How to get started on social-media site Mastodon, whether you’re leaving Twitter or just looking for people who have.
Sign up and interact with people? It’s just a social media after all.
As always, non-profit open-source software gets branded as “complex” for no reason. Mastodon’s maintainer even made mastodon.social a default server so it takes absolutely 0 seconds to get started which was hated by the userbase for the centralization it causes, and it’s still “complex”
I think for a lot of people, especially people on this site (Lemmy) we underestimate how knowledgeable and capable the general population are.
You argue that open source software gets branded as complex “for no reason” and that it takes “absolutely 0 seconds” to get started.
And yet the Washington Post article literally links to another article where normal people complain exactly what confuses them about Mastodon. Are you saying these people are wrong?
An important rule for design is to stop blaming the users. If the users are complaining that something is complicated, then the designer needs to examine the root cause.
You just got interacted
My main problem is that there just isn’t anything I actually want to engage with on Mastodon. Most of the communities I would engage with simply don’t exist there, or only exist there in minute quantities.
I don’t know if Mastodon has communities per se. They have news sources, local info sources, and individuals that make interesting and brief posts. There might be some back and forth comments under a single.post. It feels closer to Twitter than Reddit. I have always been more of a forums person, which is why Rwddit appealed to me more (and why I’m most active in Kbin.social and Tildes). I have however built up some follows on Mastodon over the past 8 months and I dip in every onve in a while, usually finding a worthwhile news article or subway service info.
Please forgive me for my ignorance on the subject, but is it possible to create a Mastodon account add to a Lemmy app, e.g. Memmy?
Or are Lemmy & Mastdon two very different platforms, Like Facebook & Reddit?
They are connected (you can boost/retweet Lemmy posts from Mastodon) but use a different API for apps, so they won’t all support it. Kbin supports interacting with both Lemmy and Mastodon, but it’s a different platform so you’re going to have to create a new account
And so is it accurate to say kbin is its own protocol which can be used to aggregate and interact with mastodon and lemmy posts?
No. Kbin, Lemmy, and Mastodon all use the same protocol and can communicate with each other, they just have different UI styles.
However, Lemmy (Reddit-like) doesn’t have a UI for microblogging (Twitter-like), while Mastodon (Twitter-like) doesn’t have a UI for comment threads (Reddit-like).
Only Kbin seems to have the option to use both styles of UI at the same time.
There are less Kbin instances available because Kbin is a little less mature and it’s a lot harder to setup, but the devs seem to be working on improving that.
When you said protocol, I think you were referring to the “type” of website kbin is, correct? If so, yes you’re correct, it is a hybrid of both Lemmy and Mastodon. So both a link aggregator/discussion website, as well as a microblog.
Although, when people say “protocol” in the context of the Fediverse, they are almost always referring to the ActivityPub protocol which allows all these websites to interoperate with each other - they all use it, and that’s what allows the users/content to flow from one place to another. So in that sense, no, kbin is not using a different protocol from the others.
accurate, no not at all
… but as an extreme simplification that ignores the work of the kbin devs… you could kiiiiinda think of it like that?
No. Kbin, Lemmy, and Mastodon all use the same protocol and can communicate with each other, they just have different UI styles.
However, Lemmy (Reddit-like) doesn’t have a UI for microblogging (Twitter-like), while Mastodon (Twitter-like) doesn’t have a UI for comment threads (Reddit-like).
Only Kbin seems to have the option to use both styles of UI at the same time.
There are less Kbin instances available because Kbin is a little less mature and it’s a lot harder to setup, but the devs seem to be working on improving that.
I follow a couple Lemmy communities from Mastodon. If you create a Mastodon account and search for
@technology@lemmy.worldyou can subscribe to new posts, which get boosted into your feed. You can upvote by favoriting a post and you can reply from Mastodon and it’ll show up on Lemmy.I can also follow Lemmy users, like by searching for
mxwarp@lemmy.worldand your posts (but not comments) will show up in my feed.Didn’t know that, gonna give it a shot, thanks!
It’s not the best experience, but it works. It also means that Mastodon users can boost Lemmy posts and other Mastodon users may wind up commenting.
Two different platforms that use the same software and can kind-of sort-of communicate with each other. I can see this post and comment in Mastodon and reply to Lemmy users. But Lemmy cannot see Mastodon posts.
It might not work since they’re different platforms with different APIs. The only way an app might work on both platforms is if the app itself chooses to support both APIs.
That said, there’s a level of interaction between the two since they both use ActivityPub. I.e. on Mastodon I can search for a particular Lemmy user and see their posts.
What’s mastodon actually like community wise?
Every time I venture onto twitter all I see is absolute toxicity. My guilty habit is profile surfing some of these utter looneys, and it’s just incredible how bitter some of the people can be.
I saw one guy who spends his day responding to NBA tweets with shit like “0 rings” to start arguments, and just generally being an arsehole in any way possible…
Twitter has gotten A LOT worse since Musk took over. The blue check brigade is given priority across the entire site, so you’re likely to see all the bigots and qidiots more than those engaging in actual discourse.
You can see for yourself without creating an account: https://mastodon.social/explore
what i love to do is to browse the local feeds on interesting instances (https://infosec.exchange/public/local , https://hachyderm.io/public/local)
Honestly, I don’t notice any toxicity, but I’m not in any communities I think toxicity would even flourish (eg politics). Twitter seemed to be so fucking toxic for so long so I think mastodon is much better in that regard
In my experience, Mastodon is much, much less toxic than twitter!
It’s mostly polite, friendly, community-minded folks, & the moderation is a million times more effective than corporate social media, because the mods care about keeping the community healthy, instead of focusing on driving hostile engagement to increase advertising views.
I’ve interacted with some cranky people, but nowhere near the dedicated trolling you get on twitter, funny or no
Lol. That’s probably one of Durant’s alternates
It’s great. Number go up mentality is dead, none of Twitter’s features used for toxicity are integrated, actual communities are formed
It’s really a bunch of communities. I have a few accounts on different servers; one for general use (medium sized server), one academic (on a pretty specialized server), and one for following open source projects I’m interested in (since early 2020 on a server hasn’t been updated for a while so it’s lacking features).
Common for all is that people are generally willing to engage in discussions, and it feels more intimate and welcoming than many other social media I’ve been using. I haven’t really seen it be toxic at all. It can, however, be challenging to break out of your little bubble, and especially so in smaller servers where you depend more on finding and following people around the Fediverse.
My advise would be to either try to find a specialized server for something you’re interested in, or join a bigger general one if you just want to check it out without putting in the effort. You could always move somewhere else and take your followers with you later on, should you feel like it. :)
Can we please stop calling Mastadon a “Twitter alternative”?
Makes it sound far too derivative in my opinion - Mastadon has a lot going for it that Twitter has never implemented (Federation being the chief one).
This isn’t at specifically the OP, but rather at the news articles.
Technology is confusing to the masses, which news articles appeal to. They likely know what Twitter is, and that’s the best comparison.
