The official Mastodon app is doing something new which is potentially very dangerous to the existence of Mastodon and the Fediverse.
The official Mastodon app now prompts users to join mastodon.social by default, when previously it prompted them to pick a server. If you're new this may sound harmless, but let me explain.
The entire point of this place is to be a social network spread out on as many servers as possible (the reasons are here: fedi.tips/why-is-the-fediverse…).
Actually, when combining this decision with the recent trademark one of not allowing other instances to be named *.mastodon.* there might be a case for questioning Gargron's motives here.
... but I think this is the right move to enable frictionless signups. However, it's now critically important to implement the one-click _complete_ account migration between servers as well.
Basically mastodon.social needs to encourage users to move on from spawn.
@troed I agree. Though as nefarious as both those decisions can appear, I think it's clearly about trying to reduce the friction for new users - even for the trademark changes. The biggest complaints during November last year were about picking servers and people ending up on 'mastodon' urls that aren't moderated.
@BenjaminNelan @troed @pixelfed True, I personally use the Mozilla (chat.mozilla.org) homeserver. I think on Mastodon the biggest UX issue is those not knowing what server to choose when signing up, so presenting a default/fallback option while displaying other good options to at least pique enough interest and make users aware is the best way to go.
So instead of being lost on 'here are tens of different servers to choose from before you join' it would instead be 'here is the main server and all you have to do is click join, but there are some good other options here if you'd like'
Here lies the problem. You think of one server being the “main server”. You have a hierarchy. When there’s a hierarchy it can (will) be abused. Don’t hand over control to anybody. Take it for yourself.
I fully agree with that idea (otherwise I wouldnt be doing what Im doing obviously), but I think the difficult part is about how and when do you explain this to new people.
Like, is the signup flow from an app really the best place to explain this? I think its hard to say that it is, but at the same time, lock-in and complacency will still mean that lots of people end up on m.s.
Personally, I think the best solution would be to get even more competing easy signup flows. Think this problem will get less relevant when things like mozilla.social launches and people can easily end up on their server with a SSO firefox account.
@laurenshof Interesting, isn’t it, that Mozilla, a for-profit Silicon Valley corporation that now has AI and venture capital arms (one of which is invested in a fediverse app called Mammoth) and makes almost all its money by enabling surveillance capitalist Google to violate the privacy of the people who use its browser in exchange for half a billion dollars every year, is going to be a force for good in a decentralised network.
@laurenshof @gabek Agree with this. I think practically instance randomization can be a bit confusing or intimidating. It makes sense that when you download the official app, people see a familiar, 'official' looking mastodon.social recommended. The dispersion mainly happens when each app/client/website offers their own default server, and the server people land on would depend on how they joined or were introduced to the fediverse from.
@laurenshof People only think mastodon.social is "official" because Mastodon says it is. The sign up form on almost all Fediverse instances looks exactly the same. But only one is highlighted by the people who write the biggest piece of Fediverse software, leading to conflict of interest and abuse of power. They're looking to grow Mastodon, the company, and their own instance.
@gabek @laurenshof I mean in the sense that if I signed up to a randomized instance, I'd tell people my handle is \@user@\this-random-url-I-got-assigned.tld which can cause confusion, compared to one that simply resembles 'Mastodon Social'. As the company and non-profit behind the platform, it will always have official stature associated with it. It gives a higher sense of authenticity because people gravitate towards and trust brands.
@laurenshof If Microsoft Edge hid the address bar behind a button, auto-loaded store.microsoft.biz and called it the “official web site of the internet”, we’d all have problems with it. Having an “official node of the Fediverse” is the same thing. You are giving Mastodon so much control by being ok with this. There is no official on the Fediverse. We’re all equals.
@gabek @laurenshof I definitely see your point. My feeling is just that in the long term things will even out. There will also inevitably be some dominant players like email currently, and I personally wouldn't mind if non-profits were among them. The nice thing about the fediverse is it's built on an open protocol. Apart from instances, there'll be a lot of other large and small platforms while still being able to connect with everyone.
@Nour so, do you think it eill even out, or do you think there will be dominant players (i.e. it will be conquered by Google and Microsoft, who will then do their best to squeeze all others out by randomly blocking indeoendent providers)? @gabek @laurenshof @aral
@laurenshof I would look at email today. There's a dominant player, Gmail (previously used to be AOL/Yahoo/Hotmail). But there is massive variety in email providers that email as a protocol is not under the control of or dictated by any provider. There will inevitably be a bunch of big fish and whales in the fediverse, but there will also be lots of medium fish and lots of small fish.
