[HN Gopher] Taking a Look at Mastodon
___________________________________________________________________
Taking a Look at Mastodon
Author : treve
Score : 78 points
Date : 2022-11-01 20:18 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (evertpot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (evertpot.com)
| jacooper wrote:
| Just take a look at Mastodon's twitter replies, The most common
| issue is finding other on other instances.
|
| Something people have been taking about since 2017!!!
| https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/1589
|
| And Gargon(Mastodons maintainer) just added relays support and
| called it a day.
|
| While the main issue still isn't fixed, none of the official
| Mastodon servers use relays, so discoverability is still crap.
|
| You can't browse other servers timelines
| https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/1053
|
| And can't even backfill toots from accounts(you can't view toots
| older than the server itself!!!!), This is absolutely ridiculous
|
| https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/14017
|
| These issues are unfortunately predictable, and it seems Gargon
| won't fix them any time soon.
|
| Its kind of funny that in Mastodon(basically Activitypub this
| point) a federated platform, starting your own server is almost
| impossible unless people actually know you outside the platform,
| your chances of growing inside the platform are basically zero.
|
| You won't show up in other instances search unless someone from
| the other instance follows you.
|
| Even if you reply to users from that instance and its users liked
| your toots, you still won't show up in the instances search, its
| amazing.
|
| Heck, even Matrix, _a chat protocol_ has better discoverability
| than Mastodon, user in rooms I 'm in will show up immediately in
| my servers search.
|
| Its not a federation problem, its a Mastodon problem.
|
| - show up in search here is meant as in showing up by just typing
| your display name / username without the server address, because
| no one knows which server you are in.
| andreyk wrote:
| I think mass migration of people from Twitter to Mastodon is
| unlikely, but I do have some hope that specific communities will
| be able to make the switch. For instance, just yesterday I set up
| a new instance -- which was incredibly easy thanks to masto.host,
| literally two clicks and a config change on Namecheap -- that can
| hopefully become a space for people interested in AI to move to
| from Twitter (in case you are curious, it's
| https://sigmoid.social/).
|
| Here's my rationale: Twitter is kind of invaluable if you are an
| academic working in AI (and in many other fields as far as I can
| tell), it's a great way to discover new work as well as promote
| your own (and yeah there is silly drama sometimes, but it's
| rare). Many academics genuinely love it, including myself. Those
| same academics generally loathe or at least dislike Musk, and
| worry about the future of the platform, and don't care that much
| about non AI stuff on there. So if just the part of Twitter you
| care about it migrates to a Mastodon instance, such academics
| would likely consider it. And if you are a person or entity with
| a decent following on Twitter, it does seem feasible to encourage
| the community to at least try to move over. Maybe, maybe not, but
| I figure it's worth a try (I am planning to announce it on
| Twitter later this week).
| lapcat wrote:
| I tried Mastodon for 1 day recently, and then I gave up and
| deleted my account.
|
| The web interface wasn't good (worse than Twitter if you can
| believe it), the native client I tried wasn't good either, but
| the worst problem is that following accounts of a different
| instance was a major pain. In retrospect, I made the mistake of
| joining the smaller mastodon.online rather than mastodon.social,
| which they claimed wouldn't make a difference, but it did.
|
| I couldn't just follow someone on another instance from their
| profile page, because their profile page is on a different server
| from mine. It wanted me to copy a URL, paste it into a search
| field, find the account, and then follow, which is ridiculous and
| tiresome.
|
| The onboarding for new users on Mastodon seems terrible in every
| way.
|
| (I also couldn't disable "boosts" in my timeline, which is
| something I could do on Twitter.)
|
| I wanted to like Mastodon! But I just didn't, and I didn't feel
| like enough other people were going to like it either to make it
| worthwhile to use.
| kornhole wrote:
| Thank you for explaining that you only used it for one day to
| add context. It is a different experience that takes a little
| time to understand. I do not remember how long it took me to
| get familiar with Twitter as it was long ago, but I am sure it
| wasn't quick. Mastodon is developed mostly by volunteers rather
| than a team of well paid UX specialists focused on increasing
| engagement.
