And a bonus question!

Phil (ascentale)

Q9. There might be another small influx of people escaping another eccentric-billionaire-owned platform. Should we be reaching out to bring more people to the Fediverse? If so, what can we do?

#BikeNite #BikeNiteQ

Solarbird :flag_cascadia:

@ascentale A9: BlueSky is absolutely the current hotness, and I don't think we can or should fight that. BUT!

What we _can_ do and I think _should_ do is establish links across BlueSky and the Federation, so people know they _can_ come here and _not_ lose contact with their friends.

To that end, I wrote up a big post telling people in simple, basic steps how they can follow each other across the services via BridgyFed. It's here:

let’s all go to the EXIT – Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected

(solarbird.net)

This has been well received in migration circles so far, and I've been picking up new followers both on BlueSky and Mastodon.

It also gets BlueSky people reminders that the Federation is here, which will be _very helpful to us_ if and when BlueSky goes to shit.

#BikeNite

edd

@ascentale A9. Bring your friends. You're probably not inviting unknown randos to your dinner party.

That's not to say be insular or unwelcoming, but what better community can one build and nurture on social media than their own? It's not about growth, it's about people having good interactions with other people.

#BikeNite

Sam Whited

@moira @ascentale for my part, I take the exact opposite stance: I suspect cross posting does the opposite and creates serious harm for the people of the fediverse by creating "too big to fail" instances that can't be moderated appropriately, and providing them with a path to embrace-extend-extinguish us. I'm strongly against bridges to corporate social media in general and would caution us from defaulting to assuming they're helpful. That said, I also have no proof that they're doing this here.

nix

@sam @moira @ascentale FWIW, the bsky bridge helps reduce FOMO for me because I can follow a few people that I find particularly interesting, and some local mutuals, that I doubt are coming here anytime soon.

And I can reach more people with local advocacy things.

I think it's important to determine based on how antagonistic each platform's policy is. So far bsky is cooperative, whereas meta is not. I'll reevaluate if bsky's behavior changes.

Fluffy Kitty Cat

@sam @moira @ascentale I'd prefer for people to become actual users ideally. I think we're slowly getting there. There was a while when I barely came here because I run out of stuff to look at real fast. I'm finding that's happening less and less as the years roll on. If we can hit 5 to 10 million active users that's probably a critical mass where we become Unstoppable

Solarbird :flag_cascadia:

@fluffykittycat @sam @ascentale Sure, _ideally_. That’s not what’s actually happening, and my point with this is to keep Federation _viable_ so people _can_ come here even if their friends are going to BlueSky, since they won’t lose touch by doing so.

While we cannot shift this moment from BlueSky, we _can_ gain from it, and this is absolutely going to be part of how.

And should BlueSky go the way it well might, then people wanting to get away from _it_ will already know where they have a big chunk of friends, and, well, _here_ is where they’ll go _next_.

This is about getting some people here now, and queueing us up to be the next lifeboat for those who go there instead.

Sam Whited

@moira @fluffykittycat @ascentale I strongly doubt it would actually work that way; IMO it's more likely that BlueSky works for a little while, then they decide they want to deliberately make some features work less well over bridges to annoy the fedi people, then they decide bridges are illegal and shut them down, then everyone leaves Fedi because they had gotten it into their head that they were only on here so long as they could talk to their friends on bluesky. Just like every other time.

Solarbird :flag_cascadia:

@sam @fluffykittycat @ascentale Or, then some of _them_ set up accounts here because they have friends here they don’t want to lose.

Look, I’d rather they came here too, but _here and now_, the _vast_ majority of people are going to BlueSky “because that’s where their friends are going” and they are _correct_ in that assessment, and we are _not_ going to be able to overturn that this cycle. That’s not happening.

But we _can_ glean some people off, and we _can_ set things up so that everyone who we can’t _remember this exists_, and are _continually reminded_ that we exist.

_That has value to us._

The perfect or even “best” option IS NOT ON THE TABLE. We can’t pick it because it’s not there to pick.

