't have time for that extra "work." I'd like it more if I could see what's trending, but only if I specifically seek out what's trending. Also on my Galaxy Tab S7 in portrait mode, a breakpoint is preventing the search field from appearing. I have to shrink Firefox a bit for the search field to appear. Took me a day before I figured that one out. Outside of those issues, it has potential. I love everyone having a chronological feed.

movedx 5y ago
> There's simply no easy way to discover other users on the platform. And from what I understand, this is by design. It also feels fragmented. An account can be on any servers, anywhere, controlled by... someone? Users can move around. Communities can just shutdown or lock people out. Etc. It's a weird solution to a problem that I agree exists.
- aceazzameen 5y ago
  It's definitely fragmented. Something like mastodon.social is probably perfectly fine for the general population though. And as users become more comfortable with the platform, they can transfer to other instances if they want. I just don't see it growing because of lack of discoverability. I'm betting most new users will hop on, not know who to follow or what to do, and never sign in again.
- aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
  A federated/decentralized social network...feels fragmented? Good!(?)
  - saurik 5y ago
    Not really? Like, email is federated, but it doesn't feel "fragmented".
    - nine_k 5y ago
      With email, discoverability sucks! More seriously, there is a large niche for smaller communities of like-minded people. I suspect that Mastodon gives an easy tool to form them. They don't want to be discovered too easily, and prefer existing social links pull new members in, instead of chance encounters. Compare this to obscure subreddits. Opposite to that, Twitter is global and total. It's one colossal room. No wonder that celebrities dominate it: drawing attention and talking to huge audiences is what they do for a living. It's also an obvious place for official broadcasting. Mastodon is not.
      - saurik 5y ago
        I have no interest in the things you state, FWIW. The issue I have is that--apparently, based on this and other threads on the software--it matters what server you are on for even basic things like "can I follow another user I actively know about?" or "can I reply to a post from another user I already know about?". I have almost never had issues replying to emails from people I have received, receiving emails from people who intended to send me an email, or being able to send email to someone random I have heard about. These issues DO happen, but they are so rare I can't remember the last time it happened to me, and it has always been to the discredit of one of the two party's email servers... but with Mastadon, people are making it sound like all of this fragmentation is a feature?
        Tepix 5y ago
        > The issue I have is that--apparently, based on this and other threads on the software--it matters what server you are on for even basic things like "can I follow another user I actively know about?" or "can I reply to a post from another user I already know about?". No. Perhaps you should give it a try.
        5y ago
- fknorangesite 5y ago
  > An account can be on any servers, anywhere, controlled by... someone? Someone who can read your DMs, even.
  - smegsicle 5y ago
    can any server you join read them, or only your home server?
    - makeworld 5y ago
      Only your home server. This is the same as any service that has non-encrypted messaging.
      - smegsicle 5y ago
        so if setting up a new server is easy then it's as good as e2e if both parties do so, right?
    - fknorangesite 5y ago
      Only your home server - until you send a message to someone on another server. Then that operator can read it from there.
  - krapp 5y ago
    As opposed to Twitter staff who... can't?
- mro_name 5y ago
  > controlled by... someone? Just like now. But: That someone might well be yourself! (shameless plug): https://seppo.app https://seppo.app (German vaporware to date. Translate with e.g. deepl.com)
usrn 5y ago
You discover other users by slowly walking the graph from the people you know and you find the first users in the communities you like through hashtags. It's slow but you eventually build up a pretty good list of people to follow. Also you generally join a server oriented around the subject(s) you like so you can check the local toot stream for people to follow.
radicalriddler 5y ago
They've recently added this to the iOS app. You can browse posts, hashtags, news articles and users. It shows users and posts from people you haven't followed in a seperate style of timeline. Not sure how they figure out who to show.
dano 5y ago
The same handle can be used on multiple servers within a federation. Search for @NASA and you'll find at least 4 accounts under that name on different servers making discernment as to which to follow quite a challenge.
- MarcellusDrum 5y ago
  On federated sites, you have to think of domain names as part of the username. The account isn't just @NASA. It is @NASA@mastodon.social, for example. This isn't even a new concept. NASA@gmail.com and NASA@outlook.com can co-exist. We just have to get used to it outside of Email.
mro_name 5y ago
> discover other users on the platform I'm not sure but who really has lack of random contacts? Maybe those vibrant meeting places could/should be a click away from my profile. In a walled garden that means in the same garden, behind the same wall. But in a free world it can be somewhere else. And as Ronald Reagan said: tear down this wall!
CaptArmchair 5y ago
> the platform There's a hidden misunderstanding here. Phrasing Mastodon as "the platform" implies you (probably subconscious) perceive it as a "classic" single, centralized, authoritative service managed by a single (legal) entity. As you've learned: it's the exact opposite. It's not a service: it's just software. Mastodon fits in between (self)hosted solutions like Matrix, Postfix, IRC, XMMP/Jabber. It would be the odd one out between Twitter, Slack or Discord. > The main one being discoverability. And that's a valid concern to have as a dealbreaker. It's also an advantage that's innate to centralized, authoritative services. Storing millions of users in a single telephone directory vastly lowers the bar for discovery compared to a distributed system of telephone directories. Then again, it's also a chicken and egg discussion. Centralization is a key driver that prompted hundreds of millions of users to flock together. Aspects such as ease of use, convenience and discovery are key conditions as well... ... but let's not pretend this is a net positive: we also experience the many downsides of having millions of people on a single platform that provides common denominator interfaces and policies for governing interaction. In a federated environment with many instances, agency over governance is delegated again to the countless of small communities and tribes that generally tend to emerge organically in any social context. Remember, back in the early days, between BBS'es, Usenet, online fora, IRC communities,... the fragmented nature of online communities in itself wasn't seen as problematic. On the contrary, if anything, the freedom to be able to start your own IRC channel or host your own forum was seen as a boon. In that regard, I don't think that discovery should be treated as a zero sum game where the only logical conclusion is a silver bullet solution e.g. either a single centralized authority or a distributed ledger that acts as a single source of truth. Discovery is massively complex and relies on innate heuristics people have used since forever to find and interact with others. It's never a "solved problem". That doesn't mean throwing up arms not investing in discovery tools. But rather acknowledging that discovery isn't necessarily worth a trade off against other key aspects of complex interpersonal relationships such as having agency to build your own community space, and self-reliance to implement your own set of policies allowing for governance
trenchgun 5y ago
Strongly agreed. Also: no lists to be easily followed? I found some account which creates curated lists for specific interests, but then you have to go through the list one by one to click follow... surreal.

