4 ms·

Not sure why this is light grey ("downvoted") -- it's a legit question.

maxbond 4y ago
I don't think it was downvoted because people think it's an illegitimate question, but because it's generally seen as an imposition on people's time to ask a question that could be readily answered by clicking through to the site in question and having a look. That is, after all, what anyone else would do in order to answer the question. (I didn't vote on this comment.)
- bsagdiyev 4y ago
  Understood. I took it also as a statement, people seem to be up in arms about free speech and Twitter but from what I seen Mastodon will gladly announce their silencing of opinions which seem to be anything not democrat adjacent. As a squarely middle of the road voter why would I want to use something like Mastodon? Edit: fuck it maybe I'll setup an instance for people similar to me and see what happens. I don't buy fully in to either side and it's hard to find social groups that feel similarly.
  - yborg 4y ago
    >Mastodon is one person People really seem to completely miss the whole concept of a federated ecosystem, Mastodon is just a tool, like vBulletin, the whole point of it is that there isn't a "Mastodon" that announces things.
- ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
  Unless I already know what instances to look for, how could I search for them?
- Normille 4y ago
  >it's generally seen as an imposition on people's time to ask a question that could be readily answered by clicking through to the site in question and having a look That's not going to help anyone know if there are other Mastodon servers out there, which aren't on the list. Unless that person is already aware of the existence of said server in the first place. Anyone remember when Gab had the biggest Mastodon instance by far, by user numbers, but all the Mastodon indexes were pretending it didn't even exist? The myth of the Fediverse as some libertarian promised land free from censorship and heavy handed control is just farcical.
  - commoner 4y ago
    Freedom of association is an essential part of freedom of speech, and is one of the core principles of libertarianism. One of the main features of Mastodon is that individual instances have the option to either federate with or reject other instances to curate the character of the community they want to build. Unlike Twitter, which puts everyone on a single instance, people on Mastodon can choose to be in a community of people with shared interests and values, hosted on an instance with rules that they agree with. The decentralization makes individual Mastodon instances more pleasant and less divisive to their users. Forcing instances to federate with others would be compelled speech, not free speech, and would take away from what makes Mastodon different from Twitter. In the same way, forcing any website to list Gab would not be free speech. (Gab disabled federation, so it is not actually part of the fediverse anymore: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26012558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26012558.) Gab still exists as a service running on free and open source code derived from Mastodon because Mastodon is AGPLv3. Anyone who wants to sign up for Gab can just do that.
    - Normille 4y ago
      >In the same way, forcing any website to list Gab would not be free speech... I think you're being a bit disingenuous talking about "forcing" sites to list Gab. If individual instances wanted to de-link from it that was their perogative. But I was talking abuot sites which claim to provide indexes of what Mastodon servers are out there --ignoring the biggest one by a considerable margin, because they didn't like the politics of the people who used it. I think if ypu're claiming to provide an index, it kind of behoves you to index everything you're supposed to be indexing. Not leave huge sections out because you don't like them. Imagine publishing a business directory where you didn't list the Jewish or black owned businesses... or printing a dictionary but leaving out all the words that began with a letter you didn't like. Yes. No-one who believes in free speech should be "forcing" you to make good those omissions. But they're prefectly entitled to question the value of your 'publication' if you don't.
      - commoner 4y ago
        Gab is not an instance of Mastodon. It is a fork of Mastodon that has been modified to not interoperate with Mastodon instances and other fediverse services. Because of this, Gab is not part of the fediverse and has no place on instances.social. If you want to create a list of social networks that includes Mastodon instances and Gab together, go for it. But there is no reason a list of Mastodon instances needs to include a service that is not a Mastodon instance.

I don't think it was downvoted because people think it's an illegitimate question, but because it's generally seen as an imposition on people's time to ask a question that could be readily answered by clicking through to the site in question and having a look. That is, after all, what anyone else would do in order to answer the question. (I didn't vote on this comment.)

bsagdiyev 4y ago
Understood. I took it also as a statement, people seem to be up in arms about free speech and Twitter but from what I seen Mastodon will gladly announce their silencing of opinions which seem to be anything not democrat adjacent. As a squarely middle of the road voter why would I want to use something like Mastodon? Edit: fuck it maybe I'll setup an instance for people similar to me and see what happens. I don't buy fully in to either side and it's hard to find social groups that feel similarly.
- yborg 4y ago
  >Mastodon is one person People really seem to completely miss the whole concept of a federated ecosystem, Mastodon is just a tool, like vBulletin, the whole point of it is that there isn't a "Mastodon" that announces things.
ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
Unless I already know what instances to look for, how could I search for them?
Normille 4y ago
>it's generally seen as an imposition on people's time to ask a question that could be readily answered by clicking through to the site in question and having a look That's not going to help anyone know if there are other Mastodon servers out there, which aren't on the list. Unless that person is already aware of the existence of said server in the first place. Anyone remember when Gab had the biggest Mastodon instance by far, by user numbers, but all the Mastodon indexes were pretending it didn't even exist? The myth of the Fediverse as some libertarian promised land free from censorship and heavy handed control is just farcical.
- commoner 4y ago
  Freedom of association is an essential part of freedom of speech, and is one of the core principles of libertarianism. One of the main features of Mastodon is that individual instances have the option to either federate with or reject other instances to curate the character of the community they want to build. Unlike Twitter, which puts everyone on a single instance, people on Mastodon can choose to be in a community of people with shared interests and values, hosted on an instance with rules that they agree with. The decentralization makes individual Mastodon instances more pleasant and less divisive to their users. Forcing instances to federate with others would be compelled speech, not free speech, and would take away from what makes Mastodon different from Twitter. In the same way, forcing any website to list Gab would not be free speech. (Gab disabled federation, so it is not actually part of the fediverse anymore: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26012558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26012558.) Gab still exists as a service running on free and open source code derived from Mastodon because Mastodon is AGPLv3. Anyone who wants to sign up for Gab can just do that.
  - Normille 4y ago
    >In the same way, forcing any website to list Gab would not be free speech... I think you're being a bit disingenuous talking about "forcing" sites to list Gab. If individual instances wanted to de-link from it that was their perogative. But I was talking abuot sites which claim to provide indexes of what Mastodon servers are out there --ignoring the biggest one by a considerable margin, because they didn't like the politics of the people who used it. I think if ypu're claiming to provide an index, it kind of behoves you to index everything you're supposed to be indexing. Not leave huge sections out because you don't like them. Imagine publishing a business directory where you didn't list the Jewish or black owned businesses... or printing a dictionary but leaving out all the words that began with a letter you didn't like. Yes. No-one who believes in free speech should be "forcing" you to make good those omissions. But they're prefectly entitled to question the value of your 'publication' if you don't.
    - commoner 4y ago
      Gab is not an instance of Mastodon. It is a fork of Mastodon that has been modified to not interoperate with Mastodon instances and other fediverse services. Because of this, Gab is not part of the fediverse and has no place on instances.social. If you want to create a list of social networks that includes Mastodon instances and Gab together, go for it. But there is no reason a list of Mastodon instances needs to include a service that is not a Mastodon instance.