I think this is the way we should communicate, when presented with the question on how to get on Mastodon:
Copy paste from the link:
How do I use Mastodon?
Download the Mastodon app from the Apple app store or Play store.
Create an account (just like Twitter or any other social media)
Follow people, and get posting.
Why do tech journalists say it’s too confusing to catch on?
I have no fucking idea.
EDIT for clarification, don’t take this too seriously:
This “guide” is a bit of a joke made out of frustration. If you actually want to know more, including why I feel it has potential to free us from the dystopian hellscape that is modern social media, here is the “real” guide to Mastodon. It still uses simple language (and has lots of pictures!):
Please share widely
It’s not that simple and I don’t get why people pretend it is. The “instance” concept confuses everyone. The email comparison everyone uses is inadequate.
Edit: The issue is incredibly fundamental. You don’t just download the app, create an account, and go.
You download an app that lets you participate, then you need to decide your instance which is like deciding which specific browser you want tonuse that then lets you see individual communities. But also your instance might have a community with the exact same name as a community in another instance, so make sure you know the difference despite both of them being “news“ or “politics.“ Also all the different instances have different nuances to their federation and voting that you may or may not see, unless you are familiar with how each instance operates.When using the official Mastodon app (as suggested in the “guide”) “instances” are not a factor at all (unless the user specifically goes out of their way). A new user could have never even heard of the term “instance” and the above steps would work fine.
You don’t just download the app, create an account, and go.
Actually with Mastodon this is literally how it works.
EDIT: I should say this is how it works now, it didn’t always used to be this way. The official Mastodon app used to ask the user to pick an instance, but for a number of years now it defaults every new account to mastodon.social unless they opt out. There was a big brouhah about centralization but the Mastodon devs felt it made for easier on boarding.
exactly. and trying to downplay potential users as stupid before they’ve even used a social media platform isn’t going to exactly make them want to stay. or even try in the first place.
just makes mastodon look like a place where nerds reign free and normal folks won’t be able to participate effectively.
if you want to make mastodon a destination and not a niche corner to be avoided, this is not the way.
i agree with you completely.
edit: I should clarify, the “guide” above is the thing insulting users. the guide is inaccurate.
and trying to downplay potential users as stupid
Because they are
When I was frickin‘ 14, I managed to grasp the Idea of an Instance and managed to find an instance I liked and register there
And if some 25 y o goddamn Tech Journalists is dumber than a dude in 7th grade with a phone, maybe you should start thinking about if we are really all Albert Einsteins prodogy or if the bar is just set way too low for considering whats „Normal Intelligence“
just makes mastodon look like a place where nerds reign free and normal folks won’t be able to participate effectively.
I gotta say… that’s what the fediverse is (for now), there have been a couple of posts on Lemmy about things being too niche or too nerd oriented (more recently people were talking about the lack of sports), same thing happens on mastodon, if you aren’t from a country with enough users, there’s basically nothing and it gets worse if you are a normie since most of the current users will be nerds who only talk about linux, their job, inside jokes and memes, some games, keyboard-activism and FOSS
mexican ranting
… and propaganda-users who benefits from the lack of real users from a country to spread their shit and mass-downvote the rest (like lemmy and 🇲🇽)
So whenever a normie searches for something (yes, even the so suggested hashtags) they won’t find anything and whatever they post will get buried and ignored, quickly driving them away from it (at least that’s what I’ve observed when it comes to the mexican experience).
And that’s without talking about the terrible browsing experience that mastodon provides (ex: wish I could explore another instance’s local posts while being logged in from mine).
deleted by creator
wha? you didn’t. i just was agreeing with you the whole time.
was just adding my own frustrations to your own, as yours are true.
I very quickly deleted it but I guess you saw lol I totally misread your intention at first glance
its ok I edited my comment a bit, I can see how it seemed like I was arguing with ya. apologies bb <3
No apology necessary. I jumped the gun, should’ve double checked before posting lol
Thanks for the honesty!
It used to blow my mind that the “omg how can the vote for Trump are they blind fanatics!n!?” would be the same “Omg how do you not see how easy this is!!?” people, but now I realize it’s just people being loyal to their team, whatever it is.
then you need to decide your instance
Just use mastodon.social
If you feel like you want to join a more specific community then you can
We both know that is not how this should work. If everybody joins the same instance, we’re basically right back where we started. We want people to be distributed among other instances.
If one instance has 97% of the userbase then they basically get to dictate the whole thing. What if mastodon.social ended up being hexbear or lemmygrad? Or some MAGA right wing instance?
Twitter was a shit hole but nobody thought it was going to be where it is now. Your average “liberal” CEO typically has a floor of how shitty they are willing to be because even they have common sense. Musk has no such floor
We both know that is not how this should work. If everybody joins the same instance
But this doesn’t happen. Mastodon.social is far from 90%, and the former CEO made the choice of letting control go to an entity that is no-profit, I think it’s the right choice.
- The casual user joins mastodon.social (default highlighted choice). He can enjoy the Fediverse and discover its complexity with experience, not by understanding everything in advance.
