Tech media is picking up on the changes to Mastodon’s sign up process, where the default option is now Mastodon.social. I don’t think funneling more people to one mega-instance is a good idea…

  • anjiOP
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    71 year ago

    The confusion on Fedi is somewhat worse than email too, I believe, because user accounts are tied to an instance. So the user is expected to make judgements about moderation policies and the local community before deciding to choose, which makes the decision problem hard.

    I am still really, deeply hoping for someone to soon spec out user account decentralization on Mastodon. Where my user account is a portable file (like a public/private key pair) and instances become communities and providers of service not owners of accounts.

    • @sexy_peach@feddit.de
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      71 year ago

      But that’s exactly how e-mail works.

      Portable accounts, I would love that too, but it is technically difficult. The way activitypub works now doesn’t really make it possible I think, other solutions would probably have drawbacks.

      • anjiOP
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        1 year ago

        Well regarding email, generally email providers don’t really care as long as you don’t breach a generic TOS. You join a specific mastodon instance, post about grilling some steak, and promptly get banned because it turns out veganism is required on the instance (which, you know, fair). So I can understand users feel extra-confused when trying to pick an instance.

        I think it’s possible, and in fact being worked on, but I of course don’t know if it will actually materialize in Mastodon…

        • @sexy_peach@feddit.de
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          51 year ago

          Is there a single instance that has veganism required? Maybe that vegan one? But that’s down I think? They probably had like 15 users. Let them have their funny rules instance ^^

          I feel like a few posts with people talking about the rules they or their obscure instance has make the rounds and hundreds of people feel like they’re oppressed by them.

          I am on a fairly strictly moderated instance and I never saw many problem with them, nor with users on the server or on others. Yes, sometimes the rules are enforced, but that’s great, I don’t want follower spam from temporary servers and stuff like that. I couldn’t be on a server that theoretically has an admin but they’re never thinking about the social space they’re creating or actually handling reports.

          • anjiOP
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            61 year ago

            Oh no I’m not talking about oppression. Generally I feel most instances are pretty chill. But as Joinmastodon.org lists instances and describes their general purpose (and perhaps rules) I can imagine users feel a little confused about what’s the best choice for them. Versus email which is mostly “what is the domain name” and “does their webmail not suck”.