Just reading through the replies on X to @libreoffice 's recent tweet about how they're going to be focussing more on Mastodon in future.
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@GrahamDowns @NaClKnight @libreoffice @GrahamDowns i had a friend explain it to me and joined their server for fun, and i was confused for weeks afterward. I'm more tech savvy than most of my social circle (I have built PCs and can manage Windows settings - really not much, but way more than average), and it really wasn't intuitive for me.
The part where other servers could talk to ours made sense quickly, but I was confused about profile migration, federation, and the differences between various front ends for a long time. And I was only able to deal with it because I joined a friend's server on a lark, and had never used Twitter.
It's intuitive to folks who are hyper tech savvy or have used the older internet, I think. A lot of people will be confused and put off by the whole thing.@CheetahFluff @GrahamDowns@c.im @NaClKnight @libreoffice Yeah, THOSE things (exactly how federation works, what profile migration entails, and all the rest) took me a while to get to grips with too. Perhaps not as long as most, because I was interested and did a lot of my own research and figuring out.
But that's not really what I'm talking about, because you won't be exposed to any of those things until you join.
And in order to join, you need to understand the concept that Mastodon consists of lots of different servers, so you need to pick one, thereafter you'll be able to follow and be followed by anyone.
You don't need to understand HOW federation works at that point, or HOW profile migration works, or that there's a big asterisk on "anyone*" above because servers can block other servers, etc.
But you really should have no problem grasping the fact that there are multiple interconnected servers, you can pick any server you like, and that you'll be able to follow users on any other server.
And from what you say, you didn't have any problem grasping that.
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@CheetahFluff @GrahamDowns@c.im @NaClKnight @libreoffice Yeah, THOSE things (exactly how federation works, what profile migration entails, and all the rest) took me a while to get to grips with too. Perhaps not as long as most, because I was interested and did a lot of my own research and figuring out.
But that's not really what I'm talking about, because you won't be exposed to any of those things until you join.
And in order to join, you need to understand the concept that Mastodon consists of lots of different servers, so you need to pick one, thereafter you'll be able to follow and be followed by anyone.
You don't need to understand HOW federation works at that point, or HOW profile migration works, or that there's a big asterisk on "anyone*" above because servers can block other servers, etc.
But you really should have no problem grasping the fact that there are multiple interconnected servers, you can pick any server you like, and that you'll be able to follow users on any other server.
And from what you say, you didn't have any problem grasping that.
@GrahamDowns @GrahamDowns @NaClKnight @libreoffice I should've been more clear. I say quickly, but it really was a few days. And I was only willing to give it a shot despite the confusion because a friend invited me. -
Just reading through the replies on X to @libreoffice 's recent tweet about how they're going to be focussing more on Mastodon in future.
There's a lot of anti-Mastodon sentiment on X. Some downright hatred of the platform on principle.
And some of it is from people who've tried Mastodon and really don't like it, didn't gel with it, can't get to grips with the UI or find the general sentiment of the community distasteful.
Which is all fair enough. But a lot of it stems from a complete lack of understanding of how the platform works. Some people think you have to have an account on every server where you want to follow someone, and you have to swap between those servers all the time in order to interact with them.
Others have never heard of Mastodon before, and after clicking on the link to LibreOffice's profile on Fosstodon and trying to create an account, they see that that instance is currently accepting new members by invitation only, so they give up and ask, "Why do you want us to join a platform that requires invitations."
EVEN THOUGH the message about Fosstodon being invitation-only explicitly tells them they can pick a different server, and they'll still be able to follow anyone on Fosstodon or anywhere else on the network.
Why is this stuff so difficult for people to grasp?! I'm not trying to flex or anything, but I joined this place in November 2022, and the concept of "pick a server and follow anyone on any other server" was a no-brainer for me. It was actually one of the drawcards.
I don't understand why people find it so confusing. Why it's such a mental block to people. I just don't.
@GrahamDowns I felt much the same as you scrolling through those comments... Someone posted a screenshot showing a message saying they could sign up on a different server and straight up said it was invite-only. (Showing off their poor reading skills in the progress.)
I guess this message will somehow need to be communicated even clearer. People don't read, is what this teaches us... I saw a feature suggestion on the Mastodon git page about this somewhere, I'll see if I can find it back.
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@GrahamDowns I felt much the same as you scrolling through those comments... Someone posted a screenshot showing a message saying they could sign up on a different server and straight up said it was invite-only. (Showing off their poor reading skills in the progress.)
I guess this message will somehow need to be communicated even clearer. People don't read, is what this teaches us... I saw a feature suggestion on the Mastodon git page about this somewhere, I'll see if I can find it back.