@laurenshof Do share the massive variety of email providers.
1. Embrace. Use the email standards such as SMTP to talk to other email servers. 2. Extend. Encourage all email users to use your service by making it the default and positioning yourself as "the server" via applications and partnerships, eventually adding features that are limited to your mail interface. 3. Extinguish. Say that all other mail servers that aren't yours are spam and block them.
If you don't see how this could happen on the Fediverse today then I don't know what to tell you.
@gabek @laurenshof @Nour @Mr_Teatime I guess these things cannot be prevented by any technology in itself, so will always be political choices (i.e. depending on the people in power, their preferences, principles and ideals, stakeholder leverage, etc)?
(this is a sincere question / 'hypothesis', this isn't my field so I don't know much about these dynamics 🙂)
@matherion @gabek @laurenshof @Nour @Mr_Teatime You can prevent it by designing technology that’s truly decentralised; tech that scales horizontally, not vertically. Tech specifically designed so there are no economies of scale.
@gabek @laurenshof @Nour @Mr_Teatime So, if I understand properly, technology that's optimized less for 1-to-many and more for 1-to-few? Or is there another core difference that I'm missing?
@matherion @gabek @laurenshof @Nour @Mr_Teatime Optimised for one-to-one. One-to-many can be modeled on one-to-one. If individuals own the means of communication, they’re in charge. All nodes equal; no privileged nodes. The moment you privilege a node, that node will have incentive to scale.
I have a really hard time wrapping my head around this for some reason. So, this isn't a model for the entire internet, right? E.g. Wikipedia needs to be accessible by many people simultaneously without becoming annoyingly slow. So this is in the context of social media, and then for dialogues, less for 'broadcasting'? Or am I completely misunderstanding?
There can never be a waterthight law, or 100% stable political system, or purely technical solution for a socio-economical problen.
but there are of course technical arrangement that make things easier or harder, and encourage/discourage certain behaviour, and anyone making technology and pretending otherwise is not honest. We absolutely need things that are better in this regard: empower people, and prevent domination.
@gabek @laurenshof @Mr_Teatime There are lots in the privacy space alone, with Proton and Fastmail being the largest, apart from mainstream options and those offered by domain registrars. Hosting email is not something easy though, unlike an ActivityPub instance. Regardless, I don't rule out the possibility and agree with you, but I just personally feel that the fedi has way too many potential big players, since unlike email hosting, any person or company can easily spin up an instance.
@cmw @gabek @laurenshof @Mr_Teatime For sure and I completely agree. This is unfortunately the case when it comes to the whole internet and not just email. As such, this will be inevitable when the Fediverse goes mainstream. As much as I enjoy having our little safe corner of the internet, regardless of the negatives it'd bring, I'd prefer the Fediverse going mainstream and to focus on its positives, as the overall net outcome will be a much healthier and more open web compared to now.
@BenjaminNelan wouldn't a better (though harder-to-implement...) way be to have some sort of instance suggestion engine? You give it some keywords and what's important to you and it gives you some instances and picks one at random if you're unsure which one to use.
I spent days choosing an instance, and of course that should be made easier. But we all know how immensely powerful defaults are -- this could go quite wrong.
Definitely. Someone shared this screenshot on GitHub and I think something like it (but with a roulette system to change the second screen so it doesn't start on .social) would be waaay better.
Having said that - I still don't know what a typical user's experience of this would be.
Is there an existing issue for this? I have searched the existing issues Current Behavior With the current setup, the app strongly implies users should just join mastodon.social, with a harder-to-r...
out scaling is better than up scaling. Putting pressure on a single instance defeats the point of fediverse. I can see this as good for ux but may be there is some other way.
problem is: the common user doesn't care and "just want it easy" and is totally overwhelmed with the concept of mastodon. this is a great step towards mass acceptance, which is what we need to get people of the next best twitter.
Thanks for your appeal! We are administrators of a Friendica instance, but we are also great Mastodon enthusiasts (we also have an Italian instance dedicated to journalism and science!) and we would be very sorry if @Eugen Rochko insisted on this centralized strategy! W the federation, w decentralization, w the Fediverse distributed everywhere!