Sam Whited

@moira @fluffykittycat @ascentale I'm not suggesting we need a perfect or best option, just that we do this with literally every single social network, and this strategy has literally *never* worked, to my knowledge. I don't know that my alternative strategy will work, but it's time to try something other than bridges, they only ever do harm.

Solarbird :flag_cascadia:

@sam @fluffykittycat @ascentale I disagree for one big reason:

This is the first bridge that actually goes both ways.

I can have and have had chats in realtime with BlueSky people over this bridge. People who _would not_ come here - I tried.

Now, we're talking, and I have people following me _there_ for _Monsterdon_ purposes.

By contrast:

Threads hasn't been real federation this whole time. They don't see your replies, they don't get notifications (or didn't until recently) - in general, it's a halfway at best.

Nostr is a shithive and most people (including me) blocked it, because fuck that.

Twitter was always just an echo, not an actual two-way bridge.

_That's_ why this one is different.

This one actually works.

Solarbird :flag_cascadia:

@sam @fluffykittycat @ascentale I mean, you're not wrong about those three. If this was like those three - if, say, as with Threads, you can follow them but _they can't follow you_ (or couldn't until just recently) then I wouldn't be making this argument _either_.

But it's not like that.

This one's real.

Sam Whited

@moira @fluffykittycat @ascentale I'm not talking about threads or other one-way bridges, there have been plenty of other social networks with two way bridges to corporate networks. They were all overwhelmed by the corporate network, every single time.

Sam Whited

@moira @fluffykittycat @ascentale if a user wouldn't come here, bridging just gives them no incentive to come here because they don't lose any connections over it, while also opening us up to being overwhelmed by the culture of the larger corporate network. Bluesky may be okay for now, but it's still huge and doesn't have the same culture as our little corner of fedi (and will eventually turn into a nazi haven, just like all the other billionaire owned ones)

Sam Whited

@moira @fluffykittycat @ascentale what we need is slow natural growth. Bring your friends, if they won't come right away, that's fine. Eventually you will have texted them enough screenshots or quotes of a cool thing you saw that they'll give it a try. There are no shortcuts for community organizing.

nix

@sam @moira @fluffykittycat @ascentale

This makes sense if your primary intent is to organize people into fedi, but it kind of ignores the other reasons people engage with social media. I'm also involved in organizing around local issues, and that becomes difficult if you cut yourself off from the places where you have the biggest local reach. It's a constant struggle for me whether moving people to FOSS is more important than local outreach. The bluesky bridge alleviates some of that.

Solarbird :flag_cascadia:

@sam @fluffykittycat @ascentale I disagree that we'll get overwhelmed for one key (and huge) reason:

They have to turn on the gateway too. It's opt-in on _both_ sides. If they haven't opted in, I don't see their stuff. Even if it's _a reply to me_.

Most BlueSky people won't ever do this. Most people there don't understand what it is and don't want to touch it. I had to write up that big howto in order to get anybody really going on it.

It's not going to be something done by casuals. It's mostly going to be done by people we have a shot of actually bringing over, if BlueSky goes to hell.

And if somehow it doesn't?

Good!

Sam Whited

@nix @moira @fluffykittycat @ascentale for other organizing I agree with you, you have to be where the people are. In my mind that means just go get a bluesky account if it's important. I'm talking about not having fedi fade into the background and have the culture ruined by large corporate networks. Bridges *always* do that in my experience (see also XMPP, Diaspora, etc.)

Sam Whited

@moira @fluffykittycat @ascentale that's a fair point, that's different than the various other dead social networks of the past, so maybe the cultural issues aren't a problem. I still think you've taken away the only reason anyone would consider moving though, and allowed nazi billionaires a mechanism to destroy your network either way though. They'll still do the classic embrace-extend-extinguish model with people who have opted in.

nix

@sam @moira @fluffykittycat @ascentale

I'm not going to check two separate social media accounts, that's just creating more work for me and letting it eat more of my day. If I had to make both, one would eventually win out for my attention.

I agree with your examples, but I don't think abstinence as a policy ever works for humans. They have to be convinced that this is the best place for them to be, and forcing them to make a choice doesn't do that.