I was just looking up some github issues and noticed that the @username@domain.tld format is not supported by GitHub's markdown parser, instead of linking to their mastodon profile it highlights everything but the leading '@' as an email address. I wasn't sure where I would submit the issue for this and used to be I would go to twitter to shout my bug reports at the organizations official handle.
So I thought, maybe GitHub is on mastadon and I search, here are the usernames that come up:
The last one uses a :verified: macro in the username to place a blue checkmark next to their name, another uses :github: to place the github logo in their username.
Pretty interesting that you get to buy a domain name to solve the global username problem and have as many elonmusks as you like (for the viewers at home, impersonating elon is now a ban-able offense), but as for proving identity, when editing my mastodon profile and I see an option to verify that I control whatever links I post below my bio, by sticking an anchor tag in that webpage linking back to my mastodon profile. Smart, instead of being deemed worthy of a celebrity checkmark, you just prove you're the owner of X website.
If it was, then surely it would be something like @mastodon@github.com or @official@github.com? Just like with emails, you wouldn't expect official emails to be somewhere else.
And no, that doesn't mean everyone needs a full blown Mastodon server, I think just some sort of ActivityPub relay or a more lightweight server implementation would do.
> If it was, then surely it would be something like @mastodon@github.com or @official@github.com?
How would you even run Mastodon on a domain that is also expected to be an actual website? AFAIK it doesn't even have a DNS record to point it at a different address.
impersonating anyone is a "ban-able offense", and should have been from the get-go. there have been tens of dozens of accounts i've personally reported over the years. all were banned a few hours after.
if you don't mention you're a parody expect people to report your account and to get a ban.
"To be fair", it always has been. For years there's been instances of verified accounts changing their name to someone else "as a bit" and getting hit with the ban hammer.
It's always been kind of wild that verified users can just change their username and keep the tick (of course, goes against the whole seasonal name thing twitter enjoys...)
It's a problem, but for all the problems with Mastodon I try to think of the equivalent problems with email (since I think it's the analogous for federation). What keeps you from having github@example.com for your own domains?
I like their solution! every mark gets to be @mark and every jess can be @jess, as to which joe you are, just link to site you have control of to prove it.
It's just a matter of expectations and messaging to all the users they're onboarding all of a sudden, but email is a good analogy, in fact if you control your email domain and your own mastodon instance, they could be one in the same address!
Ultimately, email has a wider societal understanding that the domain doesn't necessarily do much in the way of identity verification like Twitter does even though they're both free to the public. Mastodon has more trouble with this because it looks more like Twitter than email.
Nothing, as you know, and many here (including me) do that or similar. It does occasionally confuse or upset the less tech-savvy 'github's who wonder why or how they're name is in your email address.
It seems to be tempting fate to call them "monthly active users" when almost half of them have a week-old account. What percentage of these accounts will still be active in a month? I also remember places like Voat bragging about their spike in traffic any time there was a sudden influx of people from Reddit. Just because people sign up, doesn't mean they will actually become regular users.
Nice to know, Mastodon right now is still a completely different platform, it feels more personal, a place where is still possible to discover the interesting hacking project someone is doing on their own and where people have less qualms about posting unpolished/experimental stuff. That's how it should be in our field.
It has not been like this on Twitter for... years.
Whatever culture existed on Mastodon will be drowned in the Eternal September to come. Every website feels more personal when there's only 50,000 people there.
At least it will be more similar to Eternal Septembers on internet forums than whatever happened to centralised social networks. If an Eternal September happens in your instance and you dislike the after-effects you can just... Move without losing much.
There's a local makerspace that uses PeerTube for its video projects. A lot of it is old public domain movies and stuff inspired by less old things still in copyright.
You can browse the local timeline from the web interface, which is one way. Assuming you've joined an interest where people who have similar interests hang out that's a good discovery mechanism.
Then there's cross-instance #hastag searches which can be used to find things.
