Reflections on Two Weeks Using Mastodon
internet, social media
Welp. It’s another social-media-pocalypse, folk. And I, for one, am kinda here for it?
Sometimes, I think my generation (Generation Oregon Trail!) really is the social network generation. We were here for the rise of social networking, the early networks that worked and failed (I mourn you, Orkut), and experienced the, oh, bi-annual need to move from one network to the next in the mid-late 2000s. Twitter has been one of the longest most stable social networks we’ve been on, and I could write reams about why I think it’s done a lot of good (and no small amount of evil).
As many of us seek a way out thanks to El Musko, one of the first options to spring up has been mastodon. I remember when it launched, I looked at it, and promptly ran away. But, now my urge to move over is much higher, so, I tried again, and found it much improved, and…. I think it could be the replacement? It’s different, but, well, here are my impressions/commentary after 2 weeks on the fossilized pachyderm. I’d do one ups and one downs, alternating to keep a balanced tone.
I’m also open to other folks’ comments (about things I might not notice given that I’ve lived about 20 years now on different social media platforms)
One Up
- Social Media at a Slower Pace - Because of the lack of an algorithm pushing for virality, the pace of posts coming through on my home feed is, honestly, slower. There is more time between new posts. More time to read and think. Because my network has been pared down, there’s fewer voices. It’s…. kinda nice, actually. The conversation become more meaningful and intentional. The reposts from people in my network are, honestly, more interesting. With this slowness, I actually find the whole platform less anxiety inducing.
One Down
- Oh god, you have to chose a server! This is the #1 complaint I see that makes people think Mastodon is super wonky tech-people only. But, well, yeah, you do need to choose. In the long run, it won’t matter, but it will shape your early experience. That’s because Mastodon has no one centralized server. Indeed, with loads of people joining some of the most obviously names servers (e.g., mastodon.social), we’re seeing some real fails as a small team of open source server admins are being tasked with moderating in a way they never anticipated before. But, if you choose a server before you start on your Mastodon journey, things will much more easily? How to find one? Well, there are some out of date themed lists, but, honestly, google whatever niche you want to find yourself in and “mastodon server” and you’re ready to go. Like, “ecology mastodon server” finds you ecoevo.social. “foodie mastodon server” finds you fearlessfoodies.org. “romance mastodon server” finds you romancelandia.club (gotta follow Olivia Waite somewhere!). And if you realize you don’t like your server, migrate - it’s not too hard! I actually chose the wrong server first, then migrated to ecoevo.social a few days later.
One Up
- Tags for Search - A lot has been written about a lack of open text search. But, open text search can be a bit of a mess. Every time I try and do that on the bird site, I get a lot of material I don’t want. There’s something empowering about allowing folk to really control how and where their content can be searched for. It also ensures that when I search for a tag, I’m more likely to find content I want. It’s a win-win, and I’m so far enjoying it as a way of curating my search experience in a way I honestly had not anticipated.
One Down
- How do I find people? I think we’ve settled into Twitter so comfortably, we’ve forgotten those initial days of joining when we had, like, 2 followers, and weren’t sure how to find more save search. Well, search is a bit janky, as it’s actually designed to not have open text searching as a harassment feature. Otherwise, you can search for a topic you hate, find the accounts, and pile on. Which…. I get. But also annoying. Fortunately, there are a few tools that make this easier. First, as your network moves over, if folk put their mastodon ID (e.g., I’m @jebyrnes@ecoevo.social) into their twitter bio/account name, you can use tools like fedifinder to get a CSV of folk you follow, and then directly upload them into mastodon. About 15% of my followers have done this, and, honestly, it was a game changer in terms of my experience. That, and if you have interests outside of your main ones, you can find the server that caters through them, browse through some of the users there, and then find new folk to follow. You’ll get a more random sample even, which can be fun!
