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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"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.
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p.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.
@FediTips i wonder how we balance this with the "average user" (yes, i'm looking at you, tech-illiterate aunt sally) not knowing what a server is, how to find one, or what choosing one entails.
i only bring this up as mastodon (the software) wishes to become a more widespread social platform/solution versus the competition, so this type of first-experience UX should be considered carefully
to be clear, i don't think we should push users towards mastodon.social – but how is that done elegantly?
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p.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.
@FediTips also Mastodon could implement a service to try and discover your server address if you forgot it like Pixelfed has.
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Exactly. The solution is obvious, there are many servers with similarly reliable track records, promote one of those.
This is something I continue to think about a lot. I thought changing the default was a bad decision at the time and haven't changed my mind! It's not just the centralization aspects of it; it's also that (based on retention rates) most people don't have a good experience on .social -- so they wind up leaving fedi.
Rotating the default doesn't seem to me like it would address the :"good experience" aspect of the problem. For most people who are looking for a Twitter-like experience, .social's as good an approximation as anywhere else in fedi -- not great, but other instances aren't any better. And for people who are looking for a local community that aligns with their interests or geography, they're not going to find it on other largeish open-registration instances (and it doesn't make sense to have anything but a largesish open-registration instance as the default).
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This is something I continue to think about a lot. I thought changing the default was a bad decision at the time and haven't changed my mind! It's not just the centralization aspects of it; it's also that (based on retention rates) most people don't have a good experience on .social -- so they wind up leaving fedi.
Rotating the default doesn't seem to me like it would address the :"good experience" aspect of the problem. For most people who are looking for a Twitter-like experience, .social's as good an approximation as anywhere else in fedi -- not great, but other instances aren't any better. And for people who are looking for a local community that aligns with their interests or geography, they're not going to find it on other largeish open-registration instances (and it doesn't make sense to have anything but a largesish open-registration instance as the default).
Approaches that might work better involve integrating a good instance picker into the signup process, or an onboarding flow that treats the initial instance as a "starter instance", a base for exploring that makes it easy to move to another instance. Realistically though it's not clearly how likely it is that Mastodon gGmbH will prioritize the work that's needed to support either of these -- which isn't an argument against pushing for them, just that we should be looking for other alternatives as well.
In general it seems to me that might be better to focus our efforts in terms of making it easier to join communities in fedi as a whole, not just Mastodon. For many people something other than a Mastodon-based instance may well be a better choice. Of course that still leaves the problem of people who search for "mastodon", or have read an article about Mastodon and followed the links to either the Mastodon app or joinmastodon ... but I don't know how to address those without Mastodon gGmbH's cooperation,
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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.
@julian @FediTips
Is the sign-up email for a single software such as Mastodon predictable/regular enough that 80% of those cases could be solved by advising people to search for some text in their email?Like if the default sign-up email contained "Mastodon" and when server admins customized it, there would naturally be a low chance they'd edit it radically enough to remove that word.
Or similarly, if a convention was established to include the word "fediverse", would that help?
/shrug/
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Approaches that might work better involve integrating a good instance picker into the signup process, or an onboarding flow that treats the initial instance as a "starter instance", a base for exploring that makes it easy to move to another instance. Realistically though it's not clearly how likely it is that Mastodon gGmbH will prioritize the work that's needed to support either of these -- which isn't an argument against pushing for them, just that we should be looking for other alternatives as well.
In general it seems to me that might be better to focus our efforts in terms of making it easier to join communities in fedi as a whole, not just Mastodon. For many people something other than a Mastodon-based instance may well be a better choice. Of course that still leaves the problem of people who search for "mastodon", or have read an article about Mastodon and followed the links to either the Mastodon app or joinmastodon ... but I don't know how to address those without Mastodon gGmbH's cooperation,
And actually I'd go farther and say it might be better to focus on community-led alternatives to commercial social networks in general -- not just fedi. For people looking for a US-focused, Black-centric microblogging experience, Blacksky might well be the best option today (and as Northsky becomes more real, that's likely to be a good option for a North American-focused 2SLGBTQIA+-centric microblogging experience). For people looking for a Palestinian-friendly photo/video-sharing app, Upscrolled might be a good option even though it's not decentralized.
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@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.
One key might be to stop encouraging people to join barely-memorable servers with which they have no real-world affinity, and instead encourage people to launch their own servers for a group which they have a real connection to, like their employer, university, city, family, church, club, or similar.
I don't forget my work email address because I know where I work.
