If you know someone who wants to sign up on Mastodon and the Fediverse, you might want to suggest they use this site:
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@lianna @FediTips I love this story. As a genuine question, I’m thinking about the language used as only suggestive of “nerdy hobbies” instead of, you know, hobbies hobbies. What could have helped?
I’m wondering what will encourage people to know that there are whole communities of hobbyists in here, along with everyone else. I keep hearing “it’s all tech bros” and thinking this is a hard barrier to shift. But we are all here too, the other types.
A new platform can’t do anything about the fact that someone’s friends and family aren’t already here. But there might be other ways to imagine who is here to be found.
I think you just have to do what you can, and accept that you may not reach everyone but you try to reach as many as possible and make it as simple as possible.
The official Mastodon website "solves" this by pretending there is only one server and telling everyone to sign up there, but that destroys the entire point of Mastodon and the Fediverse existing.
So... it's sort of a balancing act where you have to choose the least worst way forward.
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Thanks so much for the really detailed feedback report and for trying!
This is really interesting!
I'm not sure what can be done in this particular scenario, it sounds like she thought it was some kind of commercial agreement?
Also I'm guessing Mastodon is perhaps just not similar enough to Facebook to make a direct switchover workable, even if she did sign up?
This is all useful feedback though, will keep your post in mind!
@FediTips No no, no worries. I don't think this is actionable feedback that should be acted upon.
Some people just really want to find excuses to avoid changing their habits or world views. "I don't know of it so it must suck" is a very common reaction in many aspects of life.
I wanted to demonstrate that a lot of the voices calling the Fediverse inaccessible or too complicated are not acting in good faith. They've never made an attempt to think about it at all because they've pre-decided that they don't want it and don't need it.
Some generations were brought up with the wisdom that if it's not advertised by a handsome man in a nice suit and backed by an important-sounding corporate name, it must be a scam or some kind of inferior product.
We shouldn't take these complaints at face value ('the Fediverse is too complex for normal people'), but as of what they are: expressions of discomfort with the unknown and new.
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If you know someone who wants to sign up on Mastodon and the Fediverse, you might want to suggest this guide:
It's been reformatted to make it as easy as possible to sign up on a good reliable server.
If someone finds choice overwhelming, it suggests a good general server (which changes regularly).
If someone appreciates choice, there is a server directory with over 100 good servers organised into categories.
There is also a FAQ about signing up.
> I want to join the Fediverse but I’m not sure which server to choose?
You could set this up to provide random options from the larger list to keep things distributing somewhat evenly. Or did you decide it was better to have fixed options?
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@FediTips No no, no worries. I don't think this is actionable feedback that should be acted upon.
Some people just really want to find excuses to avoid changing their habits or world views. "I don't know of it so it must suck" is a very common reaction in many aspects of life.
I wanted to demonstrate that a lot of the voices calling the Fediverse inaccessible or too complicated are not acting in good faith. They've never made an attempt to think about it at all because they've pre-decided that they don't want it and don't need it.
Some generations were brought up with the wisdom that if it's not advertised by a handsome man in a nice suit and backed by an important-sounding corporate name, it must be a scam or some kind of inferior product.
We shouldn't take these complaints at face value ('the Fediverse is too complex for normal people'), but as of what they are: expressions of discomfort with the unknown and new.
@FediTips The reason she thought it was a commercial agreement is twofold: first of all due to the belief that services are always for-profit corporate products, and secondly that she fundamentally distrusts anything she views on a screen: any misclick in her mind can potentially make her lose all her money or sign her up for a lifelong contract. She knows she doesn't understand computers, she knows there's misinformation and hackers and fake news and scams, and thus she accepts that everything she sees is too good to be true as a general truism.
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@FediTips The reason she thought it was a commercial agreement is twofold: first of all due to the belief that services are always for-profit corporate products, and secondly that she fundamentally distrusts anything she views on a screen: any misclick in her mind can potentially make her lose all her money or sign her up for a lifelong contract. She knows she doesn't understand computers, she knows there's misinformation and hackers and fake news and scams, and thus she accepts that everything she sees is too good to be true as a general truism.
Thank you for the replies, those are really interesting and insightful
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> I want to join the Fediverse but I’m not sure which server to choose?
You could set this up to provide random options from the larger list to keep things distributing somewhat evenly. Or did you decide it was better to have fixed options?
It's a tricky balance
I asked some server admins if they are okay being featured up front like this. Not all admins want this prominence because they might like being a niche community rather than something more general.
I might expand the pool of recommended general servers, but there will probably always be just a few actually shown on the page as I don't want to overwhelm people. If they want choice there's a link to the full list at the bottom.
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> I want to join the Fediverse but I’m not sure which server to choose?
You could set this up to provide random options from the larger list to keep things distributing somewhat evenly. Or did you decide it was better to have fixed options?
By the way, the full list IS randomised, if you go to a category on that page it's a different order every time you load it so that each server has an equal visibility.
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p.s. I know a lot of people have seen https://fedi.garden in its previous versions, but its flow is now totally different. It has a minimalist starting page designed specifically for non-techy people who just want to get started as easily as possible. Please do give it a try, it could be useful in getting your friends to join this place
Also thank you to everyone who helped in the last couple of weeks with the redesign and especially to @kate for the very useful detailed feedback
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Sorry about that, it should be fixed now.
The hosting company installed a new version of the website's software automatically a few hours ago and it seemed to break the buttons.
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p.s. I know a lot of people have seen https://fedi.garden in its previous versions, but its flow is now totally different. It has a minimalist starting page designed specifically for non-techy people who just want to get started as easily as possible. Please do give it a try, it could be useful in getting your friends to join this place
Also thank you to everyone who helped in the last couple of weeks with the redesign and especially to @kate for the very useful detailed feedback
p.p.s. Sorry about problems with buttons not displaying properly, it seems to have been caused by an automatic update of the website's software while I was asleep.
I've fixed the buttons, they should work properly now!
If you're still seeing the buttons as totally black with no text, that's probably a cache of some kind showing you an old version. It should go away by itself.
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