7 ms·

Fosstodon is now invite only

31 points by app4soft 3y ago

rijoja 3y ago
Is fosstodon any good, and does anybody use activitypub based social networking, if so what instances would you recommend?
- bejd 3y ago
  I have an account for my game dev projects on https://mastodon.gamedev.place/ https://mastodon.gamedev.place/ and it's a great community for that kind of stuff. People tend to stay on topic: the local feed is almost exclusively videogame related updates, and it's all very positive.
  - rijoja 3y ago
    Thank you for that, I'll check it out!
- techwizrd 3y ago
  I have my Mastodon account on mastodon.social and my Lemmy account on programming.dev because they're very unlikely to be defederated and they're drama-free. I really like them for what its worth.
  - distract8901 3y ago
    Mastodon.social is one of the riskier places to be if you're concerned about defederation. There's a very large segment of the mastodon population that thinks servers ad big as .social are very bad for the ecosystem. A lot of instances defederate them out of principle. The argument is that .social is so big that it's not possible to moderate effectively. It also presents a very large and inviting place to launch attacks from. We frequently see waves of spam, abuse, and just bot accounts originating from .social. A lot of severs are already defederated from .social for these reasons
    - rijoja 3y ago
      Interesting. Maybe you don't want us to know who "we", are so that you become a big server, and as such bad for the ecosystem, but who are "we" exactly? Would you also know if it's commonplace for instances to deny by default, and then use whitelisting?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - distract8901 3y ago
        'We' is the subsection of the fediverse that federates with the server I'm on. It's a sentiment that I see everywhere on mastodon, not from any particular instances. The fringe-er instances are more likely to block by default. It's almost an issue of fediverse fundamentalism. A lot of people think large instances like .social are antithetical to what mastodon is trying to accomplish. We have huge, enormous centralized servers in the middle of a decentralized network. I think you can see how that sentiment would come about
        rijoja 3y ago
        All right, that's very enlightening and helpful! It makes perfect sense as well.
spankalee 3y ago
Making your Mastodon account provider also be a community is a fatal flaw of Mastodon. I don't want to belong to just one community, nor have my account and server administration policies somehow tied to my topic interests!
- krapp 3y ago
  Then don't do that. Have multiple identities on multiple servers, or host your identity on your own server.
  - nvy 3y ago
    So just so I'm clear you're suggesting that a person should log in/out of multiple accounts depending on the topic one wants to discuss/read about, on the same app?
    - DiabloD3 3y ago
      Mastodon isn't an app, it has apps, but isn't one. In your parlance, each Mastodon instance is "an app". The real apps, however, many of them can log into multiple accounts and change which account you're posting from.
      - eropple 3y ago
        This is technically correct, in the Futurama sense of the term. It also isn't what people actually want, though.
        DiabloD3 3y ago
        The problem is... who cares what this ambiguous "people" want? Mastodon was created by and for its intended userbase, as in, people who want a federated Twitter-like interface to ActivityPub. Don't like it? You just excluded yourself as part of the intended userbase: Mastodon is not for people who don't grok federated service, and Mastodon doesn't want people who can't grok federated services. Think of understanding simple concepts like this as sort of a "you have to be this tall to ride this ride" skill check gate. Either you get it, or you don't get in.
Angostura 3y ago
I'm not a Fosstodon user - have they also defederated, or can Mastodon users on other instances still read and comment?
- mhitza 3y ago
  They have not defederated. You can still do all those things.
nextlevelwizard 3y ago
Why should anyone care? Social networks are pretty done these days. Just look at all the controversies the current ones have had and how strong they are still going. All of these “twitter but with fraction of users” -things won’t really mount to much
- DiabloD3 3y ago
  It already succeeded in it's goal however: all the people who wish to use a Twitter-like service, but as a federated system, use it and like it. I'd rather a service have been a success amongst its smaller userbase than be an anti-success with billions of users worldwide but is a massively unprofitable trashfire that is implicated in multiple state psyops and infowars and is an otherwise unmitigated shitshow with a clown running the circus.
TheRoque 3y ago
What's the difference between a private mastodon server and a private reddit, or discord server ? What's the use case ?
- phoe-krk 3y ago
  Fosstodon didn't become a private Mastodon server. It made it a little bit harder to create an account on its server. Users on other servers can interact with Fosstodon on the same terms as before - nothing changed for them.
- jszymborski 3y ago
  You're not limited to interactions with people on your own server. The federated timeline is entirely the same whether or not registration is open. There are many one-person instances, for example.
  - onli 3y ago
    Of course apart from when you are limited from interaction with people on a different server, because you have your own server.
- jskherman 3y ago
  To add to the sibling comments, mastodon servers (or any other fediverse servers) are public and are searchable on the web (unless you really go out of your way to customize it to be private and not indexable). Meanwhile a private Reddit is similarly inaccessible as a private mastodon server. And Discord servers are just totally opaque and you can't search its contents on the web (even if it is public). You have to join the server and use Discord to do so. This is generally bad for information longevity. This is why people say Discord should be avoided for hosting discussions on Open-Source software.
phoe-krk 3y ago
Good from the administration/moderation point of view. This limits the influx of users and shares the burden of moderating them. The instance still federates with the rest of the network, so nothing changes from the existing users' or the network's point of view.
kevincox 3y ago
As a Fosstodon user I'm quite happy with this. Not so much because I care about the sense of community but because it helps reduce the burden of running the server. I imagine that this makes spam accounts basically a non-issue (if users keep invite spammers they can be removed or have invite privileges revoked) which is great for the moderators and also makes Fosstodon more trustworthy in the eyes of other servers and less likely to be blocked/defederated. (not that I think that was an issue before). I don't think any particular server needs infinite growth, and growing by referral helps create a chain of trust. Personally I think a lot of services on the web would be better if they were invite-only where invites are free to provide by any member. It seems one of the few ways to effectively cut down on spam, abuse, botting and astroturfing. Mastodon servers are an even better version of this because even if you can't find someone to invite you you can still participate from another server (and if needed you can run your own). On that note if anyone wants a Fosstodon invite I'd be happy to provide one if I can tell from your posting history, blog or other online presence that you are a real person. (At my own discretion and offer may be revoked at any point.)

