Administered by:
Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson @carnage4life threads and bluesky are single monolithic platforms. masto federated. so would likely depend on which masto server someone's posting on i'd guess as a starter...
also, purely anecdotally/for my own part, there's less of a culture of boosting/liking/trying to make things go viral for the algorithm. lack of apparent engagement may not signal lack of people actually reading posts/following links/etc.
@scottjenson @carnage4life "we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!" if they're only coming to see number go up engagement metrics... they may have a hard time. maybe they should come here to, oh i don't know, spread information? have targeted discussions with specific folks (rather than hoping for drive-by engagement)?
@patrick_h_lauke So is the only alternative "number go DOWN" metrics? I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm trying to find a way to have both be possible: how can we keep our soul but still have a diverse community.
My concern is that your comment uses the "we don't want a number go up mentality" argument to hide the fact that our community is a mono culture.
@scottjenson sounds a bit like "people don't engage with my content, so it's a monoculture"?
@scottjenson the alternative is a "number mean NOTHING" metric...
@patrick_h_lauke The metrics are clear, people are leaving mastodon, our daily actives are going down. I agree that pursing follower count is not what Mastodon should be about, we likely agree on many points here. I'm just trying to say 'being more welcoming of other points of view' shouldn't be controvertial. Yet so many replies have been "we don't want them here!" which feels very head-in-the-sand to me.
@scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke What do you understand of being welcome of other people's points of view?
Do we have to agree?
Do we have to like?
Do we have to share?
Is it hostile if we don't do those things?
Should we be forced to engage with topics we don't care about (no matter what they are)?
Being hostile and not engaging is not the same, and this is the first toot in this thread I see you making that it somehow clear.
@DiogoConstantino @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke the last time somebody said you need to listen to alternative points of view they went on to tell me that Jews were running in the world. Quite frankly there are a lot of opinions and views that I'm glad I don't get the pleasure of having algorithmically jammed down my throat...
@scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke sorry for the godwin but you see where this is going, right?
@scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke are you asking us to mastodon better?
CC: @patrick_h_lauke@mastodon.social
@scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke “The metrics are clear, people are leaving mastodon, our daily actives are going down.”
This is exactly the kind of stupid meltdown that shows exactly how you are still brainwashed by monolithic social media dumpster fire driven by engagement, profit and a fake notion of inclusivity. You are still trying to mimic Twitter and you don’t belong on Mastodon, senile old man.
I was on a #mastodon instance for a while, hosted by a tech Youtuber. When that instance shut down, I moved to another independently hosted mastodon instance, then decided to self-host a Pleroma (alternative to mastodon) server and have been on that ever since (a couple years).
#selfhost
@matthew @patrick_h_lauke @scottjenson nice. Was thinking about pleroma Server myself.
@scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke "people are leaving mastodon" oh my gosh! A trend! You should go follow it.
@wizardponderingorb @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke I have heard that like two dozen times in the last three years, but hey, here we are yet. What a mystery.
@Argyle13 @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke Yes Scott is sad so this is the one that will *actually* do us in.
Having never interacted with none of the people in this thread outside of it, that seems like a dick way of putting things.
Even if someone has ideas that you don't agree with (and which will never get approval of majority), just talking why the experience/opinion exists may lead to other improvements.
[This of course barring stuff that can be seen as a threat to safety. Fascists and the like.]
@iju What's a dick way of putting things? Following trends or the thing where the corpo compared his AI advertising struggle to the struggle of black people on the internet? Or Scott being sad?
@scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke metrics don't apply to real life conversations, how are you measuring daily active users? there's no tracking keystrokes or any of that shit here so how? Guessing? Fedi keeps growing, year after year, and still people babble about people leaving, lol. It's a self-curated timeline.
"people are leaving mastodon, our daily actives are going down"
Same thing has been happening to Bluesky over the past year.
https://bluefacts.app/bluesky-user-growth
From some of the anecdotes I've seen, it sounds like at least part of this is the same reason people don't stick around here: not enough activity and/or diversity (you might know Bluesky is very US-centric).
@scottjenson But of course, the fediverse does have some unique challenges, such as the federated bits poking out too much, confusing people, and, well, random people enforcing unwritten, sometimes contradictory rules across different communities.
