Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber?
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@scottjenson Sure: I use the 'deck' view of mastodon. I have a home column, a local timeline column, and a notifications column.
I do not have a simple + button on the right side of these columns to then add more columns such as timelines from other servers. I know there is another gamedev server out there, and I would like to read their posts too. And I would like for them to read mine. But there is no way for either of us to easily do that, so we just stay blind and confined.
@scottjenson Similarly, if I do find someone on a different server who I would like to follow, this is sometimes easy and I can just hit 'follow'. Other times, it immediately asks me to write out my full mastodon server account, which I do not even know what it is, because when I am logged in all I see is '@RYStorm', not 'mastodon.gamedev.place/@rystorm', if that is even what I need to type out
So the technical ability of the federation is neat, the UX to make it not an echo chamber is missing
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson @carnage4life Errr. I don’t see a problem with this at all, frankly.
No. I don’t particularly want them here. I don’t mind if they are, but I won’t see them. This isn’t a space where I want the typical stuff that I can see anywhere and everywhere else. I like here for precisely what *isnt* here. No chasing clout, no engagement farming, no monetary driven agenda. But nothing is stopping such people from being here except *it doesn’t work well here*. And that’s good. IMO.
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@scottjenson the alternative is a "number mean NOTHING" metric...
@patrick_h_lauke The metrics are clear, people are leaving mastodon, our daily actives are going down. I agree that pursing follower count is not what Mastodon should be about, we likely agree on many points here. I'm just trying to say 'being more welcoming of other points of view' shouldn't be controvertial. Yet so many replies have been "we don't want them here!" which feels very head-in-the-sand to me.
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@patrick_h_lauke So is the only alternative "number go DOWN" metrics? I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm trying to find a way to have both be possible: how can we keep our soul but still have a diverse community.
My concern is that your comment uses the "we don't want a number go up mentality" argument to hide the fact that our community is a mono culture.
@scottjenson seems like now you're shifting the goalpost. are we talking about "people don't like / fave / reply as much" (engagement) or "people actively tells me they don't want my content here" (and again, on which server are they? that's always an important aspect too)
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@scottjenson @carnage4life Errr. I don’t see a problem with this at all, frankly.
No. I don’t particularly want them here. I don’t mind if they are, but I won’t see them. This isn’t a space where I want the typical stuff that I can see anywhere and everywhere else. I like here for precisely what *isnt* here. No chasing clout, no engagement farming, no monetary driven agenda. But nothing is stopping such people from being here except *it doesn’t work well here*. And that’s good. IMO.
@mattwilcox but our numbers are steadily going down. We are NOT in a steady state. You won't be able to have this place if we just keep going the way we are.
I"m a bit surprised that asking for "big tent mentality" is considered a bad thing! I thought we wanted diversity? I thought this was meant to be the place where we all could come? This gatekeeping is not a good look (or a healthy one)
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@scottjenson Similarly, if I do find someone on a different server who I would like to follow, this is sometimes easy and I can just hit 'follow'. Other times, it immediately asks me to write out my full mastodon server account, which I do not even know what it is, because when I am logged in all I see is '@RYStorm', not 'mastodon.gamedev.place/@rystorm', if that is even what I need to type out
So the technical ability of the federation is neat, the UX to make it not an echo chamber is missing
@scottjenson Just thinking out loud here, so this may be incorrect:
I think the 'federated' part is technically very neat, and resolve the potential issue of yet another social media service dying out, which Mastodon cannot do as it is FOSS. As long as someone wants it to exist, it will exist.
But, I think federation was incorrectly used as part of the user experience, rather than the technical lifeline it should have stayed. Thus creating echo chambers by default, and rough onboarding UX
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@patrick_h_lauke So is the only alternative "number go DOWN" metrics? I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm trying to find a way to have both be possible: how can we keep our soul but still have a diverse community.
My concern is that your comment uses the "we don't want a number go up mentality" argument to hide the fact that our community is a mono culture.
@scottjenson we have fedi instances for LGBTQ+ furries, all the way to instances for rabid right-wing neonazis. i'm not sure i'd call that a monoculture (compared to, say, monolithic platforms like threads and bluesky, where they are all smushed into a single instance)
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@scottjenson seems like now you're shifting the goalpost. are we talking about "people don't like / fave / reply as much" (engagement) or "people actively tells me they don't want my content here" (and again, on which server are they? that's always an important aspect too)
@patrick_h_lauke Good point, I didn't mean to shift the goal posts! Part of my goal here is to understand the problem better. The original post was superficially about engagement but it was really about how a journalist isn't welcome here on Mastodon. (and people seem to be quite happy about that!)
So yeah, my argument is likely shifting with the replies I'm getting. But I can't believe that asking for 'a big tent' is considered a bad thing.
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@mattwilcox but our numbers are steadily going down. We are NOT in a steady state. You won't be able to have this place if we just keep going the way we are.
I"m a bit surprised that asking for "big tent mentality" is considered a bad thing! I thought we wanted diversity? I thought this was meant to be the place where we all could come? This gatekeeping is not a good look (or a healthy one)
@scottjenson We want opportunity to have those things. But if they don’t come here… oh well.
It’s not gate keeping if some sorts of content simply don’t work well with the ecosystem.
Why are you wanting to chase growth? Why do you feel *this* is the issue, for example, and not the long storied history of neglecting Black voices in this space? As an example.
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@scottjenson Just thinking out loud here, so this may be incorrect:
I think the 'federated' part is technically very neat, and resolve the potential issue of yet another social media service dying out, which Mastodon cannot do as it is FOSS. As long as someone wants it to exist, it will exist.
