Small rant about small character limits in fedi, like #Mastodon's 500 limit, just because I had this discussion recently.I think it makes no sense for the #fediverse. This is a criticism towards #ActivityPub as well, which defines notes as short posts,...

C.W. Smith

I think I will experiment with friendica this weekend. I got a couple of domains not doing anything at the moment, and a different take might be interesting to check out.

BeAware :fediverse:

@CWSmith @panos @atomicpoet That sounds interesting! Let me know how it goes.

Lutin Discret

@panos since you ask I will answer.

To me, fediverse is like a conversation. Let's say you have a group of 10 people meeting for 1h. Attention is scarce so the group decide a 6 minutes/person express time so everyone can talk and be listened: it's a matter of respect.

When someone break the 500 limit, I feel it like someone in the above meeting just talking 40 minutes. I understand you want/need that to express yourself but... you do not respect the attention span people consented to give you.

Panos Damelos :catodon:

@lutindiscret I get your mindset, but I don't think the same logic applies. When someone speaks in a room, you are forced to listen to them. When you see a post that goes beyond the limit and "Show more" appears, you can instantly choose to skip it, if you don't want to put that time into it. Takes the same time to decide if you'll read it or not as every other post. On the contrary, multiple consequential posts which are made because of that limit, are what captures more of your attention than needed, as they can flood your timeline.

Chris Trottier

@panos @lutindiscret I think if we stopped thinking about the Fediverse as “Twitter replacement”, and thought of it more as “general social media replacement”, then we’d generally be more open about what the Fediverse can and cannot do.

This tech could replace everything social. If you want, it can be Tumblr, Flickr, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and even basic blogs.

What the Fediverse can’t do is be something like Adobe Flash where everything is exactly like so – which might piss off certain web designers obsessed with reproducing an experience in the exact same way again and again. But hey, we already have technology for that anyway.

All this in mind, I think we need to change expectations about what the Fediverse is.

hackbyte (friendica) 13HB1

@panos @atomicpoet Mastodon is _NOT_ the #fediverse...

Just use a better software to interact with the fediverse.

Lutin Discret

@atomicpoet @panos here we are confusing two things: "fediverse" and "the part of fediverse that propose microblogging". I don't by the "fediverse can be anything" stuff and I see it more like different stuff/experiences. "threadiverse" for example is a thing. Microblogging fedi is another made by people who want to read short posts. The blogging fedi is another. (1/2)

Lutin Discret

@atomicpoet @panos It's not a whole. Different tools, different people, different expectations, different UX, different content and different cultures. Mastodon will never support events like Mobilizon does and that's ok. Its character limit is not a limit but a feature coming from a culture that values brievety, witness, laconism...

It's ok that the fedi is kind of split: we should not view the fedi as an everything app or it will fail

Lutin Discret

@atomicpoet @panos It's not a whole. Different tools, different people, different expectations, different UX, different content and different cultures. Mastodon will never support events like Mobilizon does and that's ok. Its character limit is not a limit but a feature coming from a culture that values brievety, witness, laconism...

It's ok that the fedi is kind of split: we should not view the fedi as an everything app or it will fail (2/2)

Jeff Sikes

@panos I’ve been thinking about this post the past day or so. I agree just sum it up and have a read more button. But! Reading a long post isn’t always comfortable in all apps. Tiny fonts, line spacing is bad, etc.

If apps could have a “read long posts as article” option with separate style settings that would be superb.

BeAware :fediverse:

@hackbyte @panos @atomicpoet To be fair, both of the people you replied to aren't on mastodon ‍️

hackbyte (friendica) 13HB1

@BeAware @atomicpoet @panos Right .. but both seem to be forks and present essentially the same dysfunctional interface.

Chris Trottier

@hackbyte @panos @BeAware Akkoma is not a fork of Mastodon; it is a fork of Pleroma.

Catodon is not a fork of Mastodon; it is a fork of Firefish – which is, itself, a fork of Misskey.

BeAware :fediverse:

@atomicpoet @hackbyte @panos

hackbyte (friendica) 13HB1

@atomicpoet @BeAware @panos O.k. i stand corrected.. Except for presenting the same UX overall.. mhh

BeAware :fediverse:

@hackbyte @atomicpoet @panos have you gone to these folks' instances? to me, they don't really look anything like Mastodon, but maybe you just haven't been on Mastodon in awhile, so you don't really remember what it looks like? ‍️