I can't figure out if mastodon is a high context culture or not. People seem to be expected to give long introductions and do a lot of identity/positionality disclosure, but also an enormous reply guy culture which is defined by low context drive-by. Conversational turn-taking is extremely low compared to other platforms ime, but depth-seeking is high. What an interesting mix.
*obviously, these experiences are all situated within my own network effects, and I'm not well networked here.
Diane
in reply to Cat Hicks • • •Could it be so many engineering personalities who view every statement as a problem to be solved?
Or maybe there isn't a single mastodon culture but instead a bunch of different cliques who keep bumping into each other?
Cat Hicks
in reply to Diane • • •Cat Hicks
in reply to Cat Hicks • • •Diane
in reply to Cat Hicks • • •Yeah mattblaze at federate.social 's problems with some people regularly complaining about his black and white architectural photos has lead me to think having too many followers can be a curse.
Though I think some people haven't adapted to mastodon expects that users will intentionally curate their feeds, and I'm not sure if everyone who's come from the world of mysteriously algorithm influenced commercial social media has really internalized that yet.
Cornel West 2024 🍉 🔻
in reply to Diane • • •@alienghic
I find that when you mute people who seek attention through language-policing and nitpicking, you end up with a pretty chill feed of people who mostly understand that we're all going through different shit.
#fediverse #socialmedia #activitypub #mastodon #smallweb #smolweb #tech
Michael Fisher
in reply to Cornel West 2024 🍉 🔻 • • •smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)
in reply to Michael Fisher • • •@mjf_pro @figstick @alienghic
A finer-grained control over the audience that gets addressed by ones toots can maybe help mitigate the feeling of "messing up".
One often hears people mention 2 types of communication taking place. The "public square" style, which is pretty weird if you make analogies how that would work offline. And inter-community type communication. I refer to the latter as "personal social networking" and there are *some*, not much, tools to help with it.
smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)
in reply to smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊) • • •@mjf_pro @figstick @alienghic
The social dynamics fascinate me. Note btw, that by seeing Cat Hicks in my timeline and answering to - what looks like - shared interests, I'm technically a "reply guy" already, as a) I'm a guy, and b) I am replying.
There's no real way for me to gauge whether my reply is thrown into an in-group, where everyone is frowning about "the stranger entering". Or if Cat was just musing to themself.
Mused on the pattern the other day:
https://discuss.coding.social/t/wiki-for-sx-anti-pattern-reply-sigh-aka-reply-guy/530
Wiki for SX Anti-pattern: Reply Sigh (aka "Reply Guy")
Discuss Social CodingCat Hicks
in reply to smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊) • • •smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)
in reply to Cat Hicks • • •@mjf_pro @figstick @alienghic
Yes, there are some pretty horrible cases, and people who deserve the label. Wielding the pattern is also a handle-with-care power tool I think, and I see many instances of its use on the fedi that aren't as clear-cut. It is a quite subjective tool.
My labeling as an anti-pattern is merely an assumption, though. An inkling that it has net-negative effects on social dynamics, and a lose-lose for those directly involved. Both feeling frustrated.
smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)
in reply to smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊) • • •@mjf_pro @figstick @alienghic
PS. Where I say "power tool" the word is not accurate. It may be the *only* tool available if its use is 'warranted' (but that's subjective). Having recorded the anti-pattern, next ideas can be collected how the technology might be supportive of better forms of communication in these situations.
clew
in reply to Diane • • •I’m pretty sure there are at least two cultures because I had to block a lot of shitposters — I think they’re hilarious but reading it is really bad for me — and later there was a surge of “why so serious?” newbies and I dug through my blocklist to make some recommendations.
I do wonder if people manage to be in both communities with one account. And if that’s even a sensible ideal. Yesno??
@alienghic @grimalkina
Diane
in reply to clew • • •People are going to get really confused if you don't do something to separate earnest and sarcastic posting from each other.
idlestate's SDF liason acct
in reply to Diane • • •I can't emphasize enough how strongly I come down on the side of having more than one account here
obviously, it's more work. I get that not everyone can manage that all the time
I guess the best analogy I can think of is that having just one fedi account is like having just one book, or just one umbrella.