I’d like to see it randomly select a server among a list, with a neat little animation to make it clear what is happening. Then include a button just to the right to re-roll.
Aral: share your concern about centralization and big single points of failure.
But wouldn’t the solution here be a “round-robin” where the app recommended a fast sign on - super easy - but changed every X sign ups to recommend a different server? Each one hand chosen to be of high quality, well federated, high uptime, etc?
That to me would give the best of both worlds. Address THE biggest pain point to new users, plus decentralize the new user glow around the Fediverse.
@tchambers Given that a sudden influx of users means a sudden need for more resources, moderators, money? I can see why they haven't done that. It would be rather rude to spring that on any server you didn't control.
@tchambers That's a great idea. Allowing a number of Mastodon servers on a round-robin or even random order will prevent the problems of centralisation of one server.
Hmm. I don't know. I agree with everything you say here about the need to avoid one server becoming too big, but at the same time the "pick a server, any server" stage at onboarding has proved to be too much of a hurdle for far too many non-techie users. Perhaps this really is the least worst workaround for that—make one server a "welcome" server and then let people move once they've got in and had a chance to get used to it?
I think it's the right decision to make mastodon.social the default with the option to join another server. People weren't joining because they thought Mastodon is too complicated. Having a large default will ease the transition.
While I can understand why @Gargron took this decision, and I can somewhat agree that it will make easier for new users to join, I frankly think this could have been done better (and worded better, too).
There need to be a balance between ease of registration and promotion of the decentralized nature of the #Fediverse.
Please @Gargron consider the following instead: show a small, curated list of recommended servers.
You can keep mastodon.social at the top of the list and left it selected by default if you want. But it is important to show the user since the start that this is a decentralized platform, and that there are more servers available to join.
You can use the same criteria as joinmastodon to build that list (servers with enough active users and open registrations for less friction), and maybe also give extra points to language and regional based instances, which are key to attract and keep non-English speakers around.
I agree. I was a bit shocked to see this. Diversity works, centralisation causes issues… however I have to admit that the first time I looked at Mastodon the business of choosing a server was initially off putting. Difficult. Perhaps people should be encouraged to join more than one server? Is there any advantage to this?
Agreed. New users will more than likely just click the blue button which will inflate a single instance. It could make it big enough to be unsustainable through crowd sourcing alone.
I don't understand. Is it not the screenshot of the official app?
Remember, picking a server is a big barrier for new users, so unless #mastodon has a "choose server wizard" a la #peertube, I don't know how would one make "pick my own server" a UX default.
Step 1: Implement *actual* account portability. Posts, likes, and everything.
Step 2: Create an instance and call it something like welcome.mastodon.social.
Step 3: All new accounts through the app go to welcome.mastodon.social. Still the same super easy onboarding which is what the current change does help with.
Step 4: After a few months, once they have had time to understand how things work with different instances, *require* people to move from welcome.mastodon.social and provide a list of many options to do so.
This way people can get into things without the challenge of picking a server right away (I myself balked at the task 3 times before finally making my account). I think that easy onboarding is a reasonable goal. But over time my approach avoids having one massive instance which signing everyone straight up for mastodon.social and not providing actual account portability does.
I know one of the complaints made about Mastodon has been an on boarding issue particularly choosing an instance as a first time user. I don't agree with @Gargron in the way it was done but do understand trying to address the issue.
this. And also, I’m convinced that mastodon.social and mastodon.online are already too big today. Please, @Gargron, consider closing the subscription and invite newcomers to find an existing instance or create their own one. We really should make sure Mastodon keeps being a decentralized network. 😔
The thing that seems to be totally forgotten is that Mastodon thrives on good instance moderation.
In November, POC accounts were getting banned and accused of racism which, I assure you, is what many people know Mastodon for now. No, that's not fair, but you only make one 1st impression.
How on earth is mastodon.social going to keep up with an exponential growth in users and need for smart experienced mods? I'd love to hear from server owners!
I've been sampling public opinion on this privately, and the overwhelming consensus agrees with @aral and @feditips
Among other consequences, this may dump all over those who have aggressively sold people on the idea that the fediverse was a new approach to social networking, not just a marketing hook for the Mastodon brand.
Why not a public onboarding server supported by all the servers who want to pull new users exploring 1st fedi access? Everyone is then on an equal footing.
I disagree. Mastodon has a terrible onboarding problem because potential sign-ups are paralyzed into closing the browser and walking away when they see the list of servers. This GUI they offer eliminates that friction.