| MBCook wrote:
| I'm trying it now.
|
| I have ALWAYS used Twitter through the 3rd party TweetBot app.
| That basically _is_ Twitter for me. Unless someone sends me a
| link to a tweet, I don't use the web.
|
| The Mastodon app is no comparison. It has hitches while
| scrolling my (tiny) timeline. I can't figure out some of the
| buttons or why they're highlighted. There are no gestures at
| all that I've found. I don't expect the level of one of the
| best Twitter apps of all time, but it feels more like what a
| web developer would think an app is.
|
| Also, I _did_ join Mastodon.social. And it's currently dead
| from load (I assume). So my experience is going great.
|
| Normal people just don't care about federation. They seem to
| actively dislike it, and I don't blame them.
|
| The only federated thing most people will ever use is email,
| and that's a relic from the 1980s. And centralizing on
| gmail/outlook/a few others.
|
| I can't think of a single thing normal people use.
|
| Most people don't make their own site anymore, and so many that
| do are really just on one of the big hosts. They view content
| from web sites, but that seems different somehow.
|
| I just have a hard time seeing Mastodon succeed. Between
| federation (yes, I know the benefits), resource issues, and
| simple UX issues I can't imagine it taking off.
|
| The UX and apps can be fixed, but by then its one chance may
| have passed and it may be too late.
| squarefoot wrote:
| > I just have a hard time seeing Mastodon succeed.
|
| Very different numbers and contexts, but nobody could also
| predict Libera.chat would completely take over Freenode. All
| it needs is pissing off users, and it seems Twitter could be
| on the right track to do that, at least for a generous part
| of them.
| krullin wrote:
| The first link contains a typo which directs you to a website
| asking you to install a sketchy browser addon.
| treve wrote:
| Thank you! Fixed (should be live in a few mins)
| kowlo wrote:
| This is an unfinished article with links leading nowhere... e.g.
| https://joinmast[a]don.org/
|
| How is this on the front page with 37 points?
| treve wrote:
| Typo should be fixed. Perhaps remove this link from your
| comment to not give them any more traffic (looks like a scammy
| site)
| schmichael wrote:
| https://joinmastodon.org/ is the correct link for anyone
| wondering.
| tonetheman wrote:
| I would like to know my options.
|
| I have been on twitter for a long time and I have a lot of good
| people that I like to follow. And I imagine a good portion of
| them are also looking for options. No one wants to be on a
| platform where the CEO cannot tell the difference between truth
| and lies.
|
| The fact that he wants to sell the blue check mark is a good
| indication of how much he does not know about what he bought.
| It is a horrible plan and will generate so little revenue. He
| is a rich idiot.
| Timja wrote:
| The problem with Mastodon is that it solves nothing.
|
| You are at the mercy of whoever runs the instance you join.
|
| What we need is a protocol. Maybe the upcoming NOSTR is a good
| approach:
|
| https://github.com/nostr-protocol/
| fossuser wrote:
| I generally agree - without solving the underlying issues you
| end up back centralized on a handful of providers again (except
| with a shittier experience) sort of like email.
|
| I work on Urbit now[0], but I also think it (or something a lot
| like it) is the only way out of this that I've seen with a
| potential path to actually working.
|
| Mostly because it tackles the upstream reasons why federated
| system fail (spam, distinction between account and server,
| linux being too hard to administer, keeping things on the same
| version, etc.)[1][2]
|
| [0] https://tlon.network/
|
| [1] https://zalberico.com/essay/2022/09/28/tlon-urbit-
| computing-...
|
| [2] http://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional-
| progra...
| schmichael wrote:
| ActivityPub is the protocol Mastodon implements as stated in
| the article.
|
| You can run your own instance or pay someone to host an
| instance for you that you otherwise have full control over. You
| can pick exactly how much or little of your stack you want to
| own from the code to the followers.