One Up
- Focus on What I Actually Want - Alongside the lack of an algorithm dredging up what it thinks I should see, the content I get is more… actually representative of the network of followers I’ve chosen to see. The ratio of science:internet id has changed dramatically (as much as I love checking out the id of the internet). Honestly, it feels much more like the days of science blogging/early science Twitter of yore. The conversations about problems in academia writ large are there. But so is so much pure science - conversations about ideas, new results, things that you might want to get to a broader audience. I’ve been seeing less and less of that on the bird site over the past few years. The fact that my feed is now just posts in sequential order of folk that I follow - it’s what I actually want, and who I want to see. I’m loving it.
One Down
- But I want to browse the id of the internet! OK, the algorithm serves us a LOT of stuff that we don’t even follow, and gives a false sense that you are somehow browsing the collective gestalt of humanity on the internet. But. Eh. No. It’s just the id that the algorithm wants you to see. Frankly, choosing a server that more or less hits your sweet spot will do the same thing for you via its Federated timeline. It’s what? OK, so, on Mastodon, you can see your peeps in your Home timeline. You can see everyone on your server in your Local timeline (which is why it’s nice to pick a server that suits your main interests). Your Federated timeline shows everyone on your server, everyone they follow, and every boosted (think RT-ed) post they make. See here for a fabulous graphic that explains. So, choose a server, see its id. And not just what the algorithm thinks the id you should be seeing is.
Images from @cassoltl@queer.party that explains how mastodon timelines work.
One Up
- Servers as Community - I really really like the fact that my server has a local timeline. I came to it for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology - it’s my niche! But, I don’t want to follow everyone on it! I want some timeline curation. Having the ability to hop to a local timeline and see posts of only users who have the same micro-niche as me - it’s nice! I see things to boost, people to follow, and just get bathed in the warm glowing warming glow of EEB. I know at bigger servers, this can be more chaotic, but at smaller niche-i-er servers, I’m guessing the experience is the same.
One Down
- Following the followers of people I follow is needlessly hard One way we get new folk to follow is browsing through the follow lists of folk we already follow. In twitter, it’s just a click away. In Mastodon, you often have a popup, or link you have to click, if those people are on another server, and then you can follow them. It’s 1-2 more steps. And annoying as heck. I know, I know, again, an anti-harassment tool, but, is it? If you’re going to harass someone, you’ll make the extra clicks. So, thumbs down to the friction here. It’s needless.
One Up
- CWs as “Subject Lines” - Much has been written about the heavy use of the Content Warning feature on Mastodon. It has good and bad sides. On the ‘bad’ side, I’ve seen a lot of - particularly older users - harrangue BIPOC and others about putting those people’s own personal experiences under a CW. This is obnoxious and bigoted behavior - an attempt to force people to hide their own lived experience on the platform. I’m hoping the pushback that is getting will but a stop to it.
On the ‘good’ and interesting use of CWs, aside from more recognized uses of putting potentially triggering content in a place where not everyone has to see, CWs allow a ‘subject line’ of sorts in order to tag content for people’s feed. I’ve been using ‘statistical mishegas’ a lot for fairly esoteric posts that, honestly, might not be interesting to everyone. It’s a ‘here be dragons’ opportunity of sorts. I really like it, and am much more likely to engage with smart CWs than I would have if it was just a random post scrolling by. I really enjoy it!
One Down
I can’t make lists! This is my complaint, actually. I liked making lists of people who I didn’t follow (so they weren’t in my home TL), but I could still look at via lists. For anti-harassment reasons, Mastodon doesn’t allow this, which I was miffed at and tooted about a lot. But….as I’ve read more, yeah, it makes sense. Someone can’t whip together a list of ‘targets’ that no one follows, but is an easy portal to go to in order to harrass others. So, instead, if you really want to have micro-timelines, just follow ’em all, and make better lists. You can use the advanced web interface in the desktop client or the lists on whatever app you use instead of your Home timeline firehose, and, it’s…. just fine. After getting over myself and my own annoyance, I’m now back to the same social media flow I had before.
I can’t quote-tweet Yeah, I kinda don’t like this one, as it makes crediting and commentary harder. Again, it’s for anti-harrassment reasons - you can’t add negative commentary to something and then direct your followers to go over and harrass the poster of the original toot. But. I even see a lot of folk from marginalized communities complaining about this in terms of giving credit and commentary. So, I’m 50:50 on this.
One Up
- Server Bans - I lke the idea that, if there is a server hosting malicious actors with light to no moderation, the server itself can be defederated. Mmoderation is challenging and requires humans to undertake a thankless but essential task. But it happens, and bad actors in the Fediverse have the ability to pop up like a game of whack-a-mole until they find somewhere that no one cares. This option takes care of that. Heck, there’s almost been one or two high-profile instances until server moderators cleaned up their acts. I like this feature if used well.
One Down
- The old guard on mastodon are jerks about ‘community norms’ and even harass BIPOC about it despite saying they’re trying to make a better social network No argument here. As the wave has come over, a lot of old school Mastodon folk have mourned what was for them. A small space - almost artisinal - in which they spent their time. A slow moving federated timeline. We’re just a big party that has crashed into their nice garden. I empathize. It must be jarring. But. This space wasn’t built as a walled garden - it was built as an alternative ot Twitter. So…. it’s becoming that? Community norms grow and change with the community. And many norms are inherently exclusionary instead of inclusive - something that often isn’t seen until the community size is large enough or someone brave speaks up. So. I empathized. But, I that’s gotta bo both ways.
And a lot of the complaints from ‘the old guard’ have been about people not using content warnings when talking about their own experiences of being targeted for being BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, or more. One of my favorite follows - Chanda Prescod-Weinstein - after being told how easy it is to block harassers, etc., was called all sorts of racial and religious epithets by the predominantly white techy old guard. Others folk are having their posts taken down for talking about real experiences of discrimination or making larger points about structural inequity with some (gasp) humor.
I honestly don’t know what to say about this one. I think some of my hope in moving somewhere that seems to, at its core, be anti-harassment, that the situation would start better than somewhere like Twitter, which is moving back to letting the worst wander its virtual halls. But the structural bigotry of the systems we live within - and the very nature of a network initially built by largely white OSS folk - mean that it’s there, alive and well. Telling people to block or complain just puts the onus on the BIPOC who are being harassed. And relying on mods is not 100% - they’re overwhelmed, and likely subject to the same biases that are causing problems. That said, I have hope at hope quickly this has been recognized as a problem, and it looks like good conversations are emerging. I’m hoping that the ‘old guard’ is listening and that, because of the decentralized nature of Mastodon, things can be dealt with more swiftly and better tools can be put in place to stop bad actors. I also know I’m a white man talking out of his own experience, so, let’s take my hope and believe it has to be better than how Twitter is devolving with a grain of salt.
Fin
I’m actually going to leave it on that last note. There are a lot of threads going around about the importance of moderation and human intervention. Moderation is, at the end of the day, a necessary thing. Computers cannot do it (as it is easy to trick them or make their moderation biased). Humans are needed. The continued success of Mastodon is going to hinge on the ability of the ability to create new initiatives to enable good moderation. As this is open source free software, it is where people actually throwing in a few sawbucks will be needed. And that’s because it’s a human and community problem. Not something for already overtaxed server admins to pickup as a new hobby.
Given the thoughtful discourse around moderation, the already excellent experience (I go to Twitter now girding myself for anxiety, and now that I’m playing with Post, I go there for a dose of self-importance in Times New Roman mixed with useful information - athough, early days), and the much warmer sense of community, I’m so far sold. Will I transition to 100% pachyderm and delete the bird app? I think eventually yes - particularly as voices I love are slowly being cut-off over there. I’ll likely keep a cross-poster on, though, both to hold on to my account, and because I know that this isn’t a universal decision at the moment for everyone.
But for now - two weeks in - I’m really enjoying Mastodon and finding it scratches my need for a social network and community itch!