Masto, meta
An issue I’m having making the jump from birdsite to Masto for public posts is I want to post too much stuff, including linking in things I post on gallery sites. It all sort of logjams into not posting at all, because I’m worried about clogging timelines with what I made for dinner that day, nightly art, old Art Fight posts, etc etc etc.
In other words, the private community vibe is good, but doesn’t shape itself well to putting art posts on blast for people to follow. So, what do?
Masto, meta
I guess I do have a masto-dot-art account I can start making more use of. But I guess it seems split-brain to use so many different accounts, and part of why that never really worked for me.
I could also assume I’m worrying to much and post all the things as unlisted?
Masto, meta
I think my conclusion is that I’m going to use other services than Masto for art blog and public presence, and relegate to communities off Masto for now. Birdhellsite and Tumblr are better image boards (masto-dot-art is getting there), and I’ve submarined most of my personal life nattering to other communities.
I’ll miss having the fusion of public discussion and community around neat projects that was LJ or early Twitter, but so far, I’m not finding that just yet through Masto.
Masto, meta
I think this is a common trend and mostly a pendulum swing, because the same trend happened with BBSes, USENET, and around the advent of early forum software and image hosting. Enough people diasporaed off of bigger hosts, causing the next iteration to slowly come online.
I guess the other side of Masto not working for me is personal: I lack the unbounded optimism for public posting I had for LJ and early Twitter, and the jump from long-form projects to memes doesn’t work for me.
Masto, meta
I find myself spending much more time now working with people who are creating stuff that takes a long time, and isn’t based around common cultural touchstones that share rapidly, so much as labors of love they’ve invested in (including my own longer-form projects). And... Masto isn’t shaping itself well around those discussions for me, in ways I cannot easily articulate.
But chat, project boards, longer posts, and in-person are, so I’ve been there instead.
Masto, meta
I guess this is all of a way of rambling out that I think Masto is great, that it has a place in replacing birdhellsite for community, but that culturally there is still a thing missing for people that want to post and keep track of larger projects again.
So I think I’m going to try to figure out what shape of that works for me, more than trying to figure out how to make that work with Masto.