A more sensible goal is more seamless migration so that you can switch servers quickly and efficiently without losing your history.
> "This is the sort of design a VC-funded startup would implement"
It extremely isn't. There's a "pick your own server" button right there. It's trying to smooth out the process for new users so the very first screen isn't a big explanation of what an instance is.
@tomw Aral: if on the server side there were a round-robin where it swapped out to which server was featured assuming a good mix of X number of different servers benefited - would you object to this UI/UX design from either Mammoth or others?
I would object to Mammoth no matter what they did because it is VC-funded and we all know how that game goes and how it ends (and don’t get me started on Mozilla Corporation/Mozilla VC).
On the other hand, if the Mastodon app implemented round-robin, no, of course I wouldn’t have an objection to that. That’s how it should be.
@feditips My opinion on the subject is that such action doesn’t threaten the decentralization of Fediverse. The fact that there will be more people on one instance doesn’t change the fact that you can create your server, on your hardware, with your rules and still federate. On the other hand, do we really need people here who are so lazy that they don't even want to choose a server, but instead are waiting for the button, which will do everything for them?
In distributed systems like GNUnet or IPFS, every node entering the network empowers the whole system. Node leaving the network does not disturb the consistency of network.
@smokku Oh, I know that, that’s why I’m working on the Small Web and not the fediverse. But the fediverse is a good stop-gap for now between Big Web and that. The longer it remains so, the better for those of us building the types of networks you mention.
The beautiful thing is that this can be going in the worst direction possible and I'm still gonna be unaffected, as I can defederate from the huge instance just as I stopped using twitter. Not using the official app anyway. @Gargron
We need a good idea how to mitigate the issue with service selection. One proposed to call instances communities. It might also be an idea to direct people to local servers or topical servers by asking them where they live or what they are interested in, like: "To improve your experience, we want to show you communities near you or topics you relate to."
@juergen_hubert The only two design choices available aren’t “funnel everyone to mastodon.social” or “present a list of thousands of servers.” The default button could automatically round-robin a large list of servers that are known to be run by good actors. This is a solved problem. The solution is not being used, in this case, because, clearly, mastodon.social does want to grow.
I disagree. I remember my first attempt to get onto Mastodon/Fediverse. First thing I had to do was choose a server — WTF? HowTF should I know which to choose? I felt shut out and overwhelmed, so I stopped.
The second attempt, later, a year ago, I chose a server that seemed local, but as I saw was home of a special community that I wasn't a part of. I had to change instances, quite annoying. Then after some senseless pondering I chose one with short domain name. >>
Troed Sångberg
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Actually, when combining this decision with the recent trademark one of not allowing other instances to be named *.mastodon.* there might be a case for questioning Gargron's motives here.
... but I think this is the right move to enable frictionless signups. However, it's now critically important to implement the one-click _complete_ account migration between servers as well.
Basically mastodon.social needs to encourage users to move on from spawn.
#Mastodon
Benjamin
in reply to Troed Sångberg • • •@troed I agree. Though as nefarious as both those decisions can appear, I think it's clearly about trying to reduce the friction for new users - even for the trademark changes. The biggest complaints during November last year were about picking servers and people ending up on 'mastodon' urls that aren't moderated.
So I can empathize with the intention here.
Nour Agha :popos:
in reply to Benjamin • • •Benjamin
in reply to Nour Agha :popos: • • •To be fair, we have seen Matrix’s main server end up fairly full as a result.
Maybe a more @pixelfed approach would be better? Main server is the first option but other options aren’t behind a secondary action.
Nour Agha :popos:
in reply to Benjamin • • •Nour Agha :popos:
in reply to Nour Agha :popos: • • •Gabe Kangas
in reply to Nour Agha :popos: • • •https://calckey.social/users/9aqhkybllt
in reply to Gabe Kangas • • •I fully agree with that idea (otherwise I wouldnt be doing what Im doing obviously), but I think the difficult part is about how and when do you explain this to new people.
Like, is the signup flow from an app really the best place to explain this? I think its hard to say that it is, but at the same time, lock-in and complacency will still mean that lots of people end up on m.s.
Personally, I think the best solution would be to get even more competing easy signup flows. Think this problem will get less relevant when things like mozilla.social launches and people can easily end up on their server with a SSO firefox account.