movedx 5y ago

> There's simply no easy way to discover other users on the platform. And from what I understand, this is by design. It also feels fragmented. An account can be on any servers, anywhere, controlled by... someone? Users can move around. Communities can just shutdown or lock people out. Etc. It's a weird solution to a problem that I agree exists.

aceazzameen 5y ago
It's definitely fragmented. Something like mastodon.social is probably perfectly fine for the general population though. And as users become more comfortable with the platform, they can transfer to other instances if they want. I just don't see it growing because of lack of discoverability. I'm betting most new users will hop on, not know who to follow or what to do, and never sign in again.
aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
A federated/decentralized social network...feels fragmented? Good!(?)
- saurik 5y ago
  Not really? Like, email is federated, but it doesn't feel "fragmented".
  - nine_k 5y ago
    With email, discoverability sucks! More seriously, there is a large niche for smaller communities of like-minded people. I suspect that Mastodon gives an easy tool to form them. They don't want to be discovered too easily, and prefer existing social links pull new members in, instead of chance encounters. Compare this to obscure subreddits. Opposite to that, Twitter is global and total. It's one colossal room. No wonder that celebrities dominate it: drawing attention and talking to huge audiences is what they do for a living. It's also an obvious place for official broadcasting. Mastodon is not.
    - saurik 5y ago
      I have no interest in the things you state, FWIW. The issue I have is that--apparently, based on this and other threads on the software--it matters what server you are on for even basic things like "can I follow another user I actively know about?" or "can I reply to a post from another user I already know about?". I have almost never had issues replying to emails from people I have received, receiving emails from people who intended to send me an email, or being able to send email to someone random I have heard about. These issues DO happen, but they are so rare I can't remember the last time it happened to me, and it has always been to the discredit of one of the two party's email servers... but with Mastadon, people are making it sound like all of this fragmentation is a feature?
      - Tepix 5y ago
        > The issue I have is that--apparently, based on this and other threads on the software--it matters what server you are on for even basic things like "can I follow another user I actively know about?" or "can I reply to a post from another user I already know about?". No. Perhaps you should give it a try.
      - 5y ago
fknorangesite 5y ago
> An account can be on any servers, anywhere, controlled by... someone? Someone who can read your DMs, even.
- smegsicle 5y ago
  can any server you join read them, or only your home server?
  - makeworld 5y ago
    Only your home server. This is the same as any service that has non-encrypted messaging.
    - smegsicle 5y ago
      so if setting up a new server is easy then it's as good as e2e if both parties do so, right?
  - fknorangesite 5y ago
    Only your home server - until you send a message to someone on another server. Then that operator can read it from there.
- krapp 5y ago
  As opposed to Twitter staff who... can't?
mro_name 5y ago
> controlled by... someone? Just like now. But: That someone might well be yourself! (shameless plug): https://seppo.app https://seppo.app (German vaporware to date. Translate with e.g. deepl.com)

