[HN Gopher] proofInAToot
___________________________________________________________________
proofInAToot
Author : perihelions
Score : 67 points
Date : 2022-11-06 19:00 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mathstodon.xyz)
(TXT) w3m dump (mathstodon.xyz)
| chatterhead wrote:
| Toot is a term for doing a bump of coke.
|
| More Mastodon spamming.
| groffee wrote:
| This is why Mastodon is garbage, 1, links at the bottom of an
| endless scroll so they can never actually be reached, and 2, the
| design is complete garbage, there's no ux/ui there at all.
|
| I'm sure the content is great but no-ones ever gonna see it.
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| Literally everyone I've seen who gave mastodon an honest try
| has said that they get _remarkably_ more engagement with a
| fraction of the followers they had on Twitter.
|
| I've seen this said hundreds of times. It's said so often that
| it's become a running joke.
| warent wrote:
| also, 3: "toot"
| tunesmith wrote:
| I'm not sure that's a valid proof.
| [deleted]
| berkes wrote:
| Your dramatic hyperboles hide the fact that there is _some_
| truth in what you say.
|
| The page linked is not what people commonly see or use when
| interacting with "the mastodon network". It's a public view on
| a single instance of a single hashtag.
|
| It certainly should be designed better. But you've clearly not
| spent any time to look into "the UX of mastodon" because if you
| did, you've known that the page you are criticizing, is an
| exceptional and hardly used one.
|
| Also, please try to be civil and constructive. It gets your
| otherwise valid point across much better. Now you sound like a
| nitwit with a grudge, while the points you make do have some
| merit.
| thot_experiment wrote:
| ngl, my least favorite part of mastodon is the fact that tweets
| called toots, i guess the name might become rote if it gets
| popular enough but i've ventured out into the fediverse a few
| times and it's always struck me as really awkward/silly
|
| is that just me?
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I think it's cute!
| keithnz wrote:
| I thought the same when I joined twitter with its "tweet". In
| my head it just seemed weird, but quickly didn't even think
| about it anymore once I found interesting things
| permo-w wrote:
| I wonder if they could just use "tweet".
|
| is "tweet" copyrighted?
|
| [as far as I know] hashtags were originally just a twitter
| thing and they spread outwards. obviously the word "tweet" is
| more interlinked with twitter's name and identity, but, if it's
| not copyrighted, I don't see why it shouldn't be able to spread
| like hashtags did
| bombcar wrote:
| No idea if this link works, but Tweet(tm) is a trademark of
| Twitter(r).
|
| https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:hi.
| ..
| LukeShu wrote:
| It annoys me to no end that TESS links aren't sharable. But
| if you click the "TSDR" button, it will take you to an
| equivalent TSDR page for which the link is sharable:
|
| (It seems Twitter actually has the "tweet"(r) trademark in
| two different classes, so I'm not sure which one you were
| originally linking too)
|
| https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85116717&caseType=SERIAL
| _...
|
| https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=77715815&caseType=SERIAL
| _...
| detaro wrote:
| For me it doesn't matter if its Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon,
| HN, ... - mentally it is "posts". I'd have to go look what the
| UI on my instance actually says (some change it).
| Cyberdog wrote:
| Then call them "posts." Everyone knows what that means, it's
| not Mastodon-specific, and it's not a euphemism for something
| associated with bodily function that I'm aware of.
| klyrs wrote:
| It's even weirder in Canada, where "toot" means "fart" but also
| "toke" as in inhaling cannabis smoke from a joint / pipe /
| bong.
| PainfullyNormal wrote:
| > It's even _weirder_ in Canada, where "toot" means "fart"
| but also "toke" as in inhaling cannabis smoke from a joint /
| pipe / bong.
|
| No, that makes it sound just about right.
| klyrs wrote:
| Fair point
| itslennysfault wrote:
| Means the same in the US afaik, but maybe it's regional.
| That's the first thing I thought when I heard it.