You discover things when people you follow boost them or (if you're on an instance that's not too big for it to be usable) you see them on the federated timeline.
the experience is quite a bit different from twitter. a good mastodon server has mods , admins, and a community who moderate.
the signal to noise ratio is significantly better—maybe a decent comparison would be to compare here (hn) and a default sub on reddit with very little moderation—sure, you _can_ find interesting gems of a dialogue on the little moderated reddit sub, but your odds are significantly higher of finding good conversations here on hn. very very different experience.
In addition to what has already been said, choose the right instance and explore the WAY SMALLER local timeline. It's a bit hard to find the right instance though.
This is probably because these instances have closed registration either completely or are invite only for now.
Many new users must be confused by this. It would be much better to redirect them to a page that explains that this particular instance is not accepting new users right now and that they could check back later or simply choose a different instance at https://joinmastodon.org/servers.
> It would be much better to redirect them to a page that explains that this particular instance is not accepting new users right now and that they could check back later or simply choose a different instance at https://joinmastodon.org/servers.
On mastodon.social, this is exactly what I get when clicking "Create Account": A short paragraph saying that registrations on mastodon.social are closed right now, and a link to joinmastodon.org/servers.
Wouldn't be more appropriate to say ActivityPub servers? ActivityPub is the underlying protocol of Mastodon which is only one of the many available implementations. I have encountered numerous Pleroma users on the federated timeline lately.
It’s mildly amusing to me that after VCs poured billions into a decentralized blockchain-based web, the twitter exodus is here and web3 isn’t really even part of the conversation.
What numbers are those? I didn't think anything was public, and probably never will be now that the company is privately owned.
I just know anecdotally, I've been a long-time Twitter user (user id #1661), and the current mood on my feed reminds me of the Digg-Reddit exodus. It's not about the raw numbers (yet), it's about who's leaving and who will follow them.
Make no mistake, Mastodon is making history right now: At this point no matter what happens next many many people will stay in the fediverse. Interesting times!
> At this point no matter what happens next many many people will stay in the fediverse.
i'm very skeptical. it has that "use a linux pc" feeling.
let me put it like this: does anyone believe it will dethrone tiktok? or whatsapp? or facebook? or even twitter? unless something major changes (e.g. a single node that has everything and everyone on it) i'd wager there's a 0% chance of that happening. but more people will surely use activitypub. the problem is the numbers will still be tiny.
There might be hundreds of millions active users for the big apps, but I have been a part of an active and lively social network (general, not specialised) site with a few thousands users and one could already see powerful network effects emerge. Which is why I think mastodon does not have to dethrone anyone. The only thing that is needed is to acquire enough users that it will be self-sustaining. That would probably need a few million active worldwide users. It's not completely impossible, because right now there are enough people sensitive to one-platform problems, thanks to Zuckerberg and Musk.
If that happens, the big platforms have a big problem.
It's not like Mastodon is some new upstart where we can only speculate on its sustainability. I've been on there for years and there's always enough going on to keep me coming back.
I'm enjoying it, I've joined mastodon.nz which is a good choice if you are a kiwi, there is also a new dotnet.social server if you are into .NET
I think we are in a bit of sweet spot where there isn't that many people that you can follow many of the feeds ( though on some instances people have been saying it is too much ). Lot of talk of "yay, no algorithm" but actually, I think I want one, but one that works purely to find the content I likely want.
How does Mastodon work? It says you can't register on mastodon.social anymore because it's too big. If you sign up on different server, can you still interact with people on mastodon.social and other servers...?
Yes. For federated, think email. Only everyone's inbox is a feed.
Better: you get a local and federated feed, as well as the feed for who you follow. Local is just the server you're signed up to. Fed is "the world" and your follow feed is just that.
Can anyone tell me what happens if an instance is blocked by another instance?
