Dave T-W @davoloid@qoto.org

#Mastodon #feditips

Flowchart describing the visibility of a public toot per use case.

How to scare away potential new advertisers and investors: a Master class…:
(also: this starts to sound like racketeering)

Consider this the #mastodon missing-toot-#timeline-#cheatsheet
(not mine, and I whish I'd seen it earlier when I did).

BTW if you're looking for a simple and imho intuitive #androidclient @Tusky really nails it!

The internet now treats Twitter as damage and routes around it.

Thanks everyone for the advice. For other newbies on iOS, Metatweet seems *a lot* easier to use than the Mastodon app.

reasons mastodon's "viral dampening effect" is a good thing:

👉🏻 no "main character of the day"
👉🏻 no free text searching for people to get angry at (and harrass)
👉🏻 doomscrolling is *actually bad for you* and not a thing we should be trying to replicate
👉🏻 birdsite's virality is heavily driven by actual paid advertising and bots. You think that "Explore" tab gets its content organically? really? That's not making connections between people, it's about driving sales.

Mastodon is not, and should not be, a 1:1 replacement for Twitter. But it *can* be a new place for you to make valuable connections with other human beings. #twitter #twittermigration

Hey #FediverseTips - someone recommended some alt mobile apps for Mastodon the other day, but I can't remember what they were. Any advice pls?

Another quick PSA for the newcomers:

There is no Mastodon.

As in, there is no entity out there called Mastodon that needs to "get it together" or "make things easier."

Every server is a unique collection of hardware and software operated by a unique team of (usually) volunteer humans funded by (usually) donations.

Some days will be smoother than others. We new folks have flooded the network. Cut the volunteers some slack. Better yet, offer support.

🚨 Today I learned

Apparently the 'note' field at the bottom of someone's profile is private to you, & you can add a wee note to remind yourself about them

Such as the reason you first followed is b/c they collect mushrooms or love black garlic or something else not listed in their bio or otherwise obvious 😊

Or perhaps you unfollowed them b/c you love their stuff, but they post too frequently & you need to remind yourself not to get sucked in again 😵

Help your brain! 💪

#feditip #toptips

Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a company far far away I signed up to help lead a troubled product area. Just prior to my involvement, the CEO had laid off maybe 40% of the staff.

The group went from functioning poorly to being in complete chaos. It was a mess.

In the following weeks we bled another maybe 10% of the remaining staff as they essentially walked out. Everyone was interviewing. Customers were getting spooked.

@davidallengreen What I find quite remarkable is how the collective memory has shifted since the actual vote. The single market issue had not been spelt out. Many thought that we would 'obviously' remain in something akin to it, like the EEA etc. It's the negotiators who should be apologising, not the commentors imho.

Brexit revisited, and a non-apology

https://davidallengreen.com/2022/11/brexit-revisited-and-a-non-apology/

I am trying to work out the strengths and weaknesses of messaging platforms from fully decentralized to federated to centralized. I am only a user on Mastodon/activitypub and IRC, but I have in the past hosted usenet and currently host:

smtp (email)
XMPP
Matrix
SSB (Secure ScuttleButt)
SIP (fully decentralized)

The impressive feature of twitter and it's totalitarian centralized ilk is that a single id can have millions of followers - and know that. SSB supports unlimited secure (signed) broadcasting, but there is no mechanism for knowing how many followers there are. Of course, TV was in the same boat, and you could get an estimate by polling. BBC broadcasts on SSB.

Counting followers is essential for monetizing content via advertising and sponsors in a decentralized manner - i.e. not subject to cancellation at a whim by a global centralized platform.

Matrix seems ideal for many of the purposes people use Teams or Substack or Slack. Private conversations e2e encrypted, logging with controlled retention (HIPPA compliant), voice and video calls, voice and video conferencing, media. But performance of small personal servers drops with number of participants in a room - I don't think it can support a million followers.

XMPP has inconsistent state for multiple devices, and is terrible at group chats. I do use it a backup for matrix and for voice/video calls. Open XMPP clients supporting VOIP and IPv6 are easier to find than SIP clients. (And SIP is even worse at state for multiple devices.)

Usenet has no authentication (not worth tacking on GPG header schemes).

Email is not designed to be "instant" (as in IM), but can be coaxed into resembling that by clients such as DeltaChat.

Ok, so now I should make a feature matrix (which includes Matrix), but have I missed any open and federated/decentralized protocols? Any other features? Current feature list:

broadcast (million+ followers)
follower count
p2p voice/video
e2e encryption
authentication
federated
decentralized (or federated that can be practically fully decentralized, like SMTP)

Did I miss any?