@GrahamDowns Found it: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/21556
I went ahead and linked this recent debacle.
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Just reading through the replies on X to @libreoffice 's recent tweet about how they're going to be focussing more on Mastodon in future.
There's a lot of anti-Mastodon sentiment on X. Some downright hatred of the platform on principle.
And some of it is from people who've tried Mastodon and really don't like it, didn't gel with it, can't get to grips with the UI or find the general sentiment of the community distasteful.
Which is all fair enough. But a lot of it stems from a complete lack of understanding of how the platform works. Some people think you have to have an account on every server where you want to follow someone, and you have to swap between those servers all the time in order to interact with them.
Others have never heard of Mastodon before, and after clicking on the link to LibreOffice's profile on Fosstodon and trying to create an account, they see that that instance is currently accepting new members by invitation only, so they give up and ask, "Why do you want us to join a platform that requires invitations."
EVEN THOUGH the message about Fosstodon being invitation-only explicitly tells them they can pick a different server, and they'll still be able to follow anyone on Fosstodon or anywhere else on the network.
Why is this stuff so difficult for people to grasp?! I'm not trying to flex or anything, but I joined this place in November 2022, and the concept of "pick a server and follow anyone on any other server" was a no-brainer for me. It was actually one of the drawcards.
I don't understand why people find it so confusing. Why it's such a mental block to people. I just don't.
@GrahamDowns Corporate social media invests a huge amount of time, effort, and money into making the onboarding experience completely effortless, no thought required, and making new users start seeing content immediately because of the algorithmic feed.
This is the standard against which people are judging the fedi.
"You are the algorithm" means you need to do some work to find your people here. People don't expect or want that. They're lazy and want everything handed to them. -
@GrahamDowns Corporate social media invests a huge amount of time, effort, and money into making the onboarding experience completely effortless, no thought required, and making new users start seeing content immediately because of the algorithmic feed.
This is the standard against which people are judging the fedi.
"You are the algorithm" means you need to do some work to find your people here. People don't expect or want that. They're lazy and want everything handed to them.@GrahamDowns You also need to consider the possibility that a lot of the attacks on the fedi on Twitter are probably inauthentic. Obviously the entities benefitting from being able to expose people to constant propaganda on Twitter do not want people to leave for a social network with an aggressive anti-Nazi culture and the means to enforce it. The fedi is a threat to the Nazis, and they deploy their bots and nonsense machine against all threats.
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@GrahamDowns Corporate social media invests a huge amount of time, effort, and money into making the onboarding experience completely effortless, no thought required, and making new users start seeing content immediately because of the algorithmic feed.
This is the standard against which people are judging the fedi.
"You are the algorithm" means you need to do some work to find your people here. People don't expect or want that. They're lazy and want everything handed to them.@jik Yeah. But my original observation was that I don't consider the fact that there are multiple servers and you need to pick one to join, whereupon you can follow users on any other server, difficult to understand at all.
It was completely intuitive to me back in November 2022 when I first joined -- and in fact, it was a plus for me.
But other replies to that post indicate that I'm in the minority, and that even most Mastodon users *do* consider that unintuitive and difficult to understand. So I'll just shut up now and go sit in the corner.
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@GrahamDowns Found it: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/21556
I went ahead and linked this recent debacle.
@bammerlaan Ah, thank you for this!
I myself have opened a similar issue recently:
Make it more clear when user visits a login page of a server that's not their own · Issue #37690 · mastodon/mastodon
Pitch The current login page makes it clear that the user should not attempt to log in on a server that is not their home server, but perhaps there is a way to make it even more abundantly clear. Here is my proposal using a placeholder l...
GitHub (github.com)
Hopefully we'll see some improvements in this area, feels like pretty low-hanging fruit with a big payoff, if we can reduce the confusion.
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@bammerlaan Ah, thank you for this!
I myself have opened a similar issue recently:
Make it more clear when user visits a login page of a server that's not their own · Issue #37690 · mastodon/mastodon
Pitch The current login page makes it clear that the user should not attempt to log in on a server that is not their home server, but perhaps there is a way to make it even more abundantly clear. Here is my proposal using a placeholder l...
GitHub (github.com)
Hopefully we'll see some improvements in this area, feels like pretty low-hanging fruit with a big payoff, if we can reduce the confusion.
@stefan @GrahamDowns Ah! I'll write a comment to link these two separate issues together then
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@stefan @GrahamDowns Ah! I'll write a comment to link these two separate issues together then
@bammerlaan Saw your comment, thank you!
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R relay@relay.an.exchange shared this topic
