[HN Gopher] I think I'm not alone that Mastodon is giving me the...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       I think I'm not alone that Mastodon is giving me the ick
        
       Author : dustedcodes
       Score  : 17 points
       Date   : 2023-04-05 20:08 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (andy-bell.co.uk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (andy-bell.co.uk)
        
       | hombre_fatal wrote:
       | I think this is inevitable when your community is basically a
       | splinter group from some incumbent which ends up being an
       | identity-level trait of that splinter group.
       | 
       | It contributes to a culture of NOT being like the incumbent
       | instead of a culture of existing alongside the incumbent. Another
       | example would be Reddit clones like Voat and, sometimes, even HN.
       | 
       | When I was a pre-teen, I was banned from NeoGAF, the massive
       | gaming forum, and joined a forum that was basically a bunch of
       | NeoGAF rejects. While I enjoyed it at the time, it could never be
       | its own stand-alone gaming community and, a decade later, still
       | wasn't. Sometimes you _had_ to know about NeoGAF and its current
       | events if you wanted to fit in and understand content on the
       | splinter forum, yet the splinter forum also would want you to
       | believe they weren 't in fact chomping at the bit for more
       | NeoGAF/evilore drama.
       | 
       | Mastodon reminds me of that, especially after Musk's purchase of
       | Twitter where Mastodon became even more toxic and gleefully
       | adolescent in its anti-birdsite-isms.
        
         | jandrese wrote:
         | On the other hand 4Chan was basically formed when
         | Somethingawful kicked a bunch of weebs off of their forums.
         | They somehow managed to find their own identity.
        
       | tekla wrote:
       | As far as I can tell, the only people who moved to Mastodon are
       | the people who are REALLY tuned into Twitter rage, aka the super
       | insufferable ones.
       | 
       | Most people seem to be just fine continuing the normal
       | shitposting and whatever on Twitter.
        
         | KerrAvon wrote:
         | You don't seem to care that the sole owner of Twitter is a Nazi
         | billionaire and any time you post there you're working for him
         | for free?
        
           | kranke155 wrote:
           | Define Nazi
        
             | mcv wrote:
             | I don't see enough evidence that Musk is a Nazi, but he
             | does seem more fine with Nazis than with people who
             | disagree with him. Twitter is slowly turning into his
             | private propaganda network. It's entirely reasonable to
             | look for something better.
        
               | krapp wrote:
               | I suggest "Nazi adjacent" to describe people like Elon,
               | who don't hold explicitly white supremacist, racist or
               | anti-semitic beliefs (that we're aware of) but who seem
               | to find camaraderie with such people out of a common
               | disdain for "the wokes."
        
               | lapcat wrote:
               | I think the "Nazi" epithet just shows a lack of
               | imagination and historical knowledge by those who use it,
               | basically Godwin's Law exemplified. After all, on the
               | American side, the Confederacy predated Nazi Germany by
               | 70 years or so, and with regard to Musk, he comes from
               | South Africa with its own history of Apartheid, so there
               | are much more relevant antecedents, if you want to go
               | there. It feels like "Nazi" has become a just an empty,
               | generic stand-in for "really bad". To be honest, it's
               | difficult for me to take anyone seriously who throws it
               | around like that, regardless of how I feel about the
               | target of the insults.
        
         | mcv wrote:
         | Depends on what you mean by "insufferable". The people who
         | moved to Mastodon include people like Stephen Fry and Neil
         | Gaiman. If that's your definition of insufferable, then please
         | stay on Twitter. There's significantly less shitposting on the
         | Fediverse than on Twitter, though probably more on Mastodon
         | than on other parts of the Fediverse.
        
       | lapcat wrote:
       | > - People get real nasty about others going back to "the
       | birdsite"
       | 
       | > I want to focus on the last point because this has definitely
       | been a contributor to my recent ick. I've noticed a few folks
       | getting frankly, horrible about people moving back to Twitter
       | recently and I think it's a bit unfair.
       | 
       | I think it's a bit unfair to say that "Mastodon" is giving you
       | "the ick" when you really mean that a few folks on Mastodon are
       | giving you the ick.
       | 
       | I'm on Mastodon, and I haven't seen this at all. I'm not saying
       | it doesn't exist -- a bunch of crap exists on every social
       | network -- I'm saying that the author seems to be guilty of
       | stereotyping the platform.
        