| Timja wrote:
| Yes, if everybody would run their own instance, that would
| make it decentralized. But that is not going to happen. We
| need a protocol that allows ownership of your social graph
| without having to host your own server.
| schmichael wrote:
| Your original post said you wanted a protocol, not a
| decentralized protocol.
|
| Mastodon/ActivityPub have chosen a federated model over a
| decentralized one. Federated has a lot of usability and
| scalability benefits over decentralized, but users
| sacrifice some privacy and ownership abilities. Everyone is
| free to choose their own tradeoffs.
| jayknight wrote:
| I'm interested to see where https://atproto.com/ goes.
| [deleted]
| meowface wrote:
| The README for that repo discusses Mastodon/ActivityPub:
|
| >The problem with Mastodon and similar programs
|
| >User identities are attached to domain names controlled by
| third-parties;
|
| >Server owners can ban you, just like Twitter;
|
| >Migration between servers is an afterthought and can only be
| accomplished if servers cooperate.
|
| >It doesn't work in an adversarial environment (all followers
| are lost);
|
| >There are no clear incentives to run servers, therefore they
| tend to be run by enthusiasts and people who want to have
| their name attached to a cool domain. Then, users are subject
| to the despotism of a single person, which is often worse
| than that of a big company like Twitter, and they can't
| migrate out;
|
| >Since servers tend to be run amateurishly, they are often
| abandoned after a while -- which is effectively the same as
| banning everybody;
|
| >It doesn't make sense to have a ton of servers if updates
| from every server will have to be painfully pushed (and
| saved!) to a ton of other servers. This point is exacerbated
| by the fact that servers tend to exist in huge numbers,
| therefore more data has to be passed to more places more
| often;
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Mandatory xkcd https://xkcd.com/927/
| chromatin wrote:
| Happy to see Nostr here.
|
| I have been playing with this (you can too by creating a
| pub/priv keypair at https://astral.ninja or
| https://branle.netlify.app/) and am impressed with the
| simplicity (but potential) of the protocol
| schmichael wrote:
| I'm looking to leave Twitter these days as well and am very
| thankful for all of these Mastodon posts.
|
| Here are a couple others:
|
| 1. https://jacobian.org/til/my-mastodon-instance/
|
| 2. https://aeracode.org/2022/11/01/fediverse-custom-domains/
|
| If nothing else it's very exciting to see a lot of folks
| tinkering with web technologies that are fully under their
| control!
| silverwasthere wrote:
| I'd just like to mention that if you are considering joining
| mastodon that you should join an instance with a specific topic
| and not one of the large generally known ones. You will find a
| community instead of just a platform, and this is where mastodon
| shines. There is a tool called joinmastodon which will help.
| zzzeek wrote:
| I have hope for Mastodon but in the past week it's been hammered
| with way more load than it's ready for (the main mastodon.social
| site).
|
| so at the moment, they maybe can borrow Twitter's fail whale
| until they can get their scaling up accomplished.
| stormbrew wrote:
| The nice thing about it is that since I'm on a different server
| it still works fine for me even when mastodon.social is falling
| over.
| zzzeek wrote:
| right, but are you having problems /delays seeing statuses
| from folks who come from mastodon.social?
| gpm wrote:
| Presumably? Short of coordinating with someone to check I'm
| not sure how I'd even notice.
|
| (I'm a different person than who you replied to, but have
| had the same experience, the instance I'm on is perfectly
| responsive)
| stormbrew wrote:
| As with sibling, it's possible but it hasn't happened in
| any way that bothers me. Seems like it's just CAP theory in
| action. I don't think consistency is the corner of that
| triangle to optimize for in this case.
| schmichael wrote:
| Coincidentally as I was trying to reply to you HN gave me:
|
| > We're having some trouble serving your request. Sorry!
