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Yes. The part where you don't have to pick an instance > provided it's open for new users This in itself is a massive point of confusion for most users. I've

Yes. The part where you don't have to pick an instance > provided it's open for new users This in itself is a massive point of confusion for most users. I've had all my friends and family ask me about this very point and I didn't know what to say. Especially when Elon fired everyone, literally none of the instances on the Mastodon page were accepting anyone. It's much better now but this alone confuses people into thinking they're locked into their instance. Why would my father, a retired mechanical engineer, join an infosec instance? Or my friends join a French instance when none of us are remotely French?

Matl 4y ago
Is email hard because you need to pick up an 'instance'?
- Scarblac 4y ago
  Well you first got one from your Internet provider, and after that there were a few huge ones (Hotmail and Gmail). I don't think most people feel they "chose" their email at all.
  - corv 4y ago
    This is probably how the fediverse will turn out too
- wpietri 4y ago
  It was! Now we are down to a very small number of default instances for most people. I'm one of the weirdos who doesn't use Gmail (Fastmail ftw), but Google's ad-subsidized email really decimated the competition.
- ummonk 4y ago
  I must have missed the part of internet history where people were constantly banned from their emails by capricious administrators for vague ToS violations. Like we are rightly concerned about Google suspending accounts without recourse, but the rate at which they do that is still orders of magnitude lower than the personal fiefdoms known as Mastodon instances.
  - smolder 4y ago
    The beauty is it doesn't matter if some mastodon admin is an asshole, you can be that asshole or find someone else who isn't.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    I'm not aware that this was a common practice in periods of early email adoption.
  - Matl 4y ago
    > I must have missed the part of internet history where people were constantly banned from their emails by capricious administrators for vague ToS violations. I have friends on Mastodon for some 5+ years and this isn't really an issue. If it actually keeps happening than either the instances you're picking are run by teenagers, or you're actually engaging in some sort of a behavior that perhaps warrants a ban? Personally, am running my own instance so this is not a concern but the larger ones with good reputation tend to be mature about this. I'd recommend joining a well established instance but avoid the absolutely huge ones like mastodon.social
notpushkin 4y ago
Well. Maybe you could help them pick one?
nightpool 4y ago
Have you tried just sending them an invite link to wherever you are? Ultimately WHAT instance you choose doesn't really matter as long as you trust the admin.
- mikeryan 4y ago
  Ultimately WHAT instance you choose doesn't really matter as long as you trust the admin. Trust the admin? Trust them how? Why? Doesn’t all of Mastodon abide by the same rules?
  - smolder 4y ago
    They control the server that runs the software. So you trust them with every https request, your communication, your password. You trust their javascript.
    - notpushkin 4y ago
      This. But more importantly, you trust their judgement when it comes to moderation and defederation. While you don't understand these issues, you can either rely on somebody else's advice for that, or join a server at random and see what happens. Unless you've joined the new Gab, you should be okay – if anything goes wrong you can just migrate to another server. As for the things you've mentioned: you shouldn't assume your communication is private anywhere on Mastodon (there's some encryption proposals, but that's a long road from now), and you definitely should use different passwords for different websites.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - nomel 4y ago
      You must also trust them to read you DMs: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/18079 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/18079
  - 4y ago
dmitryminkovsky 4y ago
> I've had all my friends and family ask me about this very point and I didn't know what to say. How about something like: “Mastadon is decentralized, so instead of being one centralized service, it consists of many smaller communities. You can follow anyone in community, because they’re all interconnected. Moderation happens at the community level, by people who run each community. You can join any community that is accepting new members. This is more complicated because you have to pick where you want to join, but then you don’t have to deal with Elon Musk or whoever if you don’t want to.” I haven’t joined Mastodon, but this is my understanding. Seems not that much more complicated if you’re already interested in not being locked into dealing with centralization. If you’re just looking for an alternative centralized network, then yeah this is probably confusing.

Matl 4y ago

Is email hard because you need to pick up an 'instance'?

Scarblac 4y ago
Well you first got one from your Internet provider, and after that there were a few huge ones (Hotmail and Gmail). I don't think most people feel they "chose" their email at all.
- corv 4y ago
  This is probably how the fediverse will turn out too
wpietri 4y ago
It was! Now we are down to a very small number of default instances for most people. I'm one of the weirdos who doesn't use Gmail (Fastmail ftw), but Google's ad-subsidized email really decimated the competition.
ummonk 4y ago
I must have missed the part of internet history where people were constantly banned from their emails by capricious administrators for vague ToS violations. Like we are rightly concerned about Google suspending accounts without recourse, but the rate at which they do that is still orders of magnitude lower than the personal fiefdoms known as Mastodon instances.
- smolder 4y ago
  The beauty is it doesn't matter if some mastodon admin is an asshole, you can be that asshole or find someone else who isn't.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  I'm not aware that this was a common practice in periods of early email adoption.
- Matl 4y ago
  > I must have missed the part of internet history where people were constantly banned from their emails by capricious administrators for vague ToS violations. I have friends on Mastodon for some 5+ years and this isn't really an issue. If it actually keeps happening than either the instances you're picking are run by teenagers, or you're actually engaging in some sort of a behavior that perhaps warrants a ban? Personally, am running my own instance so this is not a concern but the larger ones with good reputation tend to be mature about this. I'd recommend joining a well established instance but avoid the absolutely huge ones like mastodon.social

notpushkin 4y ago

Well. Maybe you could help them pick one?

nightpool 4y ago

Have you tried just sending them an invite link to wherever you are? Ultimately WHAT instance you choose doesn't really matter as long as you trust the admin.

mikeryan 4y ago
Ultimately WHAT instance you choose doesn't really matter as long as you trust the admin. Trust the admin? Trust them how? Why? Doesn’t all of Mastodon abide by the same rules?
- smolder 4y ago
  They control the server that runs the software. So you trust them with every https request, your communication, your password. You trust their javascript.
  - notpushkin 4y ago
    This. But more importantly, you trust their judgement when it comes to moderation and defederation. While you don't understand these issues, you can either rely on somebody else's advice for that, or join a server at random and see what happens. Unless you've joined the new Gab, you should be okay – if anything goes wrong you can just migrate to another server. As for the things you've mentioned: you shouldn't assume your communication is private anywhere on Mastodon (there's some encryption proposals, but that's a long road from now), and you definitely should use different passwords for different websites.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - nomel 4y ago
    You must also trust them to read you DMs: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/18079 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/18079
- 4y ago

dmitryminkovsky 4y ago

> I've had all my friends and family ask me about this very point and I didn't know what to say. How about something like: “Mastadon is decentralized, so instead of being one centralized service, it consists of many smaller communities. You can follow anyone in community, because they’re all interconnected. Moderation happens at the community level, by people who run each community. You can join any community that is accepting new members. This is more complicated because you have to pick where you want to join, but then you don’t have to deal with Elon Musk or whoever if you don’t want to.” I haven’t joined Mastodon, but this is my understanding. Seems not that much more complicated if you’re already interested in not being locked into dealing with centralization. If you’re just looking for an alternative centralized network, then yeah this is probably confusing.