Say I'm on a big instance, mastodon.social for example. And I follow someone who is self-hosting a single user instance. But they say something that some people don't like and my instance is not federating them with anymore. They are blocked. What happens? I won't be able to see their posts? Do I have to move to another instance which still didn't block them?
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I'm thinking about this for a while but I feel the whole network will have a peer pressure to avoid guilt by association which I'm not sure is a good thing
Yes. I've had to do this a couple times when the instance I was on was blocked by the instance I was moving to before the migration function would work. However, unless something changed, this same indirection means a post can make its way around to instances blocked by the instance the post is on.
This is wonderful! I’ve certainly noticed a lot of activity on one of my recent mastodon posts. Is it appropriate to drop our mastodon tags here?
I’m @tlalexander@queer.party and I’m a trans robotics engineer from the Bay Area, developing an open source farming robot (see my HN profile for details).
Feel free to reply to this with your fediverse handle! Also is anyone on cohost or other platforms like that? I’ve seen some friends join cohost and I submitted the application form.
I don't understand the appeal of things cohost. It just seems like "twitter, but this time we're good guys, we swear!"
Which, even if true right now, will certainly change if they get popular and become influential, because the pressures and incentives are too great. It takes some fundamental difference (like federation) to provide at least some safeguards against that.
For one, I'd love it if people posted their Mastodon handles here. Mine is @stavros@mastodon.social.
For two, and this is just out of curiosity, what's the reason for mentioning you're trans? I don't mention I'm cis when I introduce myself, it seems like nobody should care.
They also mention that they're a robotics engineer, why should anyone care about that? Because most of the world isn't robotics engineers, so it's a useful thing to know for people who are also robotics engineers or are interested in robotics.
Humans connect via points of commonality, especially ones that aren't so widely shared.
I don't know, if we were on a LGBTQ forum, I'd probably ask the same question about the "robotics engineer" bit, whereas the trans bit would be normal to mention.
I do see your point about points of commonality, I'm just curious why it was just that one and not hobbies, etc then. I just don't think that being trans should be pointed out as being "niche", I'd rather it was just your gender and we forgot about it.
People attach different levels of importance to different parts of their identity. While some trans people may wish to only state their gender, or not even their gender, when introducing themselves to find community, for some other people being trans is an important part of their experience, and they would like to share it in order to make it easier for other trans or queer people to connect with them.
I post a lot about being trans and about trans issues. Trans people like to stick together because there is a part of society that doesn’t understand issues relevant to us, and that can feel alienating. So by being in community with other trans people we feel better. I want trans people to follow me and other trans people are much more likely to follow someone if they’re trans.
But also because I’m trans, and that’s going to upset a small number of bigoted people who will refuse to follow me, and that’s how I’d like it. And since I post about being trans they’re going to find out eventually, and be a problem on my feed.
Here is my Mastodon handle: @dom96@mastodon.social (I still feel like I should instead link directly to my profile, isn't it easier to follow then? https://mastodon.social/@dom96).
Definitely new to Mastodon. If anyone has any good instance recommendations I'd appreciate them :)
Not on mastodon.social, unfortunately. (Unless the reader also happens to be on that same instance.)
In most other instances, linking to the profile would allow us to click on the follow button on that page, login to our instance in the new window that pops up, and follow you from there.
mastodon.social uses this new UI that doesn't do any of that, instead just tells you to copy-paste the address into our instance's search bar (opening it ourselves).
So @dom96@mastodon.social is not any different from https://mastodon.social/@dom96 in this case - in both cases we have to do the same thing, paste it into our instance's search bar, to be able to follow or interact in any way.
I've written far more words on the subject of blocking advertisements seeing how as I'm not interested in seeing those either. Where is the irony in that?
I can’t reply to your dead comment, but I can read it -
I mentioned those two things about myself, that I am trans and that I am a robotics engineer, because both of those things are very important to me, and I write posts pertaining to either subject. You’re right that the two subjects rarely go together. But if I posted about robots and mountain biking a lot I would write that.
