So I've recently created a mastodon account, and in my ambition to create a somewhat decent stream, I though that it could ask the nixers community if anyone uses it, and would care to share their username.

And a general mastodon (discussion) thread, I guess.

Theory: Mastodon, the dozenth attempt at making GNU Social a viable Twitter alternative, will not succeed. Twitter will continue to be the leading micro-blogging network because, unlike its various wannