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> I don't think there's anything specific about Mastodon here These numbers tell me that: 1. Mastodon users are engaged, with an active mind. 2. The grifters

> I don't think there's anything specific about Mastodon here These numbers tell me that: 1. Mastodon users are engaged, with an active mind. 2. The grifters/leeches/scammers and their bot legions haven't invaded yet.

latexr 3y ago
> The grifters/leeches/scammers and their bot legions haven't invaded yet. Unfortunately, they have already started. In early May several instances limited mastodon.social due to a large amount of cryptocurrency spam. https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/110310670042459716 https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/110310670042459716 I haven’t followed the case closely so can’t provide much insight, but a web search might return more information.
- kixiQu 3y ago
  I'm not saying anyone was wrong to limit mastodon.social, but for comparison: since Twitter was bought, I have been periodically checking the main feed Twitter shows an non-logged-in visitor, maybe a couple times a week. The "large amount of cryptocurrency spam" my instance saw from mastodon.social was maybe ~15% of what that couple-times-a-week visit showed on Twitter (to say nothing about my old account's poor DMs). Sure, anecdotal as heck, but I'd unscientifically class Mastodon's current spam problem as approximately equivalent to the level of spam one gets as an Instagram user being tagged into posts for sunglasses or diet pills etc.
EGreg 3y ago
Actually, it’s even simpler than that. Mathematically, if you are in a network with 100 people, the platform can show you a higher proportion of posts before you hit that Dunbar number or limit of how many posts are going to read. If the same network has 1 million people, and you have thousands of connections there, then obviously, each person’s posts are seen less and there is more filtering happening. The real question is, how much advertising, memes, cat videos in general garbage the network pushes into your feed.
- EGreg 3y ago
  Incidentally this is also the mundane reason behind the Women in Tech controversy. Women in tech reported more asshole behavior by men because the probability of encountering a man was higher, than in other industries, and not because tech has more assholes (if anything I have found tech people to be nicer and meeker in general than others, like comics or lawyers). If the ratio was more 50/50 then this phenomenon would go away. (Also, tech workers get a lot of money and prestige which is why it makes the news more than, say women in plumbing or carpentry.)
philippejara 3y ago
I don't think an experiment with a single post on a single topic with accounts on vastly different scales can tell you either of those things. There are a few holes glaring holes in this methodology but just one is that she has 8.7k followers in Mastodon since joining in late 2022, while she has 241k followers on twitter since 2009. It's not surprising that the users that followed her in the last 5 months are more engaged than the ones that followed her in the previous 14 years. Are the people that just aren't interested in her content or that just stopped using twitter after a 14 year span necessarily grifters/leeches/spammers? I don't know about 1 but simply due to scale 2 is probably true, however this experiment isn't saying much.
- erickhill 3y ago
  Anecdotally, I've noticed a much higher engagement % on Mastodon compared to Twitter with my own posts as well. On Twitter, with over 8K followers, I get very good engagement in general (imo). But on Mastodon, with only 1.7K followers, I'll get engagement of almost 50% that of Twitter whenever I duplicate posts. If I had 8K followers on Maston and if those numbers continued the same trend I'd probably drop Twitter altogether. Off-topic I also find the folks that comment on my posts on Mastodon to be friendly by default. It's a very refreshing vibe. For a much smaller audience, I'm seeing a very active user base for the topics at hand. It also helps that I tag my posts in Mastodon (like people do on Instagram) to help increase reach a little bit.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    Depending on your social circle, it may be the case that a lot of twitter followers have essentially gone dead. I still have a Twitter account (I don’t want anyone taking the username; the account is over 16 years old, and, who knows, Twitter may sort itself out one day) but no longer tweet; if I look at that account, most of the people I followed also appear to be no longer tweeting much (though, who knows, maybe the ‘Following’ tab is just broken).
somedude895 3y ago
Go on Youtube or Twitter and you'll see that small creators always have a much higher engagement ratio than larger ones. It's quite natural that a small community is more involved than a large one.
rsynnott 3y ago
> The grifters/leeches/scammers and their bot legions haven't invaded yet. They are, unfortunately, on their way; just had my first crypto spam on Mastodon the other day.