Aral Balkan
in reply to • • •Volpit :ac_thought: reshared this.
Nour Agha :popos:
in reply to • • •Gabe Kangas
in reply to Nour Agha :popos: • • •Nour Agha :popos:
in reply to Gabe Kangas • • •Gabe Kangas
in reply to Nour Agha :popos: • • •Nour Agha :popos:
in reply to Gabe Kangas • • •Mr. Teatime
in reply to Nour Agha :popos: • • •so, do you think it eill even out, or do you think there will be dominant players (i.e. it will be conquered by Google and Microsoft, who will then do their best to squeeze all others out by randomly blocking indeoendent providers)?
@gabek @laurenshof @aral
Nour Agha :popos:
in reply to Mr. Teatime • • •Gabe Kangas
in reply to Nour Agha :popos: • • •@laurenshof Do share the massive variety of email providers.
1. Embrace. Use the email standards such as SMTP to talk to other email servers.
2. Extend. Encourage all email users to use your service by making it the default and positioning yourself as "the server" via applications and partnerships, eventually adding features that are limited to your mail interface.
3. Extinguish. Say that all other mail servers that aren't yours are spam and block them.
If you don't see how this could happen on the Fediverse today then I don't know what to tell you.
reshared this
nilesh reshared this.
Gjalt-Jorn Peters
in reply to Gabe Kangas • • •@gabek @laurenshof @Nour @Mr_Teatime I guess these things cannot be prevented by any technology in itself, so will always be political choices (i.e. depending on the people in power, their preferences, principles and ideals, stakeholder leverage, etc)?
(this is a sincere question / 'hypothesis', this isn't my field so I don't know much about these dynamics 🙂)
Aral Balkan
in reply to Gjalt-Jorn Peters • • •@matherion @gabek @laurenshof @Nour @Mr_Teatime You can prevent it by designing technology that’s truly decentralised; tech that scales horizontally, not vertically. Tech specifically designed so there are no economies of scale.
See, for example, small-tech.org/research-and-de…
R&D
Small Technology FoundationGjalt-Jorn Peters
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Aral Balkan
in reply to Gjalt-Jorn Peters • • •Gjalt-Jorn Peters
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Mr. Teatime
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •There can never be a waterthight law, or 100% stable political system, or purely technical solution for a socio-economical problen.
but there are of course technical arrangement that make things easier or harder, and encourage/discourage certain behaviour, and anyone making technology and pretending otherwise is not honest. We absolutely need things that are better in this regard: empower people, and prevent domination.
@matherion @gabek @laurenshof @Nour
Nour Agha :popos:
in reply to Gabe Kangas • • •Chris
in reply to Nour Agha :popos: • • •@Nour @gabek @laurenshof @Mr_Teatime hosting an email server is trivial. Blindingly so, with certain solutions.
About the complexity of self-hosting an activity pub instance.
What's hard about email is getting the big established players to accept email from you. To be accepted as part of the party and not spam.
That part isn't part of SMTP. They make you jump through hoops of their design.
They'll do the same here
MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛 likes this.
Nour Agha :popos:
in reply to Chris • • •Chris
in reply to Nour Agha :popos: • • •@Nour @gabek @laurenshof @Mr_Teatime In as much as moving from a monopoly to an oligopoly can be considered an improvement, I agree.
I'll be putting my hopes for actual change into truly decentralized approaches. #ssb or #SmallWeb
Aral Balkan
in reply to Chris • • •Mr. Teatime
in reply to Benjamin • • •@BenjaminNelan
wouldn't a better (though harder-to-implement...) way be to have some sort of instance suggestion engine?
You give it some keywords and what's important to you and it gives you some instances and picks one at random if you're unsure which one to use.
I spent days choosing an instance, and of course that should be made easier. But we all know how immensely powerful defaults are -- this could go quite wrong.
@troed @aral @gargron
Benjamin
in reply to Mr. Teatime • • •Definitely. Someone shared this screenshot on GitHub and I think something like it (but with a roulette system to change the second screen so it doesn't start on .social) would be waaay better.
Having said that - I still don't know what a typical user's experience of this would be.
