Question for those who DO think that the focus of Mastodon and everyone making Fediverse projects SHOULD be focusing on GROWTH: why?
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Question for those who DO think that the focus of Mastodon and everyone making Fediverse projects SHOULD be focusing on GROWTH: why?
Not a trick question. This is a safe thread. I want to hear from you. I won’t argue (unless you’re literally just being an asshole of course) and please no one else fight with anyone in the replies.
I really want to understand your perspective. Thanks!
:boost_ok:
(If you do not think that the focus should be on growth, then you are not the target audience of this post. Growth is not my priority either, but I am seeking to understand other perspectives. Thanks!)
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mekka okereke :verified:replied to james last edited by
A question for everyone in one of these here Titanic lifeboats that thinks that the focus should be on getting as many people into the life boats as possible. My question is why?
Personally I think these boats are perfectly fine at 1/10th capacity! I have plenty of leg room, and I made myself a pillow fort from all these extra life preservers!
This is a safe space! I'm open to your ideas on why we should be trying to get more people in.
View from my lifeboat️:
https://youtu.be/W5hq7HaFRNM -
jackreplied to mekka okereke :verified: last edited by
@mekkaokereke @james fun fact: the Titanic's lifeboats were intended to ferry passengers to a nearby rescuing vessel, not to hold passengers indefinitely after the ship has sunk. hence why they couldn't uplift all the pax and crew at once: they were expected to make multiple trips
idk if there's a metaphor there. it's pretty miserable being in a lifeboat in the ocean (albeit not as bad as drowning in the ocean) and where you really want to be is in a nice well-run floaty ship
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mekka okereke :verified:replied to jack last edited by
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Dieureplied to mekka okereke :verified: last edited by
@mekkaokereke @james isn't the situation rather that many people prefer to stay on the ship because the lifeboats aren't comfortable enough and they'd have to pick one?
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mekka okereke :verified:replied to Dieu last edited by
No.
The situation is that people on Mastodon haven't made it safe or welcoming for newcomers, and many of them actively get in the way of people like me that do try to make it safer and more welcoming for newcomers.
Because a lot of people on Mastodon like being the HOA, and because they can't see the similarities between "Keep Portland weird!" and "England for English!" and "Close our borders! Build the Wall!" And "Mastodon has a certain culture! Don't try to change it!"
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Dieureplied to mekka okereke :verified: last edited by
@mekkaokereke @james ok, I see. Hasn't this gotten any better at all since the start of the great migration? I think I'm seeing a lot less posts explaining The True Essence of Mastodon (It's Not Just Mastodon But the Fediverse Btw) than back then, but I also am far less exposed.
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mekka okereke :verified:replied to Dieu last edited by
But how would it have gotten better? Things don't just organically get better. Individuals need to do things, and those things make it better.
Who would be the individuals that made it better? What did they do to make it better? What would be the evidence that it got better?
Are there more Black folk? About 1 in 5 Mastodon users should be Black. We're... a little short of that.
BlueSky crossed 10 million with the Brazilian user influx. How many million users came to Mastodon?
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@james You've gotten a few answers by now that more or less match my thinking, but I'll give it a go anyway, helps me refocus my thoughts on this question too.
Social media has become very popular over the past two decades, so much so that the companies that own it have gained outsized power over popular communication, which is a problem worth solving. I believe communication infrastructure should be governed by the communities using it, not by American tech companies and ad firms.
(1/3)
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Julian Fietkaureplied to Julian Fietkau last edited by
@james Sites like reddit or Discord are structured for community self-organizing with some limitations, but still have corporate overlords who will claim ownership of our communication and impose their rules.
The fediverse, or something conceptually evolved from it, can actually take us to the point where communities can own their infrastructure and establish their own rules and rule enforcement. Broadly speaking, this is the right direction.
(2/3)
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Julian Fietkaureplied to Julian Fietkau last edited by
@james Ideally, anyone who is looking to join (or start) a community space for people to talk among themselves and with others, should be able to do so on the fediverse, and find the people they want to talk to, and talk to them safely.
For that to become universally true, the fediverse needs to grow quite a lot. Technically, culturally, and in numbers. I hope we'll live to see the day.
(3/3)
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Julian Fietkaureplied to Julian Fietkau last edited by
@james (I also have selfish reasons why I want the fedi to grow: I want to talk to cool people and get official government information and follow some celebs I enjoy without having to log into ad-ridden surveillance platforms. But that's more about what I want than what the fediverse "should" be or do, so it's not really part of the answer to you question.)
(3+1/3)
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@james I don’t believe this place is in the space to grow effectively and too many terrible subcultures. But, if the tooling improved, I want growth as I want people especially those in vulnerable communities to understand what it’s like to have more control and an attempt at an ethical social network experience. An attempt to create more community led systems. This space can also use more diversity like really badly. Black, Brown, LBGTQ+ folks are culture drivers and we need that here and not on Big Social