latexr 3y ago

> The grifters/leeches/scammers and their bot legions haven't invaded yet. Unfortunately, they have already started. In early May several instances limited mastodon.social due to a large amount of cryptocurrency spam. https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/110310670042459716 https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/110310670042459716 I haven’t followed the case closely so can’t provide much insight, but a web search might return more information.

kixiQu 3y ago
I'm not saying anyone was wrong to limit mastodon.social, but for comparison: since Twitter was bought, I have been periodically checking the main feed Twitter shows an non-logged-in visitor, maybe a couple times a week. The "large amount of cryptocurrency spam" my instance saw from mastodon.social was maybe ~15% of what that couple-times-a-week visit showed on Twitter (to say nothing about my old account's poor DMs). Sure, anecdotal as heck, but I'd unscientifically class Mastodon's current spam problem as approximately equivalent to the level of spam one gets as an Instagram user being tagged into posts for sunglasses or diet pills etc.

EGreg 3y ago

Actually, it’s even simpler than that. Mathematically, if you are in a network with 100 people, the platform can show you a higher proportion of posts before you hit that Dunbar number or limit of how many posts are going to read. If the same network has 1 million people, and you have thousands of connections there, then obviously, each person’s posts are seen less and there is more filtering happening. The real question is, how much advertising, memes, cat videos in general garbage the network pushes into your feed.

EGreg 3y ago
Incidentally this is also the mundane reason behind the Women in Tech controversy. Women in tech reported more asshole behavior by men because the probability of encountering a man was higher, than in other industries, and not because tech has more assholes (if anything I have found tech people to be nicer and meeker in general than others, like comics or lawyers). If the ratio was more 50/50 then this phenomenon would go away. (Also, tech workers get a lot of money and prestige which is why it makes the news more than, say women in plumbing or carpentry.)

philippejara 3y ago

I don't think an experiment with a single post on a single topic with accounts on vastly different scales can tell you either of those things. There are a few holes glaring holes in this methodology but just one is that she has 8.7k followers in Mastodon since joining in late 2022, while she has 241k followers on twitter since 2009. It's not surprising that the users that followed her in the last 5 months are more engaged than the ones that followed her in the previous 14 years. Are the people that just aren't interested in her content or that just stopped using twitter after a 14 year span necessarily grifters/leeches/spammers? I don't know about 1 but simply due to scale 2 is probably true, however this experiment isn't saying much.

erickhill 3y ago
Anecdotally, I've noticed a much higher engagement % on Mastodon compared to Twitter with my own posts as well. On Twitter, with over 8K followers, I get very good engagement in general (imo). But on Mastodon, with only 1.7K followers, I'll get engagement of almost 50% that of Twitter whenever I duplicate posts. If I had 8K followers on Maston and if those numbers continued the same trend I'd probably drop Twitter altogether. Off-topic I also find the folks that comment on my posts on Mastodon to be friendly by default. It's a very refreshing vibe. For a much smaller audience, I'm seeing a very active user base for the topics at hand. It also helps that I tag my posts in Mastodon (like people do on Instagram) to help increase reach a little bit.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  Depending on your social circle, it may be the case that a lot of twitter followers have essentially gone dead. I still have a Twitter account (I don’t want anyone taking the username; the account is over 16 years old, and, who knows, Twitter may sort itself out one day) but no longer tweet; if I look at that account, most of the people I followed also appear to be no longer tweeting much (though, who knows, maybe the ‘Following’ tab is just broken).

somedude895 3y ago

Go on Youtube or Twitter and you'll see that small creators always have a much higher engagement ratio than larger ones. It's quite natural that a small community is more involved than a large one.

rsynnott 3y ago

> The grifters/leeches/scammers and their bot legions haven't invaded yet. They are, unfortunately, on their way; just had my first crypto spam on Mastodon the other day.