| toofy wrote:
| no, i find it weird too lol.
|
| however, remember how many people used to so confidently say
| things like, "i will never use the word tweet. i'm an adult
| with an adult voice!"
|
| if Mastodon catches on, it'll just naturally fall into
| vernacular just like tweet did.
| echelon wrote:
| No, it's not just you. It's an awful name.
|
| Gimp is the worst offender amongst badly named products. Its
| name is both a kink sex term and a slur against disabled
| people.
|
| "Toots" are in the same category as "Cockroach" DB. Not
| something you want to think about. From among similar feature
| offerings, I'd go for the one that wasn't horribly branded.
| reitanqild wrote:
| Now, here is the interesting part: I was well into my
| thirties before learning that Gimp was a slur, and HN is
| still the only place I know it from IIRC.
|
| The third use I hadn't heard about until you mentioned it.
| warent wrote:
| Just watch "pulp fiction" and you'll never hear gimp the
| same again.
|
| Part of the solution though is to just pronounce it "jimp"
| which is the official way anyhow
| thot_experiment wrote:
| The other part of the solution is to just use Krita
| instead. XD
|
| (but seriously there are very very few things that "The
| Gimp" is good for these days when you have the option to
| use Krita)
| warent wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendation, it looks very promising.
| Photopea is another great option that I've been meaning
| to try
| appletrotter wrote:
| I knew it was a slur in middle school
| esrauch wrote:
| Cockroach DB makes sense in the "impossible to kill, would
| survive a nuclear war" connotation, which are desirable
| traits for a database.
|
| Calling them "farts" might be accurate but seems strictly
| unflattering.
| haunter wrote:
| Shortening Mastodon to Masto is even worse
|
| "Here are some #MastoTips"
| https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/mastotips
|
| T-t-thanks
| dismalpedigree wrote:
| Oh man. Just "published" a Masto-Toot. The kids are not
| happy.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| I like it for the specific reason that it's ridiculous.
| nathan_f77 wrote:
| I honestly thought this was going to be something to do with
| flatulence before I clicked on the link!
| batman-farts wrote:
| "Tweets" and "blogs" sounded stupid, too, but they got
| bludgeoned into our collective consciousness. If you step back
| and think about it for a second, "blogging" sounds like
| something you might do in the bathroom.
| berkes wrote:
| There was a "hit" commercial in the Netherlands, IIRC
| somewhere early 2000's. Lot's of funny gags and word-jokes.
| Also this one (translated from memory).
|
| > A. Also, my husband blogs twice a day.
|
| > B. Eeww, Yuck!
|
| (Joke being that, for people not knowing what "blogging" is,
| but who want to appear worldly, it's safe to presume it's
| something really gross)
| OscarCunningham wrote:
| I bet he googles himself too!
| appletrotter wrote:
| > "blogging" sounds like something you might do in the
| bathroom.
|
| This is really stretching it.
| kixiQu wrote:
| Eugen, the CEO, feels similarly to you. A good chunk of the
| userbase _likes_ that it 's silly. Conflict has ensued.
| OscarCunningham wrote:
| The term 'toot' is gone from the latest release.
| https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/18583/files
| benatkin wrote:
| Among other reasons they didn't want to get sued by HootSuite
| because _toot_ rymes with _hoot_. (Just BSing)
| INTPenis wrote:
| I listened to an old radio show from late 2000s and heard them
| making fun of the word tweet, so clearly it wasn't widely
| accepted at first either. But the people eventually prevailed
| because the platform was so much fun for them.
| perihelions wrote:
| (I edited the title half an hour after submitting, solely to
| remove the octothorpe (#). The reason is because Mastodon has HN
| bots which are retooting this thread, and the literal # is
| causing the retoots to be interpreted as hashtag-using and
| polluting the submitted page with spam).
|
| (Sorry!)
| sdiacom wrote:
| secondcoming wrote:
| This is the first time I've ever read something on Mastodon. Well
| played.