You said yourself you don’t want to hear about me being trans, so it seems it was relevant for me to write that here given how much I post about it and re-share posts from other trans people. I shared information which allows you to determine you might not want to follow me.
I think it’s great that you’re working on farming technology. But I’m a whole person. Trans rights are a very important issue to me.
I suspect that if I had instead said I was left handed, you would not have written a tirade against it. I think you should think about why that is. Not just reflexively claim you would have, but think about why me mentioning being trans upsets you. It’s an important part of who I am.
Yes, I would have asked why you would present yourself as a "left-handed robotocist" or (like I already mentioned) a "robotocist with shoe size 43" or any other unrelated characteristic, especially if it had recently become commonplace for people to mention such characteristics. I'm a "whole person" as well including my left-handedness but I don't mention this other than in circumstances where handedness can be an issue, e.g when using certain tools.
Yeah, but would you have written a tirade about left handedness?
Or let me just ask this directly: do you support trans people existing and being openly trans? Because it sounds to me like you’re just triggered by my mention of being trans, and you’re trying to rationalize it and make it sound like you have a coherent logical argument for your emotional reaction.
Well, if you had presented yourself as a "left-handed robotocist' I would have to find another unrelated characteristic to write what you call a 'tirade' [1]. I probably would have asked the same question using something like 'shoe size' or 'hair colour' instead.
As to being 'triggered' by your mentioning of being 'trans' it is not so much your mentioning of being 'trans' but the fact that you - and many others, which is more what 'triggered' me - mention it in a totally unrelated context which made me question the reason for doing so. This is a new phenomenon which has cropped up in the last few years. It was not just uncommon but totally unknown when I went to university in the 90's which is also when I got my first taste of the internet, having been active in the BBS scene before that (FIDOnet etc.). It was just as unknown when I worked as an editor for several IT-related publications, it was unknown when I got a job as service developer in the late 90's. When I emigrated in 2002 it was still an unknown phenomenon. It only really started to become visible in the middle to late 2010's and as such really is a new phenomenon - hence my inquiry.
[1] 'tirade' means 'long, angry speech expressing strong dissaproval'. There is no anger in my questioning of presenting oneself using unrelated characteristics so it is not a tirade, more an inquiry or 'a seeking of information by asking questions'
Personally I think this could be solved by having two types of instances: 1) generic boring ones where you can make your own personal profile 2) specific ones acting like special interest groups where you cannot create a profile but can only post using your already existing personal one from a "generic" instance
There are times where I feel the need for a second account, but to be clear there is no “problem” for me here. I’m very happy for my main account to be about the things which are important to me, including being a robotics engineer and being trans. I mentioned them here because some people really like that combo and some people hate it, but that’s what my account is mainly about. I don’t want transphobes following me because they think I’m just going to post about robots.
That would limit the expression of "specific" interests to specific instances, thereby negating the advantage of a decentralised network. It would also make it rather easy to block any such "specific" instance by those who do not hold with those interests. Seeing how as blocking servers seems to already be a problem in the world of Mastodon I don't think this solution is an improvement.
Does Mastodon have less moderation than any other social media platform? Not looked into it deeply, so please let me know. From what I understand the instance/server owners are in charge of moderations, and a users network is a network of users from various servers.
Will Mastodon allow parody and scam accounts? Or is it on a server by server basis? Does each server have different published TOS? There used to be Christian counterstrike games servers, would there be the equivalent mastodon servers?
I guess its still in early adopters with wide eyes on best behaviour at the moment. Has it been built with the lessons learnt about moderation that Twitter has shown when celebrities like Opra bring in regular people into the system?
Your question is somewhat ill-posed since it isn't a platform but a network. A node on a network can allow parody and scam accounts, at which points other nodes are free to refuse to federate with it.