The only way I see out of that is to stop gatekeeping the fediverse, and focusing on communities. Anyone should be able to join the fediverse, just like anyone can go on the internet.
I don't care that Meta is part of the fediverse through Threads, we can all just block them and move on.
Or if Truth Social decided to turn federation back on. Them federating means nothing. We'll block them, and move on.
@scottjenson I guess I'm just not as attached to the idea of the fediverse as being one community that needs to follow the same rules and discuss the same topics in approved ways?
My two bits:
Calls for homogenity are pretty distasteful even on company platforms with detailed rules based on US legal and social agreements.
It's even more so in a multinational platform, where an impactful number of people are non-North Americans, or otherwise part of some "misunderstood minority".
Ofc there are some stuff that falls under "basic dignity", but in general it should be possible to live with different POVs without having to start flame wars.
@patrick_h_lauke I've spent the majority of this day denying strawman arguments. The only energy I have left is to say "no, that's not AT ALL what I meant"
Why is it that I suspect his "diverse community" doesn't include me?
That would be hilarious, if only it wasn't so... typical.
@scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke
When Twitter went full Nazi Bar, a lot of writers and journalists I followed there came to Mastodon, where I duly followed them.
Within a month, virtually all of them went silent here, but post regularly on Bluesky, where I maintain an account primarily to stake my username.
Since posting on two or more sites is a cut&paste exercise, I don't understand their behavior at all.
When broadcast media was invented, the only way to know if people were listening, then watching, was by sampling surveys.
Now, it's follower counts, or god forbid, boosts and likes. I do *read* print columnists whose opinions I don't like, and I often skip reading ones I do like if the topic holds no interest for me.
Accordingly, I follow a lot of people here, but get more from the posts *they* boost, from people I don't follow.
So there's really no metric feedback for hundreds of posts I read every week, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be publishing here.
I do often boost items I like, but receive virtually no feedback from my small population of followers, whose change in numbers I don't track, but assume if they're still following me, they appreciate, or at least don't hate what I boost. My own posts are mostly whispers into the void (per the feedback), but that doesn't stop me from making them, and I assume they're glanced at the same as I do with what scrolls through my home feed.
@RealGene @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke actually had been getting offline responses to things I had posted here a couple of times. Which also made me realize that people seem to be reading what I'm typing here and seem to find it useful. Even if I don't get a favorite or boost on a post.
Yeah, the missing feedback might turn some/our dopamine addicted brains down, unfortunately.
This is why I never follow any journalist on social media. They don't like it? Too bad. It's only RSS for me. @RealGene @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke
The short answer seems very strongly to be "it's irrelevant because that's not what people here want"
Mastodon and fedi in general are very much countercultural. Most people who come to these platforms do so to get away from other platforms, many of which are more inclusive of mainstream voices.
So by its very nature, mastodon has a selection bias for people who do not want inclusivity.
@pixx @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke
This take...makes no sense. "Countercultural" is almost never anti-inclusive. Counter-culture knows what it's like to be excluded.
The idea that "mainstream" voices are being "excluded" is ridiculous...mainstream voices are never excluded...it's actually a decent definition of "mainstream".
But the original thread is not better...the idea that "number go down" is not something I've seen supported (but neither have I seen it opposed) but the idea that more interaction = more diversity is just weird.
I dunno...earlier in the thread there's a suggestion "oh there's less people feeding the algorithm" and I'm not sure OP even knows how Mastodon/Fediverse works.
@danbrotherston @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke
> Counter-culture knows what it's like to be excluded.
Sure. It does not follow that counter-culture is not also exclusive, that makes no sense.
> The idea that "mainstream" voices are being "excluded" is ridiculous...mainstream voices are never excluded...it's actually a decent definition of "mainstream".
Yes, they're not excluded _from mainstream spaces_; people come here _to avoid those spaces_ and thus as a direct rejection of the people _who are in them_. This argument also makes no sense.
Fedi can reasonably be defined by what it is _not_. It is absolutely hostile towards corporate actors, engagement farming, and much of "normal" / "mainstream" culture.
