Someone explained how to sign up and the first instance I found said it was shutting down soon and to migrate off. A few others I tried said they weren’t accepting new users and eventually I gave up. The funny thing is I swear I figured it out a few years back and don’t remember it being like that but maybe I just had more patience.
Is there a reason you can’t just create your own identity, without an instance?
It looks like Mastodon has aimed for total decentralization like email, rather than the kind of decentralization that IRC does that still keeps identities centrally managed with nick servers (e.g., how irc.libera.chat works).
Presumably, serving identity verification would be much cheaper than serving the content, so Mastodon or something like it should be able to do it scalably, while still federating separate instances for the content.
I am disincentivized to run my own instance, aka "distribute". It pushes for centralization. On multiple fronts. Why? Well for starters the protocol as i'm aware of does not efficiently federate to smaller instances compared to bigger instances.
I also fear that instances will eventually be plagued by spam / attacks from foreign small instances and will be pushed towards whitelisting federation rather than blacklisting. As the general philosophy of federation seems to match that of Email. Email.. tbh, feels like a failed technology. Yes i know, i love email and we all use it.. but it's incredibly centralized and insanely vulnerable to massive amounts of spam. The protocol almost pushes people to centralize to deal with problems that the Email protocol doesn't manage - spam. I fear Mastodon will eventually follow the same path.
I use it, but i have to ignore the protocol and my desire to decentralize.. because otherwise i just get frustrated.
I was looking for an instance and they listed their server specs. They were very small servers. Would they be susceptible to simple DDOS?
It took me here:
https://joinmastodon.org/servers
Where it seems the majority of servers are overtly political and require an "application."
I do see a few where I can create an account and look generic enough to where my entire identity/first impression isn't too niche. I may give that a try.
Fwiw, Even for somewhat geeky guys with kids and family and busy lives, Mastodon isn't friction less enough.
That being said, for a somewhat geeky guy, twitter is also hard to sign up - if you don't want to give them your phone number and other personal information, it's full of dark patterns. Less of an issue for non geeky folks though.
Twitter deliberately requires too much effort and knowledge to keep your info private. They do that because they know most people either can't or won't go through with it. The privacy-focused software world understands how problematic that is.
Mastodon, because it was created as a tech-first solution without deliberately building user paths for non-technical users, requires to much effort and knowledge to sign up for and use at all. For some reason, pointing out that most people either can't or won't go through with it is sacrilege. It gets met with minimizing statements about how simple it all really is, and stories about tech-naive people they've explained it to, or dismiss it by saying that it doesn't have to be for non-technical people while ignoring the larger discussion about what the FOSS world thinks they can replace with it.
The only people who misunderstand mastodon are the people who misunderstand regular users capacity for complexity in social media, or the complexity of actually using it like users want to use it... A centralized asynchronous way to easily contect with everyone else that uses it. If it doesn't do what end users want in the most straightforward way possible, it will never be what end users use.
I always find it funny when I read things like that about twitter, because I honestly wanted to see what it was several times and I swear I could never figure it out. I know I am most likely an outlier, and yes, I have a Linux server sitting below my desk (my basement is way too damp).
I genuinely don't understand this point at all. You pick an instance – any instance, provided it's open for new users. Then you fill out 4 fields and confirm your email. That's it, you're now a proud citizen of the Fediverse. Does it get any easier than this?
(Not trying to be toxic here or anything, just actually curious.)
> provided it's open for new users
This in itself is a massive point of confusion for most users. I've had all my friends and family ask me about this very point and I didn't know what to say. Especially when Elon fired everyone, literally none of the instances on the Mastodon page were accepting anyone. It's much better now but this alone confuses people into thinking they're locked into their instance. Why would my father, a retired mechanical engineer, join an infosec instance? Or my friends join a French instance when none of us are remotely French?
I realise that’s kind of intrinsic to how mastodon works, but asking people to select an instance out of a whole load of them somehow feels like I’m signing up to be part of a cohesive group, which is unappealing to me.
I don’t use any social media because I think they’re unhealthy, but a few people I’ve spoken to have had the same stumbling block with having to pick an instance.
Trust the admin? Trust them how? Why? Doesn’t all of Mastodon abide by the same rules?
While you don't understand these issues, you can either rely on somebody else's advice for that, or join a server at random and see what happens. Unless you've joined the new Gab, you should be okay – if anything goes wrong you can just migrate to another server.
As for the things you've mentioned: you shouldn't assume your communication is private anywhere on Mastodon (there's some encryption proposals, but that's a long road from now), and you definitely should use different passwords for different websites.
All of Mastodon, or more accurately, the Fediverse, runs on the same communications protocol. By analogy, think of the World Wide Web (HTML), email (SMTP), or the cell-phone network (IMSI, amongst others).
A difference for the Fediverse from the World Wide Web is that Websites largely don't communicate with each other, but rather respond to specific requests from a Web client (e.g., a web browser), in a client-server model. The Fediverse, like email or the cellphone network, consists largely of peer-to-peer (p2p) communications between individuals, mediated by servers.