It's a lot harder but long-term retention will be better.
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One key might be to stop encouraging people to join barely-memorable servers with which they have no real-world affinity, and instead encourage people to launch their own servers for a group which they have a real connection to, like their employer, university, city, family, church, club, or similar.
I don't forget my work email address because I know where I work.
It's a lot harder but long-term retention will be better.
@julian @FediTips @andypiper it may be easier if you can connect an instance to existing user databases, like Google Workspace, Slack, or Discord.
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@julian @FediTips
Is the sign-up email for a single software such as Mastodon predictable/regular enough that 80% of those cases could be solved by advising people to search for some text in their email?Like if the default sign-up email contained "Mastodon" and when server admins customized it, there would naturally be a low chance they'd edit it radically enough to remove that word.
Or similarly, if a convention was established to include the word "fediverse", would that help?
/shrug/
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This is something I continue to think about a lot. I thought changing the default was a bad decision at the time and haven't changed my mind! It's not just the centralization aspects of it; it's also that (based on retention rates) most people don't have a good experience on .social -- so they wind up leaving fedi.
Rotating the default doesn't seem to me like it would address the :"good experience" aspect of the problem. For most people who are looking for a Twitter-like experience, .social's as good an approximation as anywhere else in fedi -- not great, but other instances aren't any better. And for people who are looking for a local community that aligns with their interests or geography, they're not going to find it on other largeish open-registration instances (and it doesn't make sense to have anything but a largesish open-registration instance as the default).
@thenexusofprivacy @FediTips @UlrikeHahn Yes, exactly on point. The best case scenario for the Fediverse is a rough alignment of servers with cohesive communities, because if the community matches the infrastructure, that's good for moderation, long-term stability, and the day-to-day experience of each individual. A default server can't provide that.
Ideally, everyone would join fedi by being invited to a well-moderated small-to-medium server by a friend.
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Approaches that might work better involve integrating a good instance picker into the signup process, or an onboarding flow that treats the initial instance as a "starter instance", a base for exploring that makes it easy to move to another instance. Realistically though it's not clearly how likely it is that Mastodon gGmbH will prioritize the work that's needed to support either of these -- which isn't an argument against pushing for them, just that we should be looking for other alternatives as well.
In general it seems to me that might be better to focus our efforts in terms of making it easier to join communities in fedi as a whole, not just Mastodon. For many people something other than a Mastodon-based instance may well be a better choice. Of course that still leaves the problem of people who search for "mastodon", or have read an article about Mastodon and followed the links to either the Mastodon app or joinmastodon ... but I don't know how to address those without Mastodon gGmbH's cooperation,
@thenexusofprivacy @FediTips @UlrikeHahn I'm personally also quite intrigued by the idea of treating the default as a “tutorial server”. Video games manage to design sandbox areas that anyone can use to try out new toys, but that naturally get boring after a while unless you leave them and explore. I think trying to translate that concept to fedi servers could be fruitful, albeit difficult.
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@virtuous_sloth @FediTips Yeah, I have a reply about this somewhere downthread. Searching up the email is a (high-friction but workable) individual solution if someone has forgotten their server and is willing to put a few minutes of effort into regaining access, it's not a good solution to the overall problem of people not remebering their server. At the very least it's a hassle each time.
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@julian @FediTips @andypiper it may be easier if you can connect an instance to existing user databases, like Google Workspace, Slack, or Discord.
@evan @FediTips @andypiper 100% for setting up small servers. The Fediverse is almost certainly best off with lots of fairly small and fairly socially cohesive servers.
There is, however, a mismatch between the suggestion to set up a server and the audience of people who have heard about Mastodon somewhere and are willing to download an app to give it a shot. We're veering close to the “the Fediverse is built for tech-savvy people” kind of elitism that I'm personally hoping we can grow out of.
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@thenexusofprivacy @FediTips @UlrikeHahn I'm personally also quite intrigued by the idea of treating the default as a “tutorial server”. Video games manage to design sandbox areas that anyone can use to try out new toys, but that naturally get boring after a while unless you leave them and explore. I think trying to translate that concept to fedi servers could be fruitful, albeit difficult.
@UlrikeHahn' has also brought up the idea of something similar to a "tutorial server" with limited functionality ... it's intriguing. one challenge is how to get enough interesting stuff there for people to decide it's worth exploring further. If it's just a tutorial that people have to go through to get to the next stage, then the risk is that unless folks are really really committed they're likely to lose interest.