| superchroma wrote:
| I've seen a lot of anecdotes on twitter of people confused by the
| mastodon server thing. There seems to be a definite fear of
| missing out on good content due to picking the wrong one. Not
| sure how you tackle that issue.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Isn't the idea that you publish on one but you subscribe to
| many?
| bombcar wrote:
| I think so (no idea personally) and if you're afraid to miss
| good toots wouldn't not signing up at all be even worse?
| INTPenis wrote:
| I know this isn't a solution but the fear of missing out is a
| psychological one. You should put those fears aside and just
| participate, live in the moment. It might work out.
| appletrotter wrote:
| If I'm living in the moment, I'm not using social media at
| all quite likely.
|
| And it doesn't matter if the effect is "psychological," it's
| going to have an effect on product outcome.
| perihelions wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20221106190108/https://mathstodo...
| robswc wrote:
| Someone more versed in social media could perhaps explain this to
| me...
|
| Are you able to "sign up once" and be able to log into every
| instance of Mastodon? Would having a "central profile" database
| break everything it stands for?
|
| I really like the idea. At the end of the day though, people
| usually follow the path of least resistance. Hence why reddit
| "wins" over forums (obv forums are much better for many things
| but you know).
|
| It seems like something I would be interested in. I have been,
| since before this twitter drama even started. Someone tried
| explaining it back then and it sorta made sense. Perhaps its
| changed in the mean time though?
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| If you just want to read posts on Mastodon, you don't need to
| sign up at all.
|
| You only need to sign up (just once) if you want to follow
| people, or post yourself.
|
| You can read all (public) posts on all instances either way.
| robswc wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| So I swear this is not on purpose, but I went to try to see
| what thing I would be interested in. I searched "Mastodon
| Technology" and it leads me here:
|
| https://mastodon.technology/about
|
| It says it's shutting down though? So they can just shut down
| and if you don't migrate your account in time, you're SoL ?
|
| I do understand a bit more now. I remember being interested
| in it around 2019 and it was a bit confusing then.
|
| Your comment clears it up quite a bit.
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| Yes, but if Twitter shut down, you wouldn't have any more
| options.
|
| That server got too big for its admin team to handle. The
| general sentiment around mastodon is that it's sad, but it
| isn't a _bad_ thing. The admins did their best, but it 's
| in everyone's best interest to shut it down gracefully
| rather than let it fester. All the users will migrate to
| new communities and continue on.
|
| Mastodon has a problem with scaling individual instances.
| It works best when there are a lot of relatively small
| instances. Once you get too many users, server resources
| get tight FAST. My instance has gone down three times for
| upgrades this week, and the admin has had to suspend new
| user registration because the server just can't keep up.
| robswc wrote:
| >Yes, but if Twitter shut down, you wouldn't have any
| more options
|
| That's totally fair. You're also SoL if you don't agree
| with their policies, etc. So I'm definitely not a fan of
| the way that works.
|
| >Mastodon has a problem with scaling individual instances
|
| That's unfortunate to hear. Seems like a "core" issue
| though... I mean, if it approaches anywhere near the
| number of DAU twitter has... no idea how that would work,
| logistically.
|
| Seems it would have to come full-circle where hosters
| have incentive beyond "hobby" and "clout" reasons.
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| There are a lot of things to complain about in the core
| of mastodon as a piece of software. That's a big part of
| why there are so many alternatives built on the same
| protocol.
|
| The idea is that by spreading the users amongst many
| smaller servers, everyone has a pretty responsive
| experience while still being able to (hypothetically)
| interact with as many users as on Twitter.
| appletrotter wrote:
| > The general sentiment is... it isn't a bad thing
|
| The general tone has seemed very defensive
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| The discussion I've seen frames it something like this:
|
| Servers rise and fall, it's part of the life cycle here.
| The admins couldn't handle the size of the server, and it
| was causing a rapidly degrading experience for everyone.