|
| I kind of miss the fail whale. I don't need every service to
| have 100% uptime. HN going down for an hour or two every day
| would probably boost productivity. :)
| oldandboring wrote:
| I joined a Mastodon server yesterday ("mastodon.online") and I
| immediately started searching the 'fediverse' for people I
| already follow on Twitter, seeing if I could build myself a
| little feed to read. The first few people I searched all had
| multiple accounts, across multiple servers. So immediately this
| is a problem:
|
| - Which one is the one I should follow? I guess I'll click on
| each one and see which one they're actually using to post.
|
| - How do I stop someone from impersonating me by creating an
| account with my same username, on a different server?
|
| - What happens when the unpaid/volunteer mods on a server get
| overwhelmed with the content moderation task? What happens when
| they just start censoring stuff they disagree with (exactly what
| the wingnuts claim Twitter/FB have been doing to conservatives)?
|
| I don't get this whole "a protocol is the answer" thing either.
| Sounds like the same kind of nebulous thinking we hear when
| people start pontificating about blockchain.
|
| Twitter was (is?) successful because the model makes sense. A
| for-profit company whose motivation to fairly and competently
| moderate content and verify users is driven by their need to be a
| safe space for the advertisers upon whose money they rely.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Note that those exact same questions exist for email. Which
| email addresses are your friends actually using? What stops me
| from registering "oldandboring@yahoo.com" if you haven't
| already claimed it?
| SLWW wrote:
| I'm gonna try to answer your questions in order.
|
| - usually they have alts, you can send them a message to please
| update their twitter bio with the link to their main mastadon
| account.
|
| - You can not stop someone from impersonating you; however even
| the most infamous/famous characters on the fediverse have links
| to their channels, websites and blogs that link back to that
| account; so this doesn't happen often, it's very rare.
|
| - Even though i don't appreciate your dismissal of a very real
| problem; there is no protection, however it is very easy to set
| up your own instance if you feel your voice is being wrongfully
| censored. As a consequence, no one is ever truly "banned".
|
| - Ignore the hype, I love the fediverse but it has some severe
| issues; the protocol is never the issue as we are dealing with
| human beings here.
|
| Instead of advertising, we rely on donations and the good will
| of the community, advertisers are scum in the fedi world. If
| you know anyone thinking they can rep their product on it they
| will be in for one heck of a backlash.
| SLWW wrote:
| Well, I will say that while you might think that Twitter has
| somehow taken a grim turn for the worst. Most people, outside of
| the most niche instances, will not find a "safe" harbor.
|
| I'm a long time user of the fediverse, I can't help but say that
| I love the freedom of having a bunch of independent nodes all
| communicating, all with our different standards and so forth.
| It's very freeing but it comes at a cost, most instances, however
| hard you try, will not censor half the things you would never see
| on Twitter. People like Twitter because of their draconian
| moderation efforts, I was banned from Twitter because I told
| someone that a death threat was not ok; apparently Twitter
| decided that I since i said "shut up" that i was somehow the
| aggressor.
|
| I'm tired of this idea that "Twitter's future is bleak"
| mentality, all because some rich guy bought it that would rather
| the platform be less strict when it comes to political thought.
| If it is the town square of the internet, it makes sense that
| people should be able to say what they want and be laughed at if
| they are being an idiot. Twitter was never a good platform in any
| sense of the word, it is probably now the best it's ever been,
| and it will be better once the active user count is under a
| thousand. People ruin things, don't be surprised when they ruin
| some mastadon instance you spend time on.
|
| As a side note, the people that run mastadon are a bit... off
| when it comes to ethics, so i would recommend pleroma which has
| had less, egregious, errors in the past.
| cr4nberry wrote:
| > As a side note, the people that run mastadon are a bit... off
| when it comes to ethics
|
| Could you give more info... sounds like there's some juicy
| details here
| SLWW wrote:
| There is a lot i can't really talk about on this forum as I
| want to be sensitive to others and I can't exactly "spoiler"
| details that are gross/disturbing.
|
| If you so desire the information is out there, and there are
| blogs and so forth on the internet that link to the details.
|
| However i will summarize. Mastadon has taken a staunch
| position against racism and nazi ideas, which is fine.