         | tedunangst wrote:
         | It's weird how the people who find mastodon icky never consider
         | following less icky people.
        
         | mcv wrote:
         | Some people on Mastodon really do love to poke fun at Twitter
         | though. I can imagine that real Twitter fans might not enjoy
         | that much.
        
           | lapcat wrote:
           | Sure, I've definitely seen that. But that wasn't one of the
           | author's complaints. Instead there was the rather strange
           | complaint:
           | 
           | > People relentlessly calling Twitter the "birdsite"
           | 
           | Twitter users have been calling Twitter the birdsite since
           | forever, so I don't get the criticism of Mastodon. Maybe now
           | though we'll start calling it the dogsite.
        
       | pisscel wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | sdfghswe wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
       | 2022-11-07 wrote:
       | Mastadon depends a lot on what instance you're on. You're
       | community is primarily your instance and non-instance users are
       | secondary (discovery is bad outside the instance). Unlike Twitter
       | you have to be intentional about your community.
       | 
       | I've been on Mastadon since before Musk said anything about
       | buying Twitter. I never viewed it as a Twitter replacement, but I
       | never spent much time on Twitter to begin with.
       | 
       | I think a lot of people came to Mastadon to look for "Twitter but
       | not Twitter". That's never going to exist. Not in decentralized
       | form, not otherwise.
        
         | lapcat wrote:
         | > Mastadon depends a lot on what instance you're on. You're
         | community is primarily your instance and non-instance users are
         | secondary
         | 
         | I don't agree with this at all. Most of my following and
         | followers are on other instances, and that seems to be true of
         | them too, unless you happen to be on the biggest instance
         | mastodon.social, which has a disproportionate number of total
         | Mastodon users, but as a result also doesn't have much of a
         | "community" is such.
         | 
         | New Mastodon users, especially Twitter refugees, tend to sign
         | up for whatever instances happen to be available for signup at
         | the time.
        
           | 2022-11-07 wrote:
           | It's interesting that we have such different experiences. I'm
           | on a small instance that's mostly insular. I have a good
           | experience anytime I'm looking at local feeds, but anytime I
           | look at the global feed or search outside the instance the
           | results are very low quality. I follow people outside my
           | instance, but never ones I've discovered through Mastadon.
        
             | lapcat wrote:
             | Any social network is what you make of it. You can choose
             | to socialize as much or as little as you want.
        
         | voipu wrote:
         | [flagged]
        
       | 19throw19 wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
         | lapcat wrote:
         | > I've been saying this for months now. Mastodon (and the
         | Fediverse in general) is a failed idea. It may not be visible
         | now, but it will be in a few years down the line.
         | 
         | Funny, that's what we Mastodon users are saying about Twitter.
         | ;-)
        
           | 19throw19 wrote:
           | [flagged]
        
             | lapcat wrote:
             | > I never had a Twitter account, and I don't even lurk
             | 
             | Interesting. Do you have a Mastodon account? Or are you
             | just making grand pronouncements about things that you're
             | completely unfamiliar with?
             | 
             | [EDIT:] And apparently you didn't have a Hacker News
             | account until 15 minutes ago, so I have to wonder where
             | exactly you've been allegedly saying things for months?
        
               | 19throw19 wrote:
               | [flagged]
        
       | jandrese wrote:
       | The bit about tone policing is under appreciated IMHO. If you are
       | very careful to never offend anyone then you will never be
       | influential. Influence is about changing people's mind and people
       | may be offended when you challenge their preconceived notions.
       | 
       | Now obviously you need moderation on large discussion platforms.
       | The disproportionate effect of trolls can't be ignored, but it is
       | possible and even easy at times to go overboard and create a
       | space where nothing of value can be discussed. It's the sort of
       | thing you see when people are complaining that a space feels
       | stuffy and corporate.
        
         | krapp wrote:
         | I disagree. It's entirely possible to have discussions of value
         | between people of differing beliefs without offense, certainly
         | without _purposely seeking to offend._ That and the
         | "influence" culture it creates is a large part of what people
         | fled to Mastodon to avoid. You don't have a right to come into
         | someone else's space and insist on telling them they're wrong
         | about their beliefs or identity or whatever you take issue
         | with. There are plenty of spaces on the internet where the
         | rough-and-tumble of politics and argument and offense are
         | welcome, but it doesn't have to be everywhere.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-04-05 23:02 UTC)