31 points by app4soft 3y ago

Is fosstodon any good, and does anybody use activitypub based social networking, if so what instances would you recommend?

bejd 3y ago
I have an account for my game dev projects on https://mastodon.gamedev.place/ https://mastodon.gamedev.place/ and it's a great community for that kind of stuff. People tend to stay on topic: the local feed is almost exclusively videogame related updates, and it's all very positive.
- rijoja 3y ago
  Thank you for that, I'll check it out!
techwizrd 3y ago
I have my Mastodon account on mastodon.social and my Lemmy account on programming.dev because they're very unlikely to be defederated and they're drama-free. I really like them for what its worth.
- distract8901 3y ago
  Mastodon.social is one of the riskier places to be if you're concerned about defederation. There's a very large segment of the mastodon population that thinks servers ad big as .social are very bad for the ecosystem. A lot of instances defederate them out of principle. The argument is that .social is so big that it's not possible to moderate effectively. It also presents a very large and inviting place to launch attacks from. We frequently see waves of spam, abuse, and just bot accounts originating from .social. A lot of severs are already defederated from .social for these reasons
  - rijoja 3y ago
    Interesting. Maybe you don't want us to know who "we", are so that you become a big server, and as such bad for the ecosystem, but who are "we" exactly? Would you also know if it's commonplace for instances to deny by default, and then use whitelisting?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - distract8901 3y ago
      'We' is the subsection of the fediverse that federates with the server I'm on. It's a sentiment that I see everywhere on mastodon, not from any particular instances. The fringe-er instances are more likely to block by default. It's almost an issue of fediverse fundamentalism. A lot of people think large instances like .social are antithetical to what mastodon is trying to accomplish. We have huge, enormous centralized servers in the middle of a decentralized network. I think you can see how that sentiment would come about
      - rijoja 3y ago
        All right, that's very enlightening and helpful! It makes perfect sense as well.

spankalee 3y ago

Making your Mastodon account provider also be a community is a fatal flaw of Mastodon. I don't want to belong to just one community, nor have my account and server administration policies somehow tied to my topic interests!

