I'm replying here to the most recent blog post about Mastodon by @Gargron that focuses on features dealing with abuse and harassment, as well as his recent Medium interview.

Those blog topics - along with growing awareness of the dangers associated with corporate-owned social media - are the driving force behind the next wave of people joining the fediverse. Of which I am one.

I hope my comments are taken in good faith, because I'm not looking for a Twitter clone; but I seek an alternative that encompasses a wider range of people than I'm finding on Mastodon.
Many try the fediverse and wander away again because they struggle to adapt. Blaming them for being scared to try new things, or unwilling to shed their large groups on other sites misses several crucial points.

The first point is the assertion that "anyone can create an instance and join the federation" and set it up as they want.
This should be "may", not "can". Most people do not have the tech skills, time or resources to do so.
It's like saying anyone can make their own bread. You need, at minimum, ingredients, a recipe and a stove - or you need to have a farm and grow your own before creating an open fire.

Many people looking for social media alternatives don't know how to create an instance, they do not have the time to learn how to do so, and many of them use phones to access the net.

The unfortunate corollary to this barrier to entry is that those who do have the skills dominate the fediverse, which makes tech issues naturally dominate the discourse. People talk about their interests.
For those newbies testing the waters, however, this makes the acceptance and integration chasm wider.

The second point is content. I've brushed on it previously, but my point here is that the fediverse is a much closer fit with Twitter than many other sites.
There's a wonderful array of fascinating links from both respected mainstream media and brilliant independent studies here. There's also a whole lot Facebook-style status updates.
People are more than willing to give up the endless pontificating or drivel from verified accounts. They're not so keen to give up the funny.

The third issue is culture. This is more prickly because it goes to the heart of what I think needs to be addressed if the fediverse is going to become the way forward for social media or remain a tech-heavy niche.

The avowed intent - to move away from the user abuse and mal fides of corporate entities such as Twitter - has my full backing.
But the baby's in danger of being thrown out with the bathwater.

Unless there is a more welcoming culture this will be MySpace without ever having been MySpace, and the open-source effort to wrest the initative from commercial interests will be an interesting footnote to history.

That welcoming culture can take several forms:
1. Some sort of "noticeboard" or collection of toots that newcomers are immediately directed to in order to learn how to do things. That noticeboard here, in the fediverse, not as external links.

2. Make migration between instances easier. Most people will start in mastodon dot social, but might well find another more suited to their interests. It might be sobering for those excited by recent growth to explore how many accounts are dormant - abandoned by users who have migrated to new ones elsewhere.

3. A change in user attitudes. This isn't intended as criticism of current users, it is a suggestion about how to expand the fediverse by assimilating new users.
Go beyond the immediate follower feed, take a look at the local feed, fediverse feed and notifications.
Follow some new people, if you'd like; more importantly, boost things that interest you. You have to be very interesting or entertaining for experienced social media people to stick with you if your TL is just you and 5 close friends.

@OutOnTheMoors Part of the issue I'm seeing in this thread is the fact that mastodon is split between red and blue instances rather strongly, with blue blocking red. In some ways it creates two separate communities at the server level.

@freemo Are you referencing red/blue as US political terms or something else?

@OutOnTheMoors
red = free speech zone
blue = Heavily censored/moderated

@freemo I'm perfectly happy with the rules as defined on .social. You can say what you want as long as you don't contravene real laws of hate speech and libel.
CWs should be used to avoid exposing unsuspecting users to things that are legitimately upsetting. Not because someone doesn't like your lifestyle.
I don't see much point in exchanging the tyranny of the troll for the tyranny of the easily offended.

@OutOnTheMoors The difference in my mind i that

1) hate speech is a matter of opinion and what is hate speech to one person is not to another.

2) in a free space zone people can of course block anyone who bothers them, so if your easily offended you can still get your wish and block everything in sight. So there is no "tyranny of the troll". So in my eyes your really just exchanging freedom for tyranny of the easily offended.

Of course if thats what you want, by all means go for it. But I prefer a world where the individual has control over what they hear and say with the freedom to say anything they want to anyone who listens.