As I posted recently, the continuned growth of mastodon.social is putting the #Fediverse in danger (here's why: https://fedi.tips/its-a-really-bad-idea-to-join-a-big-server/).
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@FediTips @Eeveecraft Well, damn. Blocking (or whatever it's called) you from Trending on Mastodon.social because you have a point of view that "there's more to Fediverse life than Mastondon.social" is petty. Especially since the point of the Fediverse is decentralization.
@Still_Nimmy @FediTips @Eeveecraft I've been considering moving from mastodon.social for awhile, I just never could figure out out which server to switch to. I guess I should start looking more seriously now.
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The continued growth of mastodon.social is putting the #Fediverse in danger (here's why: https://fedi.tips/its-a-really-bad-idea-to-join-a-big-server/).
The quickest, easiest and most effective way to solve this would be if the official apps & website stopped promoting mastodon.social, and instead promoted a rotating selection from a pool of reliable servers with solid track records.
If you're comfortable using Github, please give thumbs up to all these:
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android/issues/568
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios/issues/1023
- https://github.com/mastodon/joinmastodon/issues/1052@FediTips I feel like when people ask for randomly assigned servers, there's a strange forgetfulness about which specific problem the default server was meant to solve.
Among people who signed up in 2022, the biggest reason (by far!) why people involuntarily left – that is, wanted to keep using Mastodon but failed to – was that they changed phones or browsers or just wanted to sign in on another device, and couldn't because they didn't know what server they were on.
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@FediTips I feel like when people ask for randomly assigned servers, there's a strange forgetfulness about which specific problem the default server was meant to solve.
Among people who signed up in 2022, the biggest reason (by far!) why people involuntarily left – that is, wanted to keep using Mastodon but failed to – was that they changed phones or browsers or just wanted to sign in on another device, and couldn't because they didn't know what server they were on.
@FediTips We can't be telling people “don't worry too much about all that server stuff for now” and also “oh you don't know if your account was on mstdn.social or mas.to, then you're just outta luck sorry”.
We also know that asking fedi newcomers to pick their own server does not work. Your suggestion addresses this point.
My conclusion is that having a default server for all newbies (not invited by a friend) is the best practical approach. Somewhere people can get their bearings.
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@FediTips We can't be telling people “don't worry too much about all that server stuff for now” and also “oh you don't know if your account was on mstdn.social or mas.to, then you're just outta luck sorry”.
We also know that asking fedi newcomers to pick their own server does not work. Your suggestion addresses this point.
My conclusion is that having a default server for all newbies (not invited by a friend) is the best practical approach. Somewhere people can get their bearings.
@FediTips And yes, I understand the cons.
IMHO the path forward is to improve the scope & simplicity of the account moving process, and then encouraging people on m.s to use it after some time. Not to abolish the default server.
I've been holding my tongue on this since @andypiper said Mastodon may reply to this with a blog post. But I hope we can acknowledge that a “rotating servers” suggestion is incomplete without an idea to (unobtrusively but reliably) teach people about their own server.
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@Still_Nimmy @FediTips @Eeveecraft I've been considering moving from mastodon.social for awhile, I just never could figure out out which server to switch to. I guess I should start looking more seriously now.
If you just want one suggestion a very similar and equally reliable alternative large alternative would be mas.to
If you want a selection of good medium-sized servers to choose from, you can find some at https://fedi.garden all of which are human-curated and have to be compatible with certain requirements listed at https://fedi.garden/about-this-site/
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@FediTips @Eeveecraft Well, damn. Blocking (or whatever it's called) you from Trending on Mastodon.social because you have a point of view that "there's more to Fediverse life than Mastondon.social" is petty. Especially since the point of the Fediverse is decentralization.
@FediTips @Eeveecraft To be clear, I'm not recommending, condoning, nor would I support, dogpiling on the moderators or instance admin(s) of Mastodon.social. That is not called for, nor acceptable.
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@FediTips @Eeveecraft To be clear, I'm not recommending, condoning, nor would I support, dogpiling on the moderators or instance admin(s) of Mastodon.social. That is not called for, nor acceptable.
Oh yeah, neither would I, and I don't think it's the fault of moderators on mastodon.social.
I think this problem is due to the leadership at Mastodon gGmbH, and they are the only ones who need to respond about this.
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If you just want one suggestion a very similar and equally reliable alternative large alternative would be mas.to
If you want a selection of good medium-sized servers to choose from, you can find some at https://fedi.garden all of which are human-curated and have to be compatible with certain requirements listed at https://fedi.garden/about-this-site/
What's your opinion of .world? I picked this cause someone I was interested in was here, but didn't give it any thought. It's absolutely default, and reliable. The "default" is bad cause it's only 500 character toot limit, but otherwise, it works well.
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What's your opinion of .world? I picked this cause someone I was interested in was here, but didn't give it any thought. It's absolutely default, and reliable. The "default" is bad cause it's only 500 character toot limit, but otherwise, it works well.
I don't know much about it, but it is up to date on the latest version, it has a detailed published code of conduct, it has multiple staff, its admin has posted recently and it has been operating since 2022 so those are good signs.
Its about page is at https://mastodon.world/about
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@FediTips We can't be telling people “don't worry too much about all that server stuff for now” and also “oh you don't know if your account was on mstdn.social or mas.to, then you're just outta luck sorry”.
We also know that asking fedi newcomers to pick their own server does not work. Your suggestion addresses this point.
My conclusion is that having a default server for all newbies (not invited by a friend) is the best practical approach. Somewhere people can get their bearings.
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Exactly. The solution is obvious, there are many servers with similarly reliable track records, promote one of those.