- He can the move to another instance if he feels so, after undetstanding what this actually means
- The more advanced user probably already knows the instance thing, and maybe doesn’t even use the offical app
- The casual user joins mastodon.social (default highlighted choice). He can enjoy the Fediverse and discover its complexity with experience, not by understanding everything in advance.
I think it’s the “basically” part in basically right back where we started that makes the difference. Even if 100% of Fediverse users were on a single instance, once that instance starts pulling Musk moves, the users can move somewhere else.
Only if that instance defederates from everyone else do we get the Twitter situation again. Or, since that’s actually what happened, Truth Social, which I think is just a slightly modified Mastodon instance with federation disabled/deactivated.
I think that’s too simplified and it will create expectations that aren’t true, because It’s more like this:
- Choose instance
-
Read & agree to Mastadon rules
-
Read & agree to (instance) privacy terms
-
Create account
-
Tap the verification link in your email
-
Solve the Captcha
-
Get a list of people/users to follow (why these people? What is it based on?)
-
Setup profile
-
Done!
Most of those are all really simple, common things that are done when creating accounts on any service though. If Mastodon is literally the first service you’ve ever signed up for in your life maybe that’s justified but most people have made an account somewhere before.
And that’s the point OP is trying to make. It’s a very familiar process, except for step 1, which you can literally just ignore and pick the big highlighted blue button and avoid that scary and confusing “Pick another server” button if you’re not up to it.
This “guide” is a bit of a joke made out of frustration.
The real guide is still either outdated or doesn’t take into account that there’s a lot more steps. But considering it’s been 2 years, I don’t hold that against the author
I think your steps from 2 to 8 are summed up in
Create an account. Just like Twitter (or any other social media).
Meaning that those are not any different than what you need to do in Twitter or facebook. Actually the consents you need and the app permissions are much simpler in Mastodon case
Well, I’m confused. And has it caught on?
Disclosure: I’ve tried it out on my computer, not the app. Is the app more user-friendly?
E.g. I only just realized now why I’ve been so confused by Mastodon; the web page shows you replies before showing you what’s being replied to, without the UI making it obvious that’s what it’s doing and what’s connected together. Does the app fix that, and is there a way to get a fix in a web browser?
I’m not sure, but i guess that it is replicating Twitter behaviour. I got used to that quickly.
But if you want a better experience you can easily find other front ends. I strongly suggest Phanpy that makes it really clear when a toot is part of a conversation/thread. It also does a lot of nice things like grouping boosts in horizontal carousels, collapsing long threads to avoid occpying the too many screens, and others, but it is still simple
Phanpy
First impression: “That’s more like it!”
But then: “Wait… it’s still not showing me the OP followed by replies.” It shows me a reply, with some faded text above. I click on the faded text above, and still don’t get the OP, eventually click on a group of microavatars with mouseover text “Go to top” and an up arrow, and at last see what the hell it is people are talking about, with replies below. I try going through settings, find no way to get it simply show me the OP in the first place.
I guess I’ll have to keep trying out front-ends until I find one that works
in a way that is not obviously maddeningthe way I need it to.I’ll try Ask Lemmy. https://lemmy.ca/post/44479417
(And wondering again if I should try Mbin or Piefed, and what the difference is.)
Woah, I think you catchet the biggest problem I have with it immediatly. I’m thinjking of opening an issue maybe?
Good idea. I wanted to search their Github Issues to see if they already have a request for this but then I realized I don’t know the correct technical terms to describe this. “Show OP with replies below directly in timeline”? Or “feed”? Or “home page”? Whatever is the porper Mastodon term for what it shows me when I load the main page.
Try Fedilab, I think it will be more intuitive for you, unless I’m misunderstanding your frustration.
Unfortunately, it looks like Fedilab is a mobile app only.
Also, I’ve installed it on Android and the default does not show the OP above with replies grouped below.
Looking at its settings, maybe one might affect completely missing OPs, “Remote Conversations”. I’ve enabled it and will see how it goes.
I can’t find any setting to make it show replies grouped below the OP.
Correct, it is mobile only. Unfortunately, I think I must be misunderstanding what you’re saying about the OP stuff. This is my view, the way I think about it at least, these are all “OPs”, ones with a plus sign next to the leftward arrow have comments.
And then if I tap, I get the op with its comments underneath it.
Thanks for explaining that, now I can eventually see the OP.
I want more like the second picture by default (although I wish the tap would take me direct to the OP instead of to the reply and then I have to scroll up).
I don’t want to see a main feed full of replies I don’t understand because there’s no context and have to decide whether it’s worth tapping and scrolling up dozens (hundreds?) of times a day to find out what it’s about.
I want by default to see the OP with replies underneath (perhaps the replies collapsed or collapsible). Then I can decide based on the OP, not guess by the reply, if I want to read through that thread or scroll past to the next.
Maybe it’s cuz I’m new and all the content is new. Once I’m in, perhaps I’ll want to see unaccompanied replies. But for now, I want to see OPs first, then replies once I’ve read the OP.
i just went to bsky. mastodon was a bit too confusing for my tastes.