| However they will go after those who are not so militant in
| this en devour, even if they do not support the
| aforementioned ideas, there's a lot of shaming that goes on
| if you don't all decide to block the same instances for
| example. However they have, many times over, allowed certain,
| borderline illegal (usually linking to illegal) content to be
| freely accessible on said platforms in the early days (for
| like a good 6+ months) of mastadon. After a lot of complaints
| they still did very little to nothing to stop that behavior.
| This is the source of my hate for mastadon and those
| instances. They have shown in the past that they are not
| consistent in what they block, they do not allow others to
| have agency and still federate with them, and they have
| turned a blind eye to the proliferation of child abuse. Gab
| has a hard block coded into mastadon, you can not federate
| with them unless you actively modify the code; however, other
| instances that are completely untenable are not blocked in
| the same manner.
|
| It was for this reason that the great "split" happened, about
| a year or two-ish ago. Where a lot of mastadon instances no
| longer federate with large portions of the fediverse. It's
| caused a weird bubble. I just will never forget the twisted
| concept of, "if you are racist, or like Hitler we can't have
| you" while on the other hand, leaving a large (believed
| intentional) gap for illicit materials that personally, it
| breaks my heart to see that kind of degeneracy. On our
| instances we do not block political ideologies, however when
| it comes to drawn or real child abuse, we have never allowed
| it, and will never allow it. It is one of the greatest evils
| of our time.
|
| EDIT: this is my opinion from what i saw back in the early
| days, they could have changed, i don't chance it, just know
| when reading that this was a long time ago in internet years
| and a lot of those people aren't as active as they used to
| be. I hope they have improved the community, but i will
| always hold this grudge.
| wmf wrote:
| Nazis bad, hentai good?
| SLWW wrote:
| Nazis bad, loli good, cub good, real abuse ok, animal
| abuse ok.
|
| Again, not saying they haven't changed, but i don't trust
| like that.
| msravi wrote:
| The last time a big move to mastodon was tried, this happened.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31195851
|
| I think what we need is just a twitter feed without any
| censorship (apart from those required by law), that will allow
| us to add our own customized filters. And maybe people can
| publish (and probably even sell) their custom filters. Somewhat
| like adblock lists that we have now.
|
| That would get rid of blanket censorship (at the server level
| if it's mastadon) as well as allow people to consume/engage
| with accounts they choose.
| teeray wrote:
| I'm not sure why blocklists aren't sufficient. Users with
| similar interests pool together to block content that they find
| disagreeable, so that others with similar views also aren't
| subjected to that content. It's basically an opt-in filter
| bubble. If your views change, so then can your filter bubble.
|
| All of the existing moderators at Twitter could do their exact
| same job--the difference is that users get to choose whether or
| not they subscribe to their filter or not (which even makes the
| filter more of an editorial product).
| SLWW wrote:
| It's not that straight forward.
|
| It's a moving target, if an instance is blocked enough it
| will move to a different domain and start federating again.
|
| It's just something to keep in mind.
| Avamander wrote:
| > I'm not sure why blocklists aren't sufficient.
|
| We have a great example to see why - email has existed for
| decades and neither spam or abuse is a solved problem. Both
| waste years of manhours each day.
| teeray wrote:
| But... it is solved. I rarely ever see true spam in my
| inbox---filters pick it up and sequester it.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It sounds nice in theory. In practice, what has already
| happened is that users get bullied by political extremists
| into blocking instances said extremists don't like, under
| threat of themselves being defederated. Most instances yield,
| because getting cut off from the main network defeats the
| point of running an instance in the first place.
|
| In the end, Mastodon gives users freedom to pool and block
| content they find disagreeable... as long as they disagree
| with the same content the activists disagree with. Otherwise,
| you get branded as undesirable by association, in an "if
| you're not with us, you're against us" fashion.
| anderspitman wrote:
| Is there a way with Mastodon to have an account on a hosted
| server but use an ID from a domain you control? Like if I wanted
| to have my ID be @me@social.apitman.com but pay for an account on
| another server rather than have my own.