usrn 5y ago

You discover other users by slowly walking the graph from the people you know and you find the first users in the communities you like through hashtags. It's slow but you eventually build up a pretty good list of people to follow. Also you generally join a server oriented around the subject(s) you like so you can check the local toot stream for people to follow.

radicalriddler 5y ago

They've recently added this to the iOS app. You can browse posts, hashtags, news articles and users. It shows users and posts from people you haven't followed in a seperate style of timeline. Not sure how they figure out who to show.

dano 5y ago

The same handle can be used on multiple servers within a federation. Search for @NASA and you'll find at least 4 accounts under that name on different servers making discernment as to which to follow quite a challenge.

MarcellusDrum 5y ago
On federated sites, you have to think of domain names as part of the username. The account isn't just @NASA. It is @NASA@mastodon.social, for example. This isn't even a new concept. NASA@gmail.com and NASA@outlook.com can co-exist. We just have to get used to it outside of Email.

mro_name 5y ago

> discover other users on the platform I'm not sure but who really has lack of random contacts? Maybe those vibrant meeting places could/should be a click away from my profile. In a walled garden that means in the same garden, behind the same wall. But in a free world it can be somewhere else. And as Ronald Reagan said: tear down this wall!

CaptArmchair 5y ago

> the platform There's a hidden misunderstanding here. Phrasing Mastodon as "the platform" implies you (probably subconscious) perceive it as a "classic" single, centralized, authoritative service managed by a single (legal) entity. As you've learned: it's the exact opposite. It's not a service: it's just software. Mastodon fits in between (self)hosted solutions like Matrix, Postfix, IRC, XMMP/Jabber. It would be the odd one out between Twitter, Slack or Discord. > The main one being discoverability. And that's a valid concern to have as a dealbreaker. It's also an advantage that's innate to centralized, authoritative services. Storing millions of users in a single telephone directory vastly lowers the bar for discovery compared to a distributed system of telephone directories. Then again, it's also a chicken and egg discussion. Centralization is a key driver that prompted hundreds of millions of users to flock together. Aspects such as ease of use, convenience and discovery are key conditions as well... ... but let's not pretend this is a net positive: we also experience the many downsides of having millions of people on a single platform that provides common denominator interfaces and policies for governing interaction. In a federated environment with many instances, agency over governance is delegated again to the countless of small communities and tribes that generally tend to emerge organically in any social context. Remember, back in the early days, between BBS'es, Usenet, online fora, IRC communities,... the fragmented nature of online communities in itself wasn't seen as problematic. On the contrary, if anything, the freedom to be able to start your own IRC channel or host your own forum was seen as a boon. In that regard, I don't think that discovery should be treated as a zero sum game where the only logical conclusion is a silver bullet solution e.g. either a single centralized authority or a distributed ledger that acts as a single source of truth. Discovery is massively complex and relies on innate heuristics people have used since forever to find and interact with others. It's never a "solved problem". That doesn't mean throwing up arms not investing in discovery tools. But rather acknowledging that discovery isn't necessarily worth a trade off against other key aspects of complex interpersonal relationships such as having agency to build your own community space, and self-reliance to implement your own set of policies allowing for governance

trenchgun 5y ago

Strongly agreed. Also: no lists to be easily followed? I found some account which creates curated lists for specific interests, but then you have to go through the list one by one to click follow... surreal.