| Shutting down the server was mostly in the best personal
| interests of the admin, but people seem to be respecting
| them for that. They did the responsible thing by shutting
| down new registration, making very loud announcements,
| and giving everyone as much time as possible to migrate
| their accounts.
|
| In other words, any instance _will_ shut down sooner or
| later, and the way the admin handled this particular case
| is the most respectful way to treat the users.
|
| Sad that it happened, but much respect for handling it as
| gracefully as possible.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Are you able to "sign up once" and be able to log into every
| instance of Mastodon?
|
| No. You can follow people in other instances and interact with
| them, but your account is tied to your instance.
| robswc wrote:
| So if user A signs up on instance A, they can follow instance
| B and interact with users on instance B?
|
| Effectively, if you follow enough instances, it would
| look/feel like twitter? In the sense that you get a feed of
| interesting content from multiple users?
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Yes, across all instances that your instance federates
| with.
|
| If your instance dislikes the policy of the other instance,
| e.g. because the other instance hasn't cancelled the right
| people, they might refuse to federate with it (and the
| other way around), and then you won't see those toots.
|
| Also, some instances will defederate any instance that
| itself federates with the "wrong" instances, sometimes
| forcing an instance to choose between letting others
| dictate its federation policy or having their users lose
| access to others they're following.
| robswc wrote:
| At first I thought this wasn't a huge deal... it would be
| like having a bad experience with twitter moderation but
| now I'm thinking... in that case, you'll have to "choose"
| your first server pretty carefully then?
|
| Maybe I have a misunderstanding but I can't imagine
| convincing something like that on reddit or discord would
| go over well at all.
|
| Who and what you interact with can be changed by the
| whims of discord/reddit mods. Some even go so far as to
| craft tools/bots to extend their "power" to allow them to
| ban users across subs. This doesn't make it so you can't
| see the other users entirely though.
|
| What if you join on "gaming" and it turns out the admin
| of "gaming" is a huge d-bag and all the other instances
| decide to not federate with "gaming" ? Will you have to
| recreate your entire account?
|
| I could still be misunderstanding... but it seems like as
| time goes on, the chances of admins/mods having some
| ridiculous drama approaches 1. At least as far as discord
| and reddit have gone. Just look at the whole antiwork
| thing. Drama and struggles within the same subreddit, let
| alone different ones.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| > What if you join on "gaming" and it turns out the admin
| of "gaming" is a huge d-bag and all the other instances
| decide to not federate with "gaming" ? Will you have to
| recreate your entire account?
|
| Not entirely, you can migrate to a new instance. This of
| course depends on the old instance still being around (as
| that's where your account lives until you choose to
| migrate it), and on your account still being accessible
| (so hopefully you're not banned from it) but it's an
| option. Your followers get migrated over but your posts
| do not.
|
| So you do need to have some level of trust in the
| instance, but it's not necessarily a final decision.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| That's the drama I was missing in my life.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| Sounds like the origin story of EFNet [1]
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFnet
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| Almost every server except mastodon.social exposes local
| and federated timelines.
|
| The local timeline is the real time feed of all activity
| exclusively on your instance.
|
| Federated timeline shows the local timeline plus the public
| feeds of _any_ account that someone on your instance is
| following.
|
| With enough users on an instance, the federated feed shows
| you a good chunk of the entire fediverse traffic. It's one
| of the best ways to find new and interesting accounts to
| follow
| BeetleB wrote:
| Yep.
|
| The one major difference is you cannot "subscribe" to a
| hashtag. You can do a hashtag view, but it will be limited
| to all the toots on your server (which I believe includes
| all the toots people in other servers that folks on your
| server have subscribed to).
| robswc wrote:
| Makes sense.
|
| I never really subscribed to hashtags in the first place.
| Always seem to be filled with spam. On twitter, I just
| follow a few interesting people and they'll usually tweet
| or retweet interesting stuff, so it works out.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I never really subscribed to hashtags in the first
| place.
