Something about starter packs that I think gets lost when they're discussed on Mastodon:

Jenniferplusplus

@kims @mekkaokereke
This is extremely valid and correct. I would encourage anyone reading this to frame the question for themselves as "how do we make building for mastodon/activitypub inviting to Black developers?"

Brian Hawthorne

@mastodonmigration @mekkaokereke Well, we could start by getting everyone to stop chasing them away.

Ryan Randall

@mastodonmigration

It'll happen when this place becomes attractive enough for Black folks that there's a legit, thriving Black community here.

Which, in part, means making the people who greet Black folks with overt and/or barely-disguised hostility on here extremely unwelcome.

It means repeatedly telling lots of racists "we don't do that here" and blocking them. It means telling their instance moderators that they need to do better, and/or blocking those entire instances until they get their acts together.

We need to make this network feel less like a sundown town, where Black people are barely tolerated—and when they are, only to the extent they make the economy function, on "our" terms.

In other words, the people who are willing to overlook anti-Blackness on the Fedi need to finally start putting in the everyday work of improving the culture.

Luna Rood

@mekkaokereke I see this "white and trans" pattern a lot.

There also seems to be a tendency for white trans people (particularly women) to frame themselves as the ultimate victims of oppression. I think it relates, in part, to the shift of suddenly being seen as a minority, after coming from a place of — as far as society goes — ultimate privilege.

There's little regard for intersectionality. It's very telling that the whole Bad Space "controversy" was framed by white people as trans vs Black.

Ericka Simone

@ryanrandall @mastodonmigration which means it won’t happen.

Mastodon Migration

@ryanrandall

Completely in favor of promoting a no tolerance for racism on Mastodon and the Fediverse attitude. We are pretty good at calling out Nazis. The same community awareness can and should be fostered for racism.

Understand that one of the problems is that the racists hide their abuse behind 'followers only' reply posts. What is a good way to bring more community attention to these abusers and their practices?

Mastodon Migration

@ErickaSimone @ryanrandall

But then why can this happen on other networks like Bluesky and not here?

nullagent

@mastodonmigration @ErickaSimone @ryanrandall

Imo, mastodon has a few key problems:

1. Visible racist early adopters means it has baggage when researching that's off putting to non techies.

2. Gargron is extremely resistant to good ideas that make mastodon in particular easier to run and mod. Imo many are minor issues and debates, most should have been solved before the X exodus.

3. Marketing and visible beloved early adopters. BS has actual marketing budget you don't beat that easily.

nullagent

@mastodonmigration @ErickaSimone @ryanrandall

This should be a blog post but I don't agree fully with the conception that "fedi is a sun downtown". Online racism is common place for Black users, that alone is not the adoption challenge. It's more of a chicken egg problem, most Black people will not use apps their actual local friends are not on. So no shit ppl don't use an app they don't immediately find their friends on.

This is a marketing and outreach problem.

nullagent

@mastodonmigration @ErickaSimone @ryanrandall

Finally, mastodon IS expensive to run. It costs real money and knowledge one way or another. I've heard a TON of interests from my cousins and friends in mastodon, they LOVE the idea of truly owning their socials. BUT many are already making money from socials as content creators and artist. They are scared of new costs and they need to see immediate value from a platform bc they literally are paid on other platforms. They will follow the money.

Dave Alvarado

@mastodonmigration @ErickaSimone @ryanrandall there's an important fact in what Mekka said: it DID happen here, those devs were ignored or told to get lost, and they now are developing at bsky, or off doing their own projects on activity pub ignoring Masto entirely.

This isn't a question of "how do we get Black devs", it's a question of "how do we get Black devs *back*". And that's going to be super hard, because many of those bridges are already burned.

Stefan Bohacek

@mastodonmigration @ryanrandall I think we're pretty stuck until either Mastodon gets proper reply controls, which is apparently on the roadmap right after quote posts, which are being worked on now.

Or, possibly, someone sets up a GoToSocial server with a nice front-end, like Phanpy, and markets itself as a community without too much focus on being anti-corporate and federated and all the great things most people don't care about.

Stefan Bohacek

@mastodonmigration @ryanrandall

If I was a startup type person, and/or had the money, this is what I'd be doing. It's definitely not too late for another social media network to come in and attract people away from Bluesky.

But the window for the fediverse as it is right now is pretty much closed, for now.

Jaden

@mekkaokereke black voices need to be amplified in this app that's for sure. I trying

The Sleight Doctor 🃏

@mttaggart @kims @mekkaokereke In terms of its UX the fedi does have a way to go.

But Bsky is "bad" 'cos it's a shady, billionaire-owned, VC-funded, data-hoovering corporate behemoth just waiting for its userbase to grow enough - and be entrenched and captive enough - for the next phase of the enshitification cycle.

Even if by every objective measure Bsky was the best social media platform ever, some would still rather throw all their tech in a compactor and go live in a ditch, than feed it. ‍️

Amber

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] this is where I shill a project I have no affiliation with but admire greatly. @[email protected] & @[email protected] have been working on https://github.com/Letterbook/Letterbook. At least from my conversations with them they are focusing on community features like better moderation tooling. The stuff we need now to make this place more inclusive and welcoming for a variety of audiences. I encourage developers of all colors to join projects that aren’t just mastodon. The community can very well place pressure on mastodon by working on alternatives with features we need. Nobody should sit here waiting on mastodon to provide them for us.

C++ Wage Slave

@stefan @mastodonmigration @ryanrandall

Suppose that followers-only toots couldn't @ anyone, even if they were sent as replies. That would stop them from being used to harass marginalised people. Would it take away anything that people legitimately need?

Stefan Bohacek

@CppGuy @mastodonmigration @ryanrandall Oh, this is a great idea! You should definitely reach out to the Mastodon team on here or via a GitHub ticket. (Definitely tag me if you do, happy to give it a boost/thumbs up.)

Stefan Bohacek

@CppGuy @mastodonmigration @ryanrandall

"Would it take away anything that people legitimately need?"

Maybe this could be a bit more permissive in only allowing you to mention your own followers.

Taggart :donor:

@ApostateEnglishman @kims @mekkaokereke

I usually don't do this, but the FUD around this company on Masto is ridiculous.

Shady,

I can't think of a single company that's been more forthcoming about their structure, funding sources, or intentions.

Billionaire-owned

Nope. Bluesky PBC is owned by Graber (estimated net worth $5M) and the Bluesky team.

VC-funded

Yes it is. If your position is that all VC-funded companies are bad, well, that's a position you can take. It condemns a lot more than just Bsky.

data-hoovering

The ATProto data is public, as is their client, so you can see what, if anything, they're tracking.

corporate behemoth

It's 20 people.

Look you don't have to like Bluesky, but don't just make stuff up.