Twitter remains a much more mainstream space; many people are here specifically to avoid it _and the people on it_. Which continues to be, well, most of them.
@pixx @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke
Oh no....we're hostile to engagement farming and corporate PR departments.
No, you're right...we're inclusive of people...ONLY people.
People in "mainstream" places are not excluded here, neither are mainstream viewpoints and opinions nor mainstream ideas.
The only thing that is being excluded then is financialization and corporate capture.
I call that "inclusive".
It's the equivalent of the paradox of tolerance. Being tolerant of intolerance is intolerant. Being inclusive of grifts and PR is exclusive.
I am not here to avoid the PEOPLE on twitter...I'm here to avoid the grifts, bots, and nazis--ooh...woops, you're right...we are not inclusive of Nazi's either. I guess you have a point.... 
Honestly, I find this take bizarre...this place has it's problems, but it's vastly more inclusive than Twitter or Bluesky.
@danbrotherston @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke
Fedi is very inclusive of traditionally excluded people, and very _unfriendly_ to normies, even if it's not actively hostile.
There's also a very, very obvious political bias, which is just as extreme (but in different directions) than mainstream platforms, and one which is not particularly welcoming of normie opinions either.
@danbrotherston @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke
Example: I have very strong negative opinions about AI. I also know that _almost everyone_ I've encountered IRL has at least found it _cool_. At least one friend has said they only avoid AI because they know _I_ don't like it.
Anyone talking about AI in anything resembling a positive light is probably going to have a bad time here. That's a _lot_ of normal people right now.
There's a lot of things that are normal that probably shouldn't be that people here do not like. This does not change that they are normal.
Normal people coming here and talking normally _will_ receive harassment because of it.
@pixx @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke
I dunno...I have a nuanced and not entirely negative view of AI, and I don't have a bad time here.
Having my ideas challenged isn't "a bad time"...and if I really wanted to, I could find people who did feel differently. There's over a million people on here, not all of them feel the same way.
That said, I have never seen the harassment you speak of, and certainly I cannot imagine that someone would be harassed for "normal" actions and opinions.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
@pixx @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke
As for Fedi being unfriendly to "normies" ... I've seen conversations here explicitly discussing how to be welcoming to new people from other platforms.
But there is an inherent complexity to a distributed network that simply doesn't exist for a centralised corporatised network.
I do think that people will find a difference here between the intentionally algorithmically addictive feed from Twitter vs. the chronological feed here, just as any addictive experience is different from a neutral one.
@danbrotherston @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke
> how to be welcoming
Yeah there's a lot of desire and moralizing about being welcoming, until it actually happens and a lot of the people are Wrong about Some Important Thing
@danbrotherston @pixx @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke people who are too addicted to the crack-like fix of engagement-farming algorithmic feeds will either detox or self-select out, and *that's fine.*
this reminds me of Automattic's current crusade to make line go up with tumblr metrics which is chipping away at the core UX which makes tumblr tumblr and makes its core userbase so loyal.
growth doesn't need to be an end goal.
@danbrotherston @pixx @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke fwiw earlier today I muted somebody who was explicitly calling to bully "AI bros," which: define "AI bro" bc as you said one can have nuance on genAI. but there are definitely rabid tribal AI haters here and I don't blame them too much.
it might also be worth considering that fedi - even The Mastodon Network™ which is a subset - has neighborhoods, boroughs, cities, and even continents (eg non-Latin charsets), so what exactly are we discussing?
@pixx @danbrotherston @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke
Challenging someone to rethink something, or in many cases *think* about something is not aggression or exclusion.
There are many knowledge experts here. They will share that knowledge freely. Many of them are the best in the world and do not suffer fools lightly.
If someone expects to be handheld through things which can be looked up easily, this is probably the wrong environment for that. That said, I’ve had people come out of nowhere to solve problems for which I could not find a solution.
Mastodon is what you make of it, unless what you’re trying to make is an algo driven engagement machine. That is not our jam.
@pixx @danbrotherston @scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke thinking back to some periods in time when generally accepted attitudes and behaviours should absolutely have faced rejection from those who were more clear-sighted, your observation is not at all necessarily a criticism. Normie is not inherently good or bad, but some things normies tend to be passive, blasé or naive about can raise hackles around here. Is that what op is talking about?
@scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke do the same metrics of the Attention Economy apply to Mastodon? Should them?
@scottjenson we have fedi instances for LGBTQ+ furries, all the way to instances for rabid right-wing neonazis. i'm not sure i'd call that a monoculture (compared to, say, monolithic platforms like threads and bluesky, where they are all smushed into a single instance)
@scottjenson seems like now you're shifting the goalpost. are we talking about "people don't like / fave / reply as much" (engagement) or "people actively tells me they don't want my content here" (and again, on which server are they? that's always an important aspect too)
@patrick_h_lauke Good point, I didn't mean to shift the goal posts! Part of my goal here is to understand the problem better. The original post was superficially about engagement but it was really about how a journalist isn't welcome here on Mastodon. (and people seem to be quite happy about that!)
So yeah, my argument is likely shifting with the replies I'm getting. But I can't believe that asking for 'a big tent' is considered a bad thing.
@scottjenson "(and people seem to be quite happy about that!)" there's always assholes everywhere?
who's saying that a "big tent" is a bad thing? fedi is so varied, there's lots of tents for every possible idea, and with the federation they can spread to other tents.
i'm not sure what you're proposing here other than "people shouldn't be unwelcoming" (fair, but again, assholes everywhere, of different shapes and sizes across the various instances) and "please clap/like/subscribe/engage!"
@scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke I've seen that on every platform I've been on since 2000. Assholes are usually more vocal. But actively being an asshole towards is a problem not just for journalists.
ironically this thread and related posts of mine have seen a TON of engagement today. clearly the #monoculture agrees with me...
@patrick_h_lauke @scottjenson @carnage4life
I feel that the comparison between Mastodon/other is currently a bit like linux/other. As one game developer put it: only 1% of their users were on linux, but that 1% created 90% of bug reports, of which 90% were applicable to other platforms.
You're not going to get similar numbers of likes on Fedi, and not just due to lack of algorithm: the platform rewards conversations more, which means longer engagement per post (instead of skimming & liking).
@iju @patrick_h_lauke @scottjenson @carnage4life
Just as an aside to this, a game co I adore put out a demo of something, and within an hour I had been able to document and replicate a severe crashing bug, and did a bug report as though they were my team, and within another hour, they had rolled a patch, and included an npc named after me. Hee.
Do good bug reports kids, the coders will love you for it.
Re algo, anyone chasing that on masto doesn’t understand the architecture or the zeitgeist.
@patrick_h_lauke @scottjenson @carnage4life I want journalists. I don't want yet another RSS feed aggregation account.
@patrick_h_lauke @scottjenson @carnage4life Exactly, this. Structurally it's not the same. Virality is not a feature.
@scottjenson @carnage4life Mastodon is 100% an echo chamber in my experience.
Some topics are taboo, and there is very little tolerance for everything that is not the accepted opinion.
I think Mastodon is the platform where I’ve seen the smallest diversity of opinions on any non-technical topic.
Yet I want the fediverse to succeed as a platform to liberate the general public from monopolistic and toxic platforms.
@thibaultamartin @scottjenson @carnage4life ^ this reeks of bad faith lol
@thibaultamartin @scottjenson @carnage4life to me the original post doesn't even make sense.
What is Mastodon? Its the software.
Everyone is free to create their own servers.
If you don't like the policies of one server, join another or create your own
@thibaultamartin @scottjenson @carnage4life I think for many people it’s important to mostly be able to discuss what is interesting to them without feeling judged. We’re all looking for a good time and we mostly don’t like conflict - except for trolls just looking to get the rise out of people. So I see how you wouldn’t spend much time on a platform that unanimously disagrees with your views and opinions.
@thibaultamartin @scottjenson @carnage4life My own experience w Mastodon has been great but I avoid expressing certain opinions (which are not really controversial but who knows) because I don’t feel like dealing with disagreements.
I do however, love the fact that this is not an outrage-driven platform. It’s a bit of a safe space for many, even if it’s an echo chamber-adjacent
@thibaultamartin@mamot.fr @scottjenson@social.coop @carnage4life@mas.to I wonder if and how the size/scope of a platform affects if it becomes an echo chamber