|
| They're useful for limited, local current events. As an
| example, there was a sudden bush fire near my relative's
| house, and it was convenient to be able to track all the
| tweets tied to that hashtag to get the latest updates.
| For events like this, the local news media has only a
| tiny fraction of the (mis)information. You get a lot more
| (mis)information by following the hashtag.
| OscarCunningham wrote:
| You can subscribe to a hashtag in the newest version: htt
| ps://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.0.0rc1
| BeetleB wrote:
| There's a reason I put quotes around the word
| "subscribe".
|
| In current Mastodon, there is no subscribing of a hashtag
| - only searching.
|
| My belief is that in the newest version, you can
| subscribe, but it's still not global. Essentially it just
| saves you from doing an explicit search and adds it to
| your feed.
|
| So if someone posts a toot in some distant instance with
| a certain hashtag, it may still not show up in my feed.
| luckylion wrote:
| Will that not become extremely resource-intensive once a
| server grows a bit and federates with other larger
| servers? E.g. you have 5000 users and they follow some
| other 50k users (each one following 10 people feels low,
| but I have no idea), you're now locally saving the twoots
| of 50000 users. And this is the same for every server, or
| is there kind of a synergy between federated servers?
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| Yes. This is why mastodon.social does not have the
| federated timelines, and why the feature is totally
| absent from the official mobile apps.
|
| Eugen (who created mastodon) has been trying to ditch the
| feature, which I think is a huge mistake. Almost every
| other server keeps it on, because it's a great part of
| what makes the fediverse special
| matsemann wrote:
| I feel the easiest explanation is that it's like e-mail.
| You can send and receive from mostly anyone, even though
| they might use different providers. Like gmail or fastmail.
| But even though you have a gmail account, you don't use it
| to log into fastmail when talking with fastmail users.
| robswc wrote:
| Makes a lot of sense.
|
| So if someone said "look at this cool OSS I created." You
| would be able to comment and see other's comments like a
| typical comment section?
| OscarCunningham wrote:
| Yes.
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| >Are you able to "sign up once" and be able to log into every
| instance of Mastodon?
|
| In short, no. But this isn't a question that makes sense in
| context, it's like asking if you can sign into Yahoo with your
| Gmail account.
|
| Let's be clear up front: mastodon is not Twitter. They look
| similar at first glance, but that's as far as it goes. Try to
| keep an open mind and appreciate mastodon for what it is
| instead of what it isn't.
|
| Each instance is an independent server. The software is often
| tweaked, custom interfaces, and each instance builds a unique
| community with their own rules. The trick is that they all
| speak the ActivityPub protocol, which allows any server to talk
| to any other.
|
| You don't need to log into other instances because your
| instance already knows how to show you content from another.
| You can interact with any account on any instance which talks
| to yours. Those remote accounts don't even have to be mastodon
| accounts! You can follow accounts on pixelfed, peertube,
| pleroma, etc all from your one mastodon account.
|
| It's often compared to email. Anyone anywhere can spin up a
| server and start sending email to Gmail, yahoo, outlook, etc.
| No two email servers have any relation to one another, but
| since everyone uses the same protocol, you can generally talk
| to anyone.
|
| Additionally, you can move your account between servers. It
| will transfer your profile and followers, but not posts.
| There's a general sentiment that posts should be ephemeral, and
| you have settings in your account to delete posts after a
| period of time.
|
| Mastodon is fundamentally different from how we've been doing
| social media, and I think that's a good thing. I've been using
| it for a couple of years, and I haven't had fun on social media
| like this since I became friends with Tom on MySpace.
|
| It's new and scary, but if anyone is considering trying it out,
| I enthusiastically encourage you to give it a good solid try
| for a week or two. The big servers are fine, but you really
| want to fine a small server with a community of interests
| similar to yours. (avoid mastodon.social like the plague)
|
| Through the last few waves of people jumping ship, almost
| everyone remarks that it's a better experience. You get more
| and more meaningful engagement on your posts, even with 1/100th
| the follower count. It's a much more fun and human experience
| than machine-fed algorithmic crap.