krapp 3y ago
Then don't do that. Have multiple identities on multiple servers, or host your identity on your own server.
- nvy 3y ago
  So just so I'm clear you're suggesting that a person should log in/out of multiple accounts depending on the topic one wants to discuss/read about, on the same app?
  - DiabloD3 3y ago
    Mastodon isn't an app, it has apps, but isn't one. In your parlance, each Mastodon instance is "an app". The real apps, however, many of them can log into multiple accounts and change which account you're posting from.
    - eropple 3y ago
      This is technically correct, in the Futurama sense of the term. It also isn't what people actually want, though.
      - DiabloD3 3y ago
        The problem is... who cares what this ambiguous "people" want? Mastodon was created by and for its intended userbase, as in, people who want a federated Twitter-like interface to ActivityPub. Don't like it? You just excluded yourself as part of the intended userbase: Mastodon is not for people who don't grok federated service, and Mastodon doesn't want people who can't grok federated services. Think of understanding simple concepts like this as sort of a "you have to be this tall to ride this ride" skill check gate. Either you get it, or you don't get in.

Angostura 3y ago

I'm not a Fosstodon user - have they also defederated, or can Mastodon users on other instances still read and comment?

mhitza 3y ago
They have not defederated. You can still do all those things.

nextlevelwizard 3y ago

Why should anyone care? Social networks are pretty done these days. Just look at all the controversies the current ones have had and how strong they are still going. All of these “twitter but with fraction of users” -things won’t really mount to much

DiabloD3 3y ago
It already succeeded in it's goal however: all the people who wish to use a Twitter-like service, but as a federated system, use it and like it. I'd rather a service have been a success amongst its smaller userbase than be an anti-success with billions of users worldwide but is a massively unprofitable trashfire that is implicated in multiple state psyops and infowars and is an otherwise unmitigated shitshow with a clown running the circus.

TheRoque 3y ago

What's the difference between a private mastodon server and a private reddit, or discord server ? What's the use case ?

phoe-krk 3y ago
Fosstodon didn't become a private Mastodon server. It made it a little bit harder to create an account on its server. Users on other servers can interact with Fosstodon on the same terms as before - nothing changed for them.
jszymborski 3y ago
You're not limited to interactions with people on your own server. The federated timeline is entirely the same whether or not registration is open. There are many one-person instances, for example.
- onli 3y ago
  Of course apart from when you are limited from interaction with people on a different server, because you have your own server.
jskherman 3y ago
To add to the sibling comments, mastodon servers (or any other fediverse servers) are public and are searchable on the web (unless you really go out of your way to customize it to be private and not indexable). Meanwhile a private Reddit is similarly inaccessible as a private mastodon server. And Discord servers are just totally opaque and you can't search its contents on the web (even if it is public). You have to join the server and use Discord to do so. This is generally bad for information longevity. This is why people say Discord should be avoided for hosting discussions on Open-Source software.

phoe-krk 3y ago

Good from the administration/moderation point of view. This limits the influx of users and shares the burden of moderating them. The instance still federates with the rest of the network, so nothing changes from the existing users' or the network's point of view.

kevincox 3y ago

As a Fosstodon user I'm quite happy with this. Not so much because I care about the sense of community but because it helps reduce the burden of running the server. I imagine that this makes spam accounts basically a non-issue (if users keep invite spammers they can be removed or have invite privileges revoked) which is great for the moderators and also makes Fosstodon more trustworthy in the eyes of other servers and less likely to be blocked/defederated. (not that I think that was an issue before). I don't think any particular server needs infinite growth, and growing by referral helps create a chain of trust. Personally I think a lot of services on the web would be better if they were invite-only where invites are free to provide by any member. It seems one of the few ways to effectively cut down on spam, abuse, botting and astroturfing. Mastodon servers are an even better version of this because even if you can't find someone to invite you you can still participate from another server (and if needed you can run your own). On that note if anyone wants a Fosstodon invite I'd be happy to provide one if I can tell from your posting history, blog or other online presence that you are a real person. (At my own discretion and offer may be revoked at any point.)