*Link to the github post by mattcoxonline: github.com/mastodon/mastodon-i…
[BUG] App onboarding is directing new users to join mastodon.social by default · Issue #1023 · mastodon/mastodon-ios
GitHubSubhadeep Jasu
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •bison ✅
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Poliverso - notizie dal Fediverso ⁂
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Grazie @Aral Balkan
Thanks for your appeal! We are administrators of a Friendica instance, but we are also great Mastodon enthusiasts (we also have an Italian instance dedicated to journalism and science!) and we would be very sorry if @Eugen Rochko insisted on this centralized strategy! W the federation, w decentralization, w the Fediverse distributed everywhere!
skua
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Perhaps changing the default "new user" instance on the Mastodon app to a different one every 6 hours would help build strength through diversity?
#MastodonAppDefaultInstance
Karin Sorenby
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •hybrid havoc
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •I’d like to see it randomly select a server among a list, with a neat little animation to make it clear what is happening. Then include a button just to the right to re-roll.
cc: @Gargron
Tim Chambers
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Aral: share your concern about centralization and big single points of failure.
But wouldn’t the solution here be a “round-robin” where the app recommended a fast sign on - super easy - but changed every X sign ups to recommend a different server? Each one hand chosen to be of high quality, well federated, high uptime, etc?
That to me would give the best of both worlds. Address THE biggest pain point to new users, plus decentralize the new user glow around the Fediverse.
Stefan
in reply to Tim Chambers • • •Tim Chambers
in reply to Stefan • • •Mel
in reply to Tim Chambers • • •Steve Hill 🏴🇪🇺
in reply to Tim Chambers • • •Fish Id Wardrobe
in reply to Tim Chambers • • •John Samuel
in reply to Tim Chambers • • •Tim Chambers reshared this.
❄️ freezr ❄️
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •thomkennon
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Hughster
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •I'm not sure about this, for the reasons I outlined here:
mastodon.social/@hughster/1102…
Hughster
2023-04-20 21:59:59
Folker
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •@aral @Gargron
Dear @Gargron,
Please keep your decision to make the Mastodon app more user friendly.
That's how we win this.
More user friendlyness, not a walled garden for nerds is the key.
AveN7ers
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Beandog9
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Roberto :verified_gay: :verified_gay: :verified_gay: :verified_gay:
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •While I can understand why @Gargron took this decision, and I can somewhat agree that it will make easier for new users to join, I frankly think this could have been done better (and worded better, too).
There need to be a balance between ease of registration and promotion of the decentralized nature of the #Fediverse.
Please @Gargron consider the following instead: show a small, curated list of recommended servers.
You can keep mastodon.social at the top of the list and left it selected by default if you want. But it is important to show the user since the start that this is a decentralized platform, and that there are more servers available to join.
You can use the same criteria as joinmastodon to build that list (servers with enough active users and open registrations for less friction), and maybe also give extra points to language and regional based instances, which are key to attract and keep non-English speakers around.
Regards!
[moved] stereo griever
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛 likes this.
Paul and Eve
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Tregast the Bumbling
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Jons Mostovojs
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Aral Balkan
in reply to Jons Mostovojs • • •@jonn Exactly.
*golf claps*
@Gargron
Jons Mostovojs
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •I don't understand. Is it not the screenshot of the official app?
Remember, picking a server is a big barrier for new users, so unless #mastodon has a "choose server wizard" a la #peertube, I don't know how would one make "pick my own server" a UX default.
Codesmith
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •I have an alternative suggestion.
Step 1: Implement *actual* account portability. Posts, likes, and everything.
Step 2: Create an instance and call it something like welcome.mastodon.social.
Step 3: All new accounts through the app go to welcome.mastodon.social. Still the same super easy onboarding which is what the current change does help with.
Step 4: After a few months, once they have had time to understand how things work with different instances, *require* people to move from welcome.mastodon.social and provide a list of many options to do so.
This way people can get into things without the challenge of picking a server right away (I myself balked at the task 3 times before finally making my account). I think that easy onboarding is a reasonable goal. But over time my approach avoids having one massive instance which signing everyone straight up for mastodon.social and not providing actual account portability does.
ɟloʍ
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •The good thing is, that there are more possibilities in the fediverse.
Todor Hlebarov
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •It's Just Jenn 🏳️⚧️
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Shadow Heart
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Deuchnord
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •And also, I’m convinced that mastodon.social and mastodon.online are already too big today. Please, @Gargron, consider closing the subscription and invite newcomers to find an existing instance or create their own one.
We really should make sure Mastodon keeps being a decentralized network. 😔
PJ Coffey
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •The thing that seems to be totally forgotten is that Mastodon thrives on good instance moderation.