If you have more than one, maybe you only use one at a time. You might put it down, or lose it, or it may break. So, depending, you might come back to it.
@alienghic
@clew @grimalkina
m@thias.hellqui.st :verified-skull:
in reply to idlestate's SDF liason acct • • •-“…having just one fedi account is like having just one book, or just one umbrella.”
Hehe, I like that analogy! I use 4 different Fediverse accounts for my own posting/reading as they all, apart from not being Mastodon, have different flavors and/or different functionality.
@alienghic @clew @grimalkina
Nick Spacek :CApride:
in reply to m@thias.hellqui.st :verified-skull: • • •@m @idlestate @alienghic @clew That sounds like so much work, but I likewise have been thinking of creating an account where I can post more openly without stressing about it being attached to my real-name...
I love reading shitposts, personal posts, news, and local content but I'm pretty nervous to step outside my norm of replying to/posting local content or "safe" content like dogs/cats, and it might be partly or wholely because I use this real-name account.
m@thias.hellqui.st :verified-skull:
in reply to Nick Spacek :CApride: • • •Yeah, well for me those separate use cases are different enough that I don’t think much about the “amount of accounts”. Pixelfed for example, one of the mentioned accounts, is so specialised at sharing photos that I don’t confuse it with Akkoma, my main service for typing things like these, which in turn is different from Friendica which I use to read groups, and also to interface with Lemmy/kBin etc. The fourth one, Sharkey, I use mostly for slowing down certain accounts, but also to follow things that I don’t wish to follow with my main account. :)
In reality I also have another 7 accounts too, but those are purely for testing/verifying functionality in the different platforms, but the 4 mentioned above are what I have noticed I use, and that their use cases differ from each other.
@idlestate @grimalkina @alienghic @clew
eshep
in reply to Cat Hicks • •I'd say, regardless of the method of curation you decide works for you, curate your feed. I try to keep mine populated with only stuff I care to read about simply with
#filters. I also follow a few people on top of that who have different interests to add in some variety I would likely never see elsewise, such as this post here. This place is full of just as many meaningful back-n-forth conversations as it one-liner garbage you'll forget about an hour later. There's loads more conversations happening that you can chime in on than just what's being presented to you by your instance. Start with simply searching for things that interest you, then figure out how to automatically have your feed show you those things.It also may help to at least get yourself a taste of what other fediverse platforms have to offer. Your confusion(?) may stem from the fact that Mastodon doesn't give you what you're lookin for here, maybe it's Lemmy, Akkoma, Misskey, Friendica, or something else. While Mastodon does tend to favor a more short-form (Twitter-like) conversation flavor tha
... show moreI'd say, regardless of the method of curation you decide works for you, curate your feed. I try to keep mine populated with only stuff I care to read about simply with
#filters. I also follow a few people on top of that who have different interests to add in some variety I would likely never see elsewise, such as this post here. This place is full of just as many meaningful back-n-forth conversations as it one-liner garbage you'll forget about an hour later. There's loads more conversations happening that you can chime in on than just what's being presented to you by your instance. Start with simply searching for things that interest you, then figure out how to automatically have your feed show you those things.It also may help to at least get yourself a taste of what other fediverse platforms have to offer. Your confusion(?) may stem from the fact that Mastodon doesn't give you what you're lookin for here, maybe it's Lemmy, Akkoma, Misskey, Friendica, or something else. While Mastodon does tend to favor a more short-form (Twitter-like) conversation flavor than most of the others, it doesn't explicitly restrict you to that sort of content.
At the end of the day though, if you see the things you're interested in, and you're able to take part in the conversations you want to, you've done it all right enough.
Blort™ 🐀Ⓥ🥷☣️
in reply to Cat Hicks • • •Woodswalked
in reply to Blort™ 🐀Ⓥ🥷☣️ • • •@Blort
No one needs to be condescended to, and of course we have all experienced hostile trolls. Block is a great tool for that. People who are frustrated with ‘reply guy culture’ are absolutely justified in their views. However- Mastodon has a diverse community of cultures that are mostly people who’s idea of community standards were in part shaped elsewhere. Deadbird escapees had different trauma than exRedditors, who reply by topic.
cc: @grimalkina
eshep likes this.
L. Rhodes
in reply to Cat Hicks • • •Cat Hicks
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •