Post APva7sMiSnVlqWJ2aO by scottmatter@aus.social
(DIR) More posts by scottmatter@aus.social
(DIR) Post #APva7sMiSnVlqWJ2aO by scottmatter@aus.social
2022-11-24T09:59:13Z
5 likes, 9 repeats
Electronic mail is so confusing. Why do I need to choose a provider and how do I get even decide? And once I have an address, how do I find my friends’ addresses and send them letters? Will I only be able to send letters to people using the same provider?
(DIR) Post #APwYzv4oarY98sXFHE by vilhelmr@mastodon.social
2022-11-24T10:59:17Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@scottmatter I just learned that even if someone uses a particular hashtag, I can only see their toot, if someone from my instance follows that person, otherwise it will never appear to me. That at least makes the choice of instance more important, even if it's relatively painfree to move instance.
(DIR) Post #APwYzvg2MTK90JwyIK by lazysupper@ohai.social
2022-11-24T12:44:58Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@vilhelmr @scottmatter I see hashtags from all over the fediverse when I click on them. You only see toots on your instance?
(DIR) Post #APwYzw3QxU2UAstelM by pillarist@mastodon.social
2022-11-24T13:45:06Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@lazysupper @vilhelmr @scottmatter I believe hashtags work the same way all posts work: it's contingent on what your local server knows about, which is determined by the union of accounts followed by the local instance's population, and then if there are any relays being added in."Also, it only shows posts that are visible to your server anyway, it is not pulling posts in purely on the basis of the hashtag."https://fedi.tips/how-to-use-mastodon-and-the-fediverse-advanced-tips/#FollowingHashtags
(DIR) Post #APwYzwb6wGyfrKeYFs by lamp@mastodong.lol
2022-11-24T23:10:32Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@pillarist @lazysupper @vilhelmr @scottmatter Yeah you'll only see posts from people that are followed by one or more members on your server, or from servers that share a relay.Sometimes you might see follow bots trying to follow everyone they can find so they can see as much of the fediverse as possible. But this annoys some people and they get blocked
(DIR) Post #APwgUa39WJ1WaKKCsS by lazysupper@ohai.social
2022-11-25T00:34:29Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@lamp @pillarist @vilhelmr @scottmatter I wondered when I saw a bot boost my (rather mundane) post. That must be what it was it was doing!
(DIR) Post #APxJRSZYlD8ejozC0u by valere@hostux.social
2022-11-25T07:51:04Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@scottmatter the analogy is nice, but having checked more than 3000 account requests this month, I can assure you that the majority don't ask the question and use gmail, I could look in the database, but at first sight, it represents more than 75% of the used mail addresses, to that you add 10 to 15% of outlook and derivatives, there is not much left for the other mail providers, I don't even address the question of those who use their own mail server or the one of a friend.
(DIR) Post #APxJSKFZBlERDS2zLc by valere@hostux.social
2022-11-25T07:51:14Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@scottmatter So people have signed up for the larger instances, just like they sign up for the mail silos.
(DIR) Post #APxJozn9PzvGQTZ9G4 by scottmatter@aus.social
2022-11-25T07:55:19Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@valere yep definitely. I first signed up on the most generic one (mastodon[.]social) but then moved to Aus.social for a smaller, more localized timeline. And I’ll probably set up at least one more personal / professional account for work stuff, once I find (or set up) the right server for that
(DIR) Post #AQ6vs83Ygygjbknica by jeffalyanak@social.rights.ninja
2022-11-24T12:48:01Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@scottmatter Literally stuff people said back in the day. Blame the UX for bad conveyance.People like to say that the instance you choose doesn't matter, but it does.Your local instance affects discoverability—this isn't a big issue with email because we don't _want_ discoverability—and it affects the type of content you'll see in your local and federated timelines.Those factors will play a big part in your initial period of exploration of the fediverse. Social media is only _partially_ following people who you already know. That's not so much the part that is throwing people off.
(DIR) Post #AQ6vs9C6Sh7L8Xo3Zw by jeffalyanak@social.rights.ninja
2022-11-24T12:52:05Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@scottmatter The federated timeline isn't "everything on the fediverse", it's "posts from people who locals follow". If you join a biology community server and look at the federated timeline it's going to look very different to the federated timeline of community server for classical music, or breadmaking, or general interest.When you don't yet know _who_ to follow, you rely on your local and federated timelines and both of these can be very from one server to the next.
(DIR) Post #AQ6vsFvLROs60b1Gvg by palafo@mstdn.social
2022-11-24T15:31:22Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@scottmatter @jeffalyanak This is why i am telling my fellow Twitter refugees to follow and boost generously, especially people and things they like on other servers. I have also been using Toot! on iOS to browse the local and federated feeds of other instances
(DIR) Post #AQ6vsTOXMAwlmtmGjg by nomdeb@mstdn.social
2022-11-24T15:43:27Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@jeffalyanak @scottmatter @palafo i have been suggesting to new mastodonians to click on the hashtag #introduction. If unsure of how to get started, they will get an understanding of how other people are choosing to themselves, and it’s a good way to see the variety of people and content here in the fediverse, and also to find hashtags to explore. Then follow things that interest them. People or hashtags.
(DIR) Post #AQ6vyG2durkG6xILx2 by Moon@shitposter.club
2022-11-29T23:15:12.744586Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@scottmatter i actually remember when people used to say this about email in the 90s haha
(DIR) Post #AQ6whvwWyTa566DSbY by munin@infosec.exchange
2022-11-24T22:31:33Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@scottmatter ok but those were legitimate worries during the early web period when e.g. AOL and Prodigy and Earthlink and the other consumer "ISP" outfits were in vogue?Like, this recent assumption of universal service interoperability has not always been the case, and between that and how, say, Apple walled-gardens iMessage to only sort of allow non-iOS contacts, the hesitancy is deeply understandable.
(DIR) Post #AQ6whwS55AomfwyemW by TindrasGrove@infosec.exchange
2022-11-24T22:59:52Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@munin @scottmatter AOL especially with its keywords showed how they had functionally walled off their users from the wider WWW.
(DIR) Post #AQ6whwrFZax1w0kl0q by munin@infosec.exchange
2022-11-24T23:16:48Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@TindrasGrove @scottmatter Exactly. And people have the expectation of communication -within- a namespace for social media, but may still remember e.g. the old phpBB type boards which, like masto, tended to have the same interface across boards, but unlike masto there was no automatic perfusion across namespace boundaries.Masto style federation is an outlier from -most- user perspectives.
(DIR) Post #AQ6whxPHX4AndYfw3c by TindrasGrove@infosec.exchange
2022-11-24T23:27:11Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@munin @scottmatter right - I never thought that when I was on a board for a video game, that my messages would land on the board for a book series, because *that’s not how websites work*. Probably the closest analogy is how modern users can use their Facebook accounts to magically make accounts on lots of new websites - it *feels* like a single account being used everywhere. But you still ultimately realize these are different we sites that aren’t sharing data with each other (whether they realize FB gets it all is another matter entirely)Which, speaking of Facebook and walled gardens: for many in countries with less awesome Internet infrastructure, Facebook (and WhatsApp) functionally *is* the Internet because of agreements to provide free access to Facebook. So, yeah, walls are what people understand. The idea that I can not only communicate with different Masto servers, but also other services (like Pixelfed) legitimately takes some getting used to. Like, what do you mean I can browse Instagram from Twitter??
(DIR) Post #AQ6whxyNQaFJOP5xlA by munin@infosec.exchange
2022-11-24T23:42:29Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@TindrasGrove @scottmatter Yep.This model is not very intuitive to most social media users, much less the public at large.It also doesn't help that there are a couple very large sites -using masto- that don't federate with anyone else - the orange shitgibbon and that jester asshole deliberately don't! And it also doesn't help that there's complex ingroup politics about who federates with whom - it is -genuinely hard- to work out message propagation; I was talking with my partners about how to build tooling to -figure out visibility- for various instances and whether they can propagate messages to each other.These are complex problems and they don't have easy answers.