Specific instances vary tremendously in standards. My home instance (toot.cat) has a specific code of conduct:
<https://mew.toot.cat/mw/Toot.cat/CoC>
There are instances with highly incompatible rules and standards. Many of these are moderated (varying degrees of limiting interactivity, listed here:
Instance administration which is sufficiently unacceptable can result in near-total defederation of that instance, that is, few if any other instances follow it. Two notable cases involve a service operated by a former US political figure, and of a neo-nazi group (I'm not naming them, they're easy enough to find should you choose to do so).
Most mainstream Mastodon instances do follow reasonably compatible codes of conduct, though there can be regional differences. For example, some Japanese instances permit comic content (loli) which is categorically illegal in numerous other jurisdictions, and face limited interactivity on that basis. There are numerous other grounds for limiting interaction beyond that.
Again: this is similar to other p2p communications platforms in which abusive practices tend to give rise to limitations: Do Not Call registries, and under a phenomenal onslaught of robocalls, denying interconnects between telephony systems.
What group of people are you talking about and what sorts of rules do you expect them to follow?
Like we are rightly concerned about Google suspending accounts without recourse, but the rate at which they do that is still orders of magnitude lower than the personal fiefdoms known as Mastodon instances.
I have friends on Mastodon for some 5+ years and this isn't really an issue. If it actually keeps happening than either the instances you're picking are run by teenagers, or you're actually engaging in some sort of a behavior that perhaps warrants a ban?
Personally, am running my own instance so this is not a concern but the larger ones with good reputation tend to be mature about this. I'd recommend joining a well established instance but avoid the absolutely huge ones like mastodon.social
I don't think most people feel they "chose" their email at all.
How about something like: “Mastadon is decentralized, so instead of being one centralized service, it consists of many smaller communities. You can follow anyone in community, because they’re all interconnected. Moderation happens at the community level, by people who run each community. You can join any community that is accepting new members. This is more complicated because you have to pick where you want to join, but then you don’t have to deal with Elon Musk or whoever if you don’t want to.”
I haven’t joined Mastodon, but this is my understanding. Seems not that much more complicated if you’re already interested in not being locked into dealing with centralization. If you’re just looking for an alternative centralized network, then yeah this is probably confusing.
The official Mastodon website provides a list of instances, but most of them seem to be aligned to particular interests, and it's difficult to make an informed decision about which server to join.
And then I just close it again
The mere existence of a protocol isn’t the issue here. I think the problem is more that the protocol doesn’t have champions like your ISP/Microsoft/Google. Mastodon saying “come here then go somewhere else” isn’t good; it’d be better if there was a default option somehow.
It’s a common problem with open source; I worked on Passit and we had to think about the problem when it came time to log in to the extension. We ended up saying something along the lines of “check the box if you’re not using app.passit.io”. The default choice matters a lot.
Also, the precedent for people looking into Mastodon is not email users looking for a more real time email client. It's Twitter users looking for Twitter on not-Twitter.com
There are talks about detaching user identity from the instance. If this gets traction, this problem might be solved once and for all.
> not being able to migrate your account to another instance later
I've never encountered this yet. Not even heard of it. I assume this only happens if your instance defederates itself from the rest of the network?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34008165
(in short: an implicit part of the process is that no one wants to end up in an instance that closes down in a couple of years because, after all, lots of them have a bus factor of 1)
The common response of "just pick an instance" is hiding quite the important decision of choosing a reliable and future-proof (within reason, i.e. that it will be still alive at least for the next 5 to 10 years) one.
The choice of technology and poor optimization of the reference Mastodon implementation, doesn't help at all the case of self-hosting, either.
I thought I had to weigh:
1. Will this instance be blocked and become useless 2. Will this instance go away because it's the altruistic hobby of someone who will be overwhelmed by users/traffic or graduate in the next year. 3. Is my content acceptable for a topical mastodon? (I'm on mathstodon, is it ok to post about cooking?)
All of these can probably be hand-waved away with "you can just...", but they were a concern to me as an onboarding user.
It's just enough friction to make some users postpone signing up, thinking they'll get around to finish choosing a server later when they have more information, and never finishing.
It's super easy to sign up for Mastodon. I read a blog from the creator of Mozilla and it seemed pretty straightforward to me.
Simply Google it and then click "Create Account."
Now choose one of myriad instances without having any idea what it the topic of that instance means for your user experience.
If you requested an invite and never received it, or they aren't taking new members, just choose one of the other instances and join there.
After you get suspended-- without any explanation whatsoever how you violated the short, vague ToS-- just go ahead and sign up on some other instance and try again. You should be getting good at this now!
When your posts start to pick up some traction, watch as your blog gets hammered by a zillion requests at once simply to display a website preview in the posts. Is the load too hot for your personal site? Don't worry-- that's the federation working it's magic![1]
> Mastodon isn't for the masses in its current state.
Summoning OG FOSS mailing list energy...
Which part exactly? Did you file a bug about this? Read the fucking manual?
OR
That's actually a feature, not a bug.
Edit:
1: Also, why aren't you just using Cloudfare? Poor website configurations are hardly Mastodon's problem. In fact this is a feature, not a bug: it will cause enough problems for small website users to force them to just use Cloudfare. So good news, small time users-- Mastodon is for you! You're welcome. Also, fix your websites, small time users.