| robswc wrote:
| Thanks for this explanation. I think I have the best
| understanding of it, that I've ever had. I think with this, I
| could even do a TL;DR for non tech people.
|
| I guess my only question now is, what if instance "collude"
| or you end up with powermods 2.0 from reddit? I remember I
| got banned by one mod on a powertrip in a local city sub and
| woke up with messages saying I was banned in half a dozen
| default subs (I never really visited either way though).
| Would it just completely block users from that instance? as
| if they didn't exist? Why not let the user make that call?
|
| This is probably like asking "what if you don't agree with
| the moderation policy of the central authority" so maybe it
| really is just a "trade off" at the end of the day.
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| This has happened before. It goes down something like this:
|
| Server admin starts harassing people for whatever reason
| Users from that server start calling them out (usually with
| a #fediblock tag) Any sympathetic users will block the
| entire instance where the abuse is happening (this is
| called de-federation)
|
| Any instance is basically a private space, and there is no
| external authority which can influence what happens there.
| Instead, that server gets blocked from interacting with
| other servers. A server in isolation isn't much fun, so
| those users tend to migrate elsewhere until the offending
| server is empty and shuts down.
|
| The beauty is that there is no central authority which
| could potentially abuse users, but there is also no central
| authority to protect them. So we protect each other, and
| let the toxic servers stew in their own juices away from
| everyone else.
| oezi wrote:
| Great explanation!
|
| > It's a much more fun and human experience than machine-fed
| algorithmic crap.
|
| What happens when the bots show up?
| alx wrote:
| they have their own instances:
| https://botsin.space/about/more
| berkes wrote:
| In addition, its common courtesy to check the "this
| account is a bot" checkbox, when an account is a bot.
|
| And on the other side, it's a single checkbox to say "I
| want to filter any bots".
|
| It's neither perfect nor failsafe. But with enough humans
| to moderate, report and help out, I'm sure it works
| better than any centralized, algorithmic setup can ever
| work.
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| They just don't exist like they do on Twitter. We do get
| spam bots now and then, but users report and block them
| quickly. They usually give up before the admin gets around
| to banning them.
|
| Each server individually isn't a great target for spam,
| since the populations are low, and there isn't a good way
| to spam outside of your server, because the entire instance
| can block you.
|
| Not foolproof in the least, but I haven't seen anything
| more than a dozen individual spam bots in the last two
| years.
| appletrotter wrote:
| Tldr
|
| > You don't need to log into other instances because your
| instance already knows how to show you content from another.
|
| If it takes 9 paragraphs to explain this concept, I can see
| why Mastodon is so confusing for so many people.
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| It's one of those things that's tricky to explain, but
| simple to understand.
|
| But also I am bad at words and tend to over-explain.
| INTPenis wrote:
| This HN post is actually a perfect opportunity to demonstrate
| an important detail of the fediverse. See the post links to
| mastodon.xyz, one instance.
|
| I replaced mastodon.xyz with my own instance and only got two
| posts.
|
| So each instance has a fairly unique perspective based on its
| federation.
|
| And that federation is decided through mainly two factors, what
| its users follow, and AP relays. AP relays are just a cheatcode
| that gives a small instance a lot of federation by subscribing
| to relayed "toots" from other instances.
|
| But the true federation magic happens when users follow other
| users.
|
| So clearly there is very little (almost none) overlap between
| my instance and mastodon.xyz because the only mention of this
| tag was rom 2017, and one linking the HN post now.
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| Shows me error 500.
| wcerfgba wrote:
| If Mastodon's search functionality isn't federated, how are you
| supposed to find out about cool hashtags like this without
| manually exploring dozens of instances on a regular basis?
| panic wrote:
| Hashtag search works cross-instance, just not full text.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-11-06 23:01 UTC)