> Or is it on a server by server basis? Does each server have different published TOS? There used to be Christian counterstrike games servers, would there be the equivalent mastodon servers?
You know how a lot of content on some social media platforms is just "arbitrage" from another platform? And to copy, rather than link? (This pattern goes back decades, whether from conscious growth-hacking, or naturally.)
Maybe Mastodon will take off better if this starts happening more.
Right now, I have an account, but there's not yet anything in my feed worth logging in for. But I'm still occasionally checking a Twitter URL that someone mentions, because that's where content is concentrated.
Looks interesting but rather clunky when you are from one instance and want to comment or boost content from another instance - not as seemless as I had expected.
I thought there was a centralized identity server where all instances connected to like Discord but each instance seems like standalone island in the great big sea.
That works for something like Minecraft Realms where one company controls it, sells licenses, and moderates things. This is more like email. It wouldn't make sense for Google to control identity for Zoho, Fastmail, Outlook, and your home email server.
How are the different timelines populated? Local: the public (?) toots of your home server (eg. @<username>@<host>); Federated: how is this one populated? And then, depending on the app, there's also the home overview (?) This is all a bit confusing...
Home is your personal feed from people you've followed (including their boosts/retweets).
Local and Federated are sort of the "Explore" page (on Twitter) equivalent, except it's chronological instead of algorithm-selected.
Local is just what you said, public toots from your instance.
Federated has the known public toots from other instances. These are the ones that are known to your instance because someone in your instance follows either (a) the person that posted it, or (b) a person that boosted it.
I hope the normative people exiting to Mastodon convert out of using social media altogether and enjoy the much needed mental health respite just like the previous batch who went off to Gab and god knows where. Although, I'm not holding my breath - it would be the height of irony to see them coping with the "horrors" of the wild west that is Mastodon. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
No federation without representation!
I fear the flame wars will only increase. Maybe the internet is just not for everyone.
Seconded. Seeing some articles written by people signalling that they don’t like Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, by announcing that they’re migrating to Mastodon makes me wonder why they don’t just step down from their digital stage altogether and join the rest of us.
I suppose they’ll need to pen an article about it first to let us know.
I'm not really a seasoned user of either, but my take for now:
1. Mastodon has different dynamics than Twitter. Rather than throwing a bunch of stuff I didn't ask for in an effort to boost "engagement", Mastodon just gives me exactly what I asked for. This results in a slow moving feed of nothing but what I subscribe to. I like it.
2. Mastodon seems to have a much better content/noise ratio and to be better moderated. I don't want to be surrounded by hateful people. I'm not looking for a "public square". I'm looking for pleasant and useful interactions.
What does the EU instance have to do with any of this? The instance started before there was any talk of anyone buying Twitter.
edit: HN won't let me reply, so:
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I had a whole comment written, but you deleted and remade before I posted, and I lost what I wrote.
But the gist is, no, the existence of the instance alone has nothing to do with Musk.
It could possibly have nudged them to speed up existing plans, but that's not the same as "EU signalling that Elon Musk is bad for the democracy." It's them signaling proprietary social media under the influence of a non-EU power is bad for democracy in the EU.
This is one of the possible failure modes they hoped to avoid by exploring alternatives to commercial social media. The conversations are long-running and high-level.
And Canada saw uptick in move to canada searches after Trump. A lot of the most vocal are still in the States. The twitterati are addicted to drama and outrage - in a brilliant move Musk provides them both. They can't get their act clean - if they could twitter wouldn't be cesspool to begin with.
Twitter's a cesspool if you go straight to the default feed, the same way you might say that NYC is a cesspool if you go straight to Times Square.
"How much is Twitter a cesspool" is a question that the advertisers are asking, because they care about brand safety. You wouldn't ask someone on HN what they thought about Twitter, because you'd have selection bias.
Which is why it's weird Musk didn't see this shitstorm coming. I neither agree nor disagree with what Musk has done and plans to do with Twitter, but it seems incredibly obvious he should have rolled his changes out slowly over a period of months.