But, I think federation was incorrectly used as part of the user experience, rather than the technical lifeline it should have stayed. Thus creating echo chambers by default, and rough onboarding UX
@scottjenson A potential solution (with a probably huge cost that makes it impossible to achieve), is to essentially have the data of each user saved to the federated server they are on, but have extremely easy to use connections and timelines that folks can set up between them.
For example, so that while there are 2 major game development servers, we both subscribe to the same 'timeline', on which we then all see our posts, and share our posts. But our account data is saved to separate servers
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson mastodon has a reputation for being filled with tech bros and linux guys. this drives other types of people away. I use linux myself but if you join some instances, it seems like that's all people ever talk about, and it can be very boring, if not incomprehensible for people not familiar with technobabble. more diversity is needed, both in terms of demographics and interests, but I don't know the best way to reach out...
I think trying to appeal to the small/indie web crowd might be a good idea, they're not traditionally techy but they skew young and lots of them have made their own sites on neocities, etc. "make your own social media site" seems like the next natural step.
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@scottjenson A potential solution (with a probably huge cost that makes it impossible to achieve), is to essentially have the data of each user saved to the federated server they are on, but have extremely easy to use connections and timelines that folks can set up between them.
For example, so that while there are 2 major game development servers, we both subscribe to the same 'timeline', on which we then all see our posts, and share our posts. But our account data is saved to separate servers
@scottjenson Or maybe this is all already possible, and I just have never heard, seen, or been told about it ever! With big enough software, you never know.
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@patrick_h_lauke Good point, I didn't mean to shift the goal posts! Part of my goal here is to understand the problem better. The original post was superficially about engagement but it was really about how a journalist isn't welcome here on Mastodon. (and people seem to be quite happy about that!)
So yeah, my argument is likely shifting with the replies I'm getting. But I can't believe that asking for 'a big tent' is considered a bad thing.
@scottjenson "(and people seem to be quite happy about that!)" there's always assholes everywhere?
who's saying that a "big tent" is a bad thing? fedi is so varied, there's lots of tents for every possible idea, and with the federation they can spread to other tents.
i'm not sure what you're proposing here other than "people shouldn't be unwelcoming" (fair, but again, assholes everywhere, of different shapes and sizes across the various instances) and "please clap/like/subscribe/engage!"
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
- The German part of my timeline has quite a lot of posts on local and national politics. English, not so much.
- Many programmers I guess? My programming posts seem to get most boast and likes, design and social research is very soso (despite being on an hci instance!) -
@scottjenson We want opportunity to have those things. But if they don’t come here… oh well.
It’s not gate keeping if some sorts of content simply don’t work well with the ecosystem.
Why are you wanting to chase growth? Why do you feel *this* is the issue, for example, and not the long storied history of neglecting Black voices in this space? As an example.
@mattwilcox I'm not "chasing growth" I'm saying the community is slowly leaving and I'd like to not ignore that fact. That's a VERY different framing of the problem!
I'm shocked you think neglected Black voices doesn't fit within my concern, it's exactly the same concern. Black voices were chased off this platform for nearly identical reasons so I'm massively confused you think I care about one and not the other.
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@ben But that's the very definition of a mono-culture. A vibrant community allows all of these topics, encourages them even. Then, with filters, who you follow, hashtags, and blocking you get the feed you want.
To get the culture you want by cutting off the supply is counter productive.
@scottjenson But I get pushed US politics all day by the main stream media & I'm not even in the US & current politics (here & there) is heavily slanted towards manufactured wedge issues.
AI is a similar, for me the moral and environmental arguments against are plenty before we get into the rest, yet as I work in software it's impossible to get away from.
So I come to a place where I can choose not to engage with it, I block/mute very little, I mainly ignore it if it ends up in my feed.
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@scottjenson But I get pushed US politics all day by the main stream media & I'm not even in the US & current politics (here & there) is heavily slanted towards manufactured wedge issues.
AI is a similar, for me the moral and environmental arguments against are plenty before we get into the rest, yet as I work in software it's impossible to get away from.
So I come to a place where I can choose not to engage with it, I block/mute very little, I mainly ignore it if it ends up in my feed.
@scottjenson But also I think that it's not a valid comparison those other sites all have algorithms that deliberately push stuff into people's feeds because "engagement/outrage" drives ad revenue.
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@scottjenson But I get pushed US politics all day by the main stream media & I'm not even in the US & current politics (here & there) is heavily slanted towards manufactured wedge issues.
AI is a similar, for me the moral and environmental arguments against are plenty before we get into the rest, yet as I work in software it's impossible to get away from.
So I come to a place where I can choose not to engage with it, I block/mute very little, I mainly ignore it if it ends up in my feed.
@ben and I want to support you, you have every right to view what you want. I'm not asking you to see anything you don't want.
I'm just saying that solving this issue by gatekeeping is a slippery slope. We need better filtering tools, not a purity test of who is allowed to post here.
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@scottjenson But also I think that it's not a valid comparison those other sites all have algorithms that deliberately push stuff into people's feeds because "engagement/outrage" drives ad revenue.
@ben Exactly. That lack is something we should be proud of.
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@ben and I want to support you, you have every right to view what you want. I'm not asking you to see anything you don't want.
I'm just saying that solving this issue by gatekeeping is a slippery slope. We need better filtering tools, not a purity test of who is allowed to post here.
@scottjenson I may have miss understood the initial post, I'm not suggesting the journalists shouldn't post, just that I think their engagement measurement may not be the right metric (but it is the one they are used to)