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@UlrikeHahn @FediTips My central point is about how rotating the default server solves none of this.
Except the difficulty of deciding on a server.I mean, what do we expect to happen when people forget their server name? Should the password reset process ask people whether they signed up during October or November?
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@UlrikeHahn @FediTips My central point is about how rotating the default server solves none of this.
Except the difficulty of deciding on a server.I mean, what do we expect to happen when people forget their server name? Should the password reset process ask people whether they signed up during October or November?
"I mean, what do we expect to happen when people forget their server name?"
Speaking as someone who has actually provided tech support for this over the past 5 years, people can find the name of their server on the email they received when they signed up.
People cannot sign up without an email, and *they always receive an email with the name of their server on it*
This is not the massive barrier you are making it out to be. They can just check their email if they forget.
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The continued growth of mastodon.social is putting the #Fediverse in danger (here's why: https://fedi.tips/its-a-really-bad-idea-to-join-a-big-server/).
The quickest, easiest and most effective way to solve this would be if the official apps & website stopped promoting mastodon.social, and instead promoted a rotating selection from a pool of reliable servers with solid track records.
If you're comfortable using Github, please give thumbs up to all these:
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android/issues/568
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios/issues/1023
- https://github.com/mastodon/joinmastodon/issues/1052p.s. To avoid repetition of replies:
-If people forget name of server they signed up on, it's written on the email they received when they signed up.
-Mastodon.social is in no way more reliable or easier than other servers with similar or better track records.
-If Mastodon gGmbH does not trust anyone else to run a server properly, why should anyone else trust Mastodon gGmbH to run a server properly? "Trust me, but I won't trust you" is a terrible argument in a collaborative project.
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"I mean, what do we expect to happen when people forget their server name?"
Speaking as someone who has actually provided tech support for this over the past 5 years, people can find the name of their server on the email they received when they signed up.
People cannot sign up without an email, and *they always receive an email with the name of their server on it*
This is not the massive barrier you are making it out to be. They can just check their email if they forget.
@FediTips @UlrikeHahn The one time someone asked me how to figure out which Mastodon server they used to sign up, and then actually stuck with the conversation, I asked them to look up the email, and they told me they don't keep emails going back far enough.
But yeah, it can work in principle. -
The continued growth of mastodon.social is putting the #Fediverse in danger (here's why: https://fedi.tips/its-a-really-bad-idea-to-join-a-big-server/).
The quickest, easiest and most effective way to solve this would be if the official apps & website stopped promoting mastodon.social, and instead promoted a rotating selection from a pool of reliable servers with solid track records.
If you're comfortable using Github, please give thumbs up to all these:
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android/issues/568
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios/issues/1023
- https://github.com/mastodon/joinmastodon/issues/1052@FediTips
I don't know anything technical about this sort of thing... So please feel free to mock and scoff and ridicule and ignore what I'm thinking...
Why not agree as a fediverse to place an upper limit on server size? Once a server reaches the limit they no longer accept new registrations. Wouldn't everyone agree if it will save the fediverse?!
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@FediTips
I don't know anything technical about this sort of thing... So please feel free to mock and scoff and ridicule and ignore what I'm thinking...Why not agree as a fediverse to place an upper limit on server size? Once a server reaches the limit they no longer accept new registrations. Wouldn't everyone agree if it will save the fediverse?!
I don't know if there are any easy technical ways to enforce an upper limit, but it would be very easy to have an upper limit on listings on websites/apps that recommend servers to join. That way the bigger servers wouldn't get as much publicity, while the smaller servers would get more publicity.
I've tried to do that on my server guide at https://fedi.garden where I only list servers below a certain size and then unlist them when they've grown larger than the limit.
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@FediTips @UlrikeHahn The one time someone asked me how to figure out which Mastodon server they used to sign up, and then actually stuck with the conversation, I asked them to look up the email, and they told me they don't keep emails going back far enough.
But yeah, it can work in principle.@julian @FediTips @UlrikeHahn
The notion of "server "is unknown for a random new user. How could they remember its name ? -
@UlrikeHahn @FediTips My central point is about how rotating the default server solves none of this.
Except the difficulty of deciding on a server.I mean, what do we expect to happen when people forget their server name? Should the password reset process ask people whether they signed up during October or November?
@julian @FediTips I guess I feel like the main difficulty *is* the difficulty of deciding on a server when one cannot yet have any idea of the consequences of that decision…
beyond that, people understand that email can come from different providers, as can their sim card, as can their broadband as can they cable tv. I don’t see anything anything fundamentally more complicated in “remembering one’s server” beyond that that couldn’t be solved with appropriate explanation (“your server is your access provider, you will need to hold on to these details…”), but I could be missing something here… -
@julian @FediTips I guess I feel like the main difficulty *is* the difficulty of deciding on a server when one cannot yet have any idea of the consequences of that decision…
beyond that, people understand that email can come from different providers, as can their sim card, as can their broadband as can they cable tv. I don’t see anything anything fundamentally more complicated in “remembering one’s server” beyond that that couldn’t be solved with appropriate explanation (“your server is your access provider, you will need to hold on to these details…”), but I could be missing something here…@UlrikeHahn @FediTips I think difficulty choosing a server was the biggest reason that stopped people from signing up at all in 2022. But people who managed to pick a server and then forgot it were also a surprisingly large group.
The whole “it's kinda like email” cliché originated in part in the desire to convey the ways in which your server matters. But Mastodon newcomers mostly thought “making a Mastodon account” ≈ “making a Twitter account”, i.e. that your username and password are enough.