Elon, as head of the twitterati, is also addicted to drama, which is why he wants to make as big and dramatic a change as possible in a very short time.
> The twitterati are addicted to drama and outrage
the amount of new people who have overrun my fedi timeline with Twitter discourse initially corroborates that. of course, i can't discuss this on my fedi timeline without adding to it (so i complain about it here and do my best to mute '#twitter', '#elon' etc over there). i do hope that my new neighbors will come to see this space as its own unique thing rather than "twitter but not twitter.com" though. i think this has mostly been true with the previous influxes.
>And Canada saw uptick in move to canada searches after Trump.
This actually didn't happen. I can't find the article now, but the Canadian government agency that handles immigration was making changes to its IT infrastructure the day of the 2016 US presidential election; this was the cause of the "Canadian immigration website overloaded after Trump election" headlines.
>~~A lot of the most vocal~~ 100% are still in the States.
I do. And I am a nerd myself. This does not absolve me (or "us") from being self-critical.
I generally do not enjoy social media that much, but if there is one interesting thing about it, then it is being able to read and discuss about topics with a broader spectrum of society. I do not want to talk to people who will only echo my own thoughts and believes.
Should probably point out that the trending tag is targeted to you personally.
Like when people obliviously complain about seeing ads for 'gay sex' on Google not knowing it's targeted specifically at them because of their browsing habits.
I (straight man) keep seeing ads for feminine hygiene products, dildos, and sexy womens underwear. Also, ads for managing enterprise IT systems. I have no use for any of that stuff.
Maybe the targeting just isn't as good as the people selling their ad tech make it seem.
I don't use Twitter, I was talking about random web ads that I believe are served by Google (or companies that Google bought). Maybe they should fire half their staff too.
This implies that the algorithm identifies people who engage in leftwing politics and targets rightwing hashtags to them. I suppose that magnifies rage-engagement.
I was a (European) lefty my whole life. I lived on all continents for many years. Now back in Europe, I was shocked what the left has become. Full of bigotry and racism. I call it the “new left”.
Gladly, an increasing number of people seem to notice.
Trending/For You always has one rightwing hashtag on it, often repeatedly, no matter how matter how often I click "not interested"/"this is harmful" and add it to muted.
"not interested" doesn't seem to work for me at all, no matter how many times i click it the trend almost always just reappears on refresh, sometimes even higher than it was before.
Well, we could argue about the filter bubble and algorithmic amplification, which can be (and often are) terrible things -- however, as it stands right at this moment, as far as the individual is concerned, you can still, mostly, choose what you see -- the algorithm will just show you more of whatever you clicked, rather than trying to steer you to something.
The Algorithm is still arguably a terrible detriment to society at large, but I think one can still find use in twitter and see very little of what one doesn't want to see. That may cease to be true sometime, perhaps even soon, but it works at the moment if you are judicious with who you follow.
Most of the people you refer to are not even genuinely left-wing, they just flaunt the aesthetic. Scratch the surface and they are fully invested in capitalism.
Real leftists are out there doing grassroots organising, running unions, setting up cooperatives, making positive contributions to their communities. Not shitposting on Twitter with hammer-and-sickle emojis in their profiles.
So I thought, maybe GitHub is on mastadon and I search, here are the usernames that come up:
The last one uses a :verified: macro in the username to place a blue checkmark next to their name, another uses :github: to place the github logo in their username.Pretty interesting that you get to buy a domain name to solve the global username problem and have as many elonmusks as you like (for the viewers at home, impersonating elon is now a ban-able offense), but as for proving identity, when editing my mastodon profile and I see an option to verify that I control whatever links I post below my bio, by sticking an anchor tag in that webpage linking back to my mastodon profile. Smart, instead of being deemed worthy of a celebrity checkmark, you just prove you're the owner of X website.