Honestly baffled

James Endres Howell

Honestly baffled

#fediverse #twitter #bluesky

mekka okereke :verified:

@james

It's not that baffling.

1. Good user experience, fundamentally requires above all else, empathy for the user.

2. A lot of the Mastodon community, lacks this basic empathy for these users.

mekka okereke :verified: (@[email protected])

The thing I love about this post and all its replies, is the stark difference in replies in answer to Brent's very reasonable question. Some folks: * It's the starter packs / easier onboarding! Other folks: [I'll let you read those replies] https://mastodon.online/@BrentToderian/113478939656417633 If you think it's the starter packs / easier onboarding, then that leads you to want easier onboarding for Mastodon👍🏿 If you think it's a character flaw or moral failing in people that choose BlueSky, that leads to doing nothing🤷🏿‍♂️

Hachyderm.io (hachyderm.io)

There's not much attempt made to understand why users are choosing BlueSky, and what Mastodon could change to have them choose Mastodon.

Instead, there's fierce resistance to change, and disdain directed at users for even wanting some of these basic improvements.‍️

LAUREN

@mekkaokereke @james Except this doesn't explain why people we had relationships personally, decided after zero experience on here, to wait and go to BS. The Twitter front end is the entire reason why all of these people went over there. They wanted something easy. Trust me. The vast number of people that just migrated last week are all of the notion that this is too complicated. They do not care as long as it is easy for them and they don't have to put any work in. And they care deeply about follower counts.

mekka okereke :verified:

@noondlyt @james

1. "Trust me!" But... I don't trust you.‍️

2. I don't have to put my hand in the fire to know that it's hot. I can see a friend get burned, and learn the lesson through their pain. When they warn me that fire is hot, I believe them.

Said another way, the influential first Black women who tried to land on Mastodon got burned very badly, and told all their friends on Twitter that this place is hell.

Eg https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/112841155756513897

mekka okereke :verified:

@noondlyt @james

Even your response, without a shred of irony, says absolutely nothing about making Mastodon better, but is full of value judgements of your friends for choosing a better UX.

And we act like there's something noble about fighting through bad UX, and being "Willing to work for it." There's not. It's just bad UX, and a bad on-boarding experience.

LAUREN

@mekkaokereke @james My reply is based in two years of concerted effort to get very close friends over here. This included making our own instance. Doing everything technically imagineable so that they wouldn't have to worry about that. They do not care about decentralization, at all. This must be addressed. The vast majority of people that are over on bluesky are never going to leave that server. That is important to understand. It has nothing to do with Mastodon or the Fediverse and what has been presented to them. Making the fediverse into Twitter 2.0 is not the answer. This still comes down to the fact that there are billionaires funding that entire operation and that it is a for-profit corporation.

cybik :deifirev:

@mekkaokereke @james the fact that I've wanted a way to subscribe to blocklists on Mastodon as a kind of "web of trust" feature that would be EASIEST to do with ActivityPub since

y'know

publishing payloads is KIND OF THE THING

and BlueSky just like does that from the jump...

It's baffling to me. That Mastodon has resisted this kind of idea for this long, I mean.

mekka okereke :verified:

@noondlyt @james

You don't have 20 million friends. And I'm guessing that most of your friends aren't Black. So you might be extrapolating your friend group out to everyone else.

What I call "good UX," you're framing as "they don't want to work for it." On that we agree.

"They care deeply about follower counts." "They don't care about decentralization." On that we agree, for a subset of users. Again, empathy. That's why it's important to support early adopters who don't care about followers.

LAUREN

@mekkaokereke @james You are correct in that I am definitely speaking from my own experience. I am not trying to delegitimize anyone's actual experience on here. I saw the issues that many had and they need to be addressed. This place is far from perfect but it is better suited for change than Bluesky.

Popular and easy is what got us Trump. And yes, I am judgmental when it comes to people picking the billionaire funded social platforms.

Ren 🐧

@root @mekkaokereke @james There's a reason that I'm on both but get on Bluesky WAY more

cybik :deifirev:

@rogueren honestly I *wish* Mastodon and others would get to the table and write a common spec for web-of-trust features.

Or maybe @cwebber could bully someone into doing the right thing on technical grounds by writing a protocol extension or something.

( @cwebber this is a sarcastic suggestion made in jest. I think. )

RustyRing

@mekkaokereke @james

I'm on Bluesky, and of the three (Twitter, Mastodon) it's my least favourite. It has one advantage over Mastodon (it's easier to get started and doesn't require federating your brain) and all the other drawbacks (low engagement, difficulty making friends).

Worst is that their search function privileges monologuers, making it hard to even find real people. I'm not interested in users who have 50,000 followers and are following 3.

Julian Fietkau

@root @rogueren Might be a silly question, but: have you heard that the next Mastodon version is going to have block list subscriptions? So the timing might be a bit late for blank slate spec brainstorming.

I couldn't tell from your parent post if you were under the impression that Mastodon doesn't have this planned, or if you were more so complaining that they didn't do it earlier.

Source for good measure: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2024/10/mastodon-4.3/#whats-next

mekka okereke :verified:

@RustyRing @james

That's very fair.

Would you be opposed to Mastodon launching features that make it easier for new users to get started?

Specifically, something like starter packs?

Mastodon Migration

@mekkaokereke @RustyRing @james

You might be interested in this "Follow Pack" effort: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigration/113493020744016567

Currently there are five "Follow Packs": https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigration/113495243910857346

Intend to keep adding them if they are popular and also encourage others to do roll their own: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigration/113493121467974927

The design of these things is basically to get around the limitations of Mastodon, and still offer the capability to load chunks of topical accounts...

1/n

Mastodon Migration

@mekkaokereke @RustyRing @james

Admittedly fiddly, but one of the really nice things about these is that they import directly into a list. Not sure if Bluesky has this capability, but actually for organizing your follows it is great!

Very interested in getting feedback from the community and coordinating with others to generate and promote Follow Pack lists.

Understand that it'd be better to have these things integrated into the UI, but it is what we can do now.

More info >>> #MMFP

2/n

mekka okereke :verified:

@mastodonmigration @RustyRing @james

I love that you're curating the lists, but this doesn't solve the problem. I believe several other efforts are getting it built into the Mastodon UI. That's what's needed to close the gap between what would help users' on-boarding, and where we are today.

Because the best starter packs will be created by tiny communities of non-technical users, for their friends and communities that they think should be on Mastodon.

So creation and sharing has to be easy.

Mastodon Migration

@mekkaokereke @RustyRing @james

Have you any thoughts on the discussions concerning the ownership of Bluesky and the risks associated with setting up shop in another corporate garden? Particularly one with it's founding history and recent investment by Blockchain Capital?

Definitely understand the concerns about Mastodon, but would say that it is worth working together to improve because it has the one thing corporate platforms will never have, it's defensible.

Mastodon Migration

@mekkaokereke @RustyRing @james

Completely agree. This is the really MacGyvering it. But the hope is that people find it immediately useful and a few admittedly nerdy folks join in the effort. It is not a solution, but it might be a start, that helps until more integrated solutions can be fielded.

1/n

Mastodon Migration

@mekkaokereke @RustyRing @james

But, the other hope is that we have these discussions as a community and work together to fill the need without rushing off to the new shiny object that has slicker features but is owned and operated by folks who can pull the rug out six months before the next election.

2/2