Signing up for mastodon is a series of hurdles with some extra steps in between. Conceptually it's pretty far from what people are familiar with.
It's a classic trap of tech nerds being way, way off base thinking that others would enjoy jumping through obscure hoops just like they do. Most people really don't.
(This is coming from someone who grew up on dialup / bbs / sweaty underground diskette auctions)
Not because I'm not interested in the technology.
But because the technology isn't the point.
People use twitter because it's NOT inherently segregated. It is a place to find things organically. Aside from Facebook, which had an initial purpose of networking your friends and family, social networks that do this are largely more successful than the ones which federate themselves because users aren't having to explicitly search for conversations that interest them.
Mastodon is just a modern interpretation of Usenet with more moderation.
Clicked on Hank Green's link from his Twitter profile. This is the only way you'll ever get me to sign up, by linking me to content, I'm not going to be googling to sign up for mastodon just because. So wherever I land better have an easy way to sign up.
There's a create account form right there, super easy stuff. I was ready to agree with you. After creating the account I didn't appear to be logged in. Checked my email for a verification link, nothing there.
At this point both the Log In and Create Account button don't do anything. They just refresh the page with no error. An hour later I tried again on, same issue. Realized I should check the spam folder, and that's where the verification link is, with a big red scary UI. The email is from "trumpet" which I don't recognize myself.
I click it, and that makes it so the log in button actually logs me in.
This wasn't worth it to find out if I want to have a mastodon account. Simple fix though, the UI should tell me to check my spam folder instead of making the login and create account buttons do nothing except refresh the page.
edit: There's more. I try to go back to it to check it out again and end up at mast.to which directs me to some foreign website, takes me a while to figure out it was mas.to that I signed up on. I decide using the browser maybe ain't it for this, so I install the iOS app instead. It wants to know which server I signed up on, which luckily is the thing I just worked out. I type mas.to to find my server in the iOS app, frankly a concept I shouldn't ever have to care about if you want me as a user, but OK. And all I get is a pop up that says HTTP 200 OK.
I'm stuck again with zero indication of the error or how to progress. This is bullshit.
Although it's probably too late, and not the place, to fight this particular battle, this kind of resigned circularity frustrates me. The reason the apps from big companies all "follow your expectations of how apps work" is not that they have reached some Platonic ideal of according with user expectations; it is that they have the time, the money, and the muscle (in the sense of being able to force you to use their apps to use their big product, whether you want to or not) to shape your expectations of how apps work. Their apps work as we expect apps to work because their apps defined how we expect apps to work.
I attempted to derive value from Twitter on and off for, whatever, 10 years, and I still found it incredibly hard to use. I'm not a stupid person; obviously if I had a real reason to get used to it, I would have. Journalists, for example, "had to" use it, because they found it an incredibly easy shortcut to getting opinions from a populace that they assumed reflected a broad cross section of the world, even though it wasn't.
Confusing things:
* The reply format. If you reply to a tweet, your reply will be below the one you're replying to, which readers have to scroll UP from the beginning to see, even though the browser gives you the impression you're already at the top of the page. And there's a back arrow. But the back arrow takes you home, not to the parent post. And if you quote a tweet in your reply, it ends up below your words, indented out. That's the only indenting ever, and it's the only time your reply is above something, rather than below it.
* There are ads and suggested tweets everywhere, cluttering your feed.
* You don't know who to follow, or why you should follow people. People you follow might change their name every 5 minutes, so you can't remember who anyone is or was. You're told to follow important people, so during a volcanic explosion in Iceland, you follow an Icelandic volconologist, but the only content you see is stuff they quote-tweet or reply-tweet to with no context that's apparently an inside joke in some other community they're in.
* Am I seeing the whole feed? In chronological order, or?
* Why the character limitation? And the awfulness of threads and how where/when to reply in one that came as a result of this.
* Can't follow a hashtag, utterly inexplicably. About the only use case I found for it, wasn't available.
* Limitations on number of characters
* Utter toxicity of most of the userbase.
* Inability to form smaller communities. Everything is public, just people shouting into the void for attention.
And then, of course, the usual cultural things you have to learn from cues over time which I never got comfortable with because I didn't spend enough time there. Where the hashtags go; inline, at the end, at the beginning? The intricacies of when you @ people, when you DM people, etc. The discomfort with finding a voice in a public shouting match.
Tech journalism does just fine with open standards/software/platforms like e-mail, domain names, torrenting, Linux, crypto. None of these fall into commercial startup narratives, yet journalists cover these things just as well as everything else.
> The media seems to be regarding Mastodon as a bizarre curiosity, something that the general public couldn’t possibly grasp. Sure, the guys with a Linux server in their basement might geek out on it, but this thing isn’t for the masses.
I mean, that's pretty accurate. It's easy to sign up for Twitter, it follows all of your expectations of how apps work. Not only is it hard to sign up for Mastodon, but it's hard to even figure out how to figure it out. Mastodon isn't for the masses in its current state.
So as far as I can tell, the tech journalists are covering it quite appropriately.