In November, POC accounts were getting banned and accused of racism which, I assure you, is what many people know Mastodon for now. No, that's not fair, but you only make one 1st impression.
How on earth is mastodon.social going to keep up with an exponential growth in users and need for smart experienced mods? I'd love to hear from server owners!
#ModerationIsWork #Moderation
Shoq
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •I've been sampling public opinion on this privately, and the overwhelming consensus agrees with @aral and @feditips
Among other consequences, this may dump all over those who have aggressively sold people on the idea that the fediverse was a new approach to social networking, not just a marketing hook for the Mastodon brand.
Why not a public onboarding server supported by all the servers who want to pull new users exploring 1st fedi access? Everyone is then on an equal footing.
riffle
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •I disagree. Easing signup is a great idea. Asking users to do hours of research before even signing up is a real bar to usage.
Letting people know that other instances exist is going to be an ongoing thing.
Pxtl
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •I disagree. Mastodon has a terrible onboarding problem because potential sign-ups are paralyzed into closing the browser and walking away when they see the list of servers. This GUI they offer eliminates that friction.
A more sensible goal is more seamless migration so that you can switch servers quickly and efficiently without losing your history.
Tom Walker
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •> "This is the sort of design a VC-funded startup would implement"
It extremely isn't. There's a "pick your own server" button right there. It's trying to smooth out the process for new users so the very first screen isn't a big explanation of what an instance is.
Hyperbole is not how we win this, etc.
Aral Balkan
in reply to Tom Walker • • •@tomw It is *literally* the same design that a VC-funded Mastodon app *did* implement.
This isn’t hyperbole.
It’s not even conjecture.
like this
Poliverso - notizie dal Fediverso ⁂ and Amolith like this.
Poliverso - notizie dal Fediverso ⁂ reshared this.
Tim Chambers
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Aral: if on the server side there were a round-robin where it swapped out to which server was featured assuming a good mix of X number of different servers benefited - would you object to this UI/UX design from either Mammoth or others?
Aral Balkan
in reply to Tim Chambers • • •I would object to Mammoth no matter what they did because it is VC-funded and we all know how that game goes and how it ends (and don’t get me started on Mozilla Corporation/Mozilla VC).
On the other hand, if the Mastodon app implemented round-robin, no, of course I wouldn’t have an objection to that. That’s how it should be.
Toni :mastodon:
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Total agree!
"More instances, not larger instances is the key"
@Gargron 🙂
🙃 ɐıunp zsɐɯoʇ :idle:
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •My opinion on the subject is that such action doesn’t threaten the decentralization of Fediverse. The fact that there will be more people on one instance doesn’t change the fact that you can create your server, on your hardware, with your rules and still federate.
On the other hand, do we really need people here who are so lazy that they don't even want to choose a server, but instead are waiting for the button, which will do everything for them?
𝗌𝗆𝗈𝗄𝗎
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •The issue here is the _instance_ model.
In distributed systems like GNUnet or IPFS, every node entering the network empowers the whole system.
Node leaving the network does not disturb the consistency of network.
Aral Balkan
in reply to 𝗌𝗆𝗈𝗄𝗎 • • •Aral Balkan
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Zaphod Beeblebrox :verifiedbi:
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •@Gargron
Reiner Jung
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Jürgen Hubert
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •"I have to pick from thousands of instances! Why is joining Mastodon so complicated?"
I don't agree with this decision either, but I can understand why this choice was made.
Aral Balkan
in reply to Jürgen Hubert • • •@juergen_hubert The only two design choices available aren’t “funnel everyone to mastodon.social” or “present a list of thousands of servers.” The default button could automatically round-robin a large list of servers that are known to be run by good actors. This is a solved problem. The solution is not being used, in this case, because, clearly, mastodon.social does want to grow.
#design #decentralisation #mastodon #fediverse #falseDichotomy
Aral Balkan
Unknown parent • • •Jyrgen N
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •I disagree. I remember my first attempt to get onto Mastodon/Fediverse. First thing I had to do was choose a server — WTF? HowTF should I know which to choose? I felt shut out and overwhelmed, so I stopped.
The second attempt, later, a year ago, I chose a server that seemed local, but as I saw was home of a special community that I wasn't a part of. I had to change instances, quite annoying. Then after some senseless pondering I chose one with short domain name. >>