meta
seeing people complain about "mastodon" (meaning fedi) due to a *complete* misunderstanding of anything to do with it just feels, i don't know
makes me sad people don't want to give this platform a chance. like we wouldn't be who we are today without this place and these people and it feels bad seeing people not even make the effort
but also maybe it should be easier? maybe there are problems in explaining what feels obvious to us since we've been here since what, 2017? and have seen all the stuff that resulted in things being how they are today
-F
re: meta
@mawr part of the difficulty understanding this might be that we don't really understand how exactly it's different?
the thing in question that got us feeling sad is seeing someone get frustrated and confused at not being able to join mastodon.social or meow.social (why is meow.social suddenly so huge anyway?), joining some other instance we haven't heard of, and being confused why they couldn't see anyone on m.s (presumably this other instance has them blocked, for good reason)
-F
re: meta
@Felthry ahhh, that's an even more frustrating problem, yeah. 
Every time Twitter jumps onto Mastodon, it's Mastodon.social and like maybe a couple others the bulk of the migration focuses on. This time it was a lot more distributed (there was a wire article going around earlier about fosstodon.social https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-users-mastodon-meltdown/)
but yeah, too many people means moderation is impossible, and influxes like this compound that problem massively, leaving instances with few tools.
meta
@Felthry I've seen just so many people talking about Masto (and fedi by proxy) and saying things that are exactly the opposite of how things actually are SO MUCH!
Like I said the other day tho, I don't think they're looking for an alternative microblogging platform. Most people didn't use birdsite that way. It's more like a worse version of RSS, or an advertising platform everyone can advertise on for free.
Anyone can post about their thing and people are there. They just want people.
re: meta
@relee how did people use birdsite then? we've never been on there and don't know what people expect
-F
re: meta
@Felthry Oh! Well, some folks use it like this, posting updates about themselves, random thoughts, that sort of thing.
Most of the folks I actually saw and followed were representing an individual's work, or a company or a project or something. So, when they had news or an update or whatever, they'd post a tweet about it. Their profile would have links to their website about the thing, if they have one. Many artists treat Twitter like a gallery site even though it's terrible at that.
re: meta
@Felthry They also post replies, often with the intent to share their views but with the added bonus of attracting attention back to themselves. Sometimes expressly to draw attention to themselves.
The artists who only post on Twitter and have no website or gallery sites though, those are the ones that bother me the most and the main reason I use Twitter at all, because otherwise I won't see their new work!
meta
@Felthry I think some of it is that the fediverse (but Mastodon in particular) is just enough like Twitter that the differences feel to some folks like knockoffs of the original instead of new innovations with broader purpose and accessibility.
IMHO also some folks are looking for a Twitter-style soapbox brand engagement zone™ and the fediverse is often actively hostile to that mindset in ways that can't be bypassed thanks in part to a lack of profit incentive.
Shit's complicated.