|
| Seems like it should be possible with Let's Encrypt.
| lxe wrote:
| The ergonomics of the fediverse just aren't fleshed out yet. Why
| do I need to join a server? What advantages/features do I get?
|
| At least with email, I get clear understanding of what I'm
| signing up for with individual email hosts, like spam filters,
| privacy, inbox size, attachments, app compatibilities, etc...
| kzrdude wrote:
| Joining a server is fine. The friction between servers is not
| (why is this thread not showing every response from the whole
| fediverse, why is it so hard to browse what people said,
| jumping through different instances? Why are there two
| different UIs for viewing a message and only one of them uses
| your home instance etc)
| baq wrote:
| Everything old is new again. Usenet keeps getting reinvented.
| haunter wrote:
| I still don't see how would you make people pay because as it
| stands most, if not all, big servers are purely run on donations.
| And as I was looking around the software itself doesn't support
| ads or promoted posts.
|
| I liked the idea of Mastodon but if it ever gets big (which is
| also a interesting considering 6 years in the biggest server
| still doesn't have 1m users [0]) then I can't see people paying
| for it, just like how most people don't pay for Twitter, Discord,
| or reddit or for email to give a federated example.
|
| 0, https://instances.social/mastodon.social
| schmichael wrote:
| I think there's a few options here:
|
| 1. Ad supported high scale instances like email has gmail,
| hotmail, etc.
|
| 2. Silo'd instances like if all of the NWS accounts, or even
| all of the US federal government accounts, moved to their own
| instance.
|
| I think ideally a little of both would happen with lots of
| folks still happy to use their own instance or a donation based
| one.
| jacooper wrote:
| The German government is already doing 2, they have their own
| Activitypub instance.
| tester756 wrote:
| It feels like recently there's a lot of about Mastodon on HN
|
| is this some kind of ad?
| SLWW wrote:
| You also have the options of pleroma, misskey, and a few other
| options.
|
| I prefer pleroma.
|
| I hold a great dislike for mastadon, though they are all
| compatible so feel free to do your research for what you are
| looking for in a software stack. It's hard to move when you
| establish yourself.
| mikkergp wrote:
| I suspect it's related to the recent news that Elon Musk
| purchased Twitter (Source:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/27/technology/elon-musk-
| twit...). I think some folks may be curious about alternatives
| to Twitter given the unknown nature of changes to come.
| 10g1k wrote:
| Twitter has been a left wing extremist echo chamber for years.
| Ever since it became acceptable to silence and ban anyone and
| everyone who failed to comply with far left dogma. Now the sky is
| falling because they fear twitter might bring back something
| close to free speech. So they're panicking, fluttering around,
| squawking, etc, seeking another safe space.
|
| The funny part is that if they all migrate to Mastodon, they'll
| find it's where all the really weird extremists went before them.
| I mean Mastodon is packed with serious right wing and left wing
| extremists of every sort, along with probably dangerous p3rv3rts,
| and various other disgusting individuals such as politicians and
| reporters.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Can Mastodon ever reach the scale of Twitter? Does their
| architecture answer the question of what happens when Obama
| tweets an image to 150 million followers? Hopefully the answer is
| not "the local Mastodon instance owner gets a $100k AWS bill next
| month."
|
| Currently Mastodon.social, which I understand to be the largest
| instance, has tragic performance with only ~125k users. Every
| page load takes multiple minutes. It leaves me wondering how
| Mastodon can replace Twitter in practice.
|
| Edit: and when I say "multiple minutes" that's an estimate ...
| it's been several minutes and there's no sign that it will ever
| render.
| groffee wrote:
| I think the fundamental issue with Mastodon is the user
| experience is non-existent, it's actively painful to use.
|
| Everyone focuses on the 'tech stack', but when it comes to
| actually using a product no-one cares about that, not even other
| 'tech' users. People just want something that works so they don't
| have to.
|
| People can hate on Twitter but it's polished, and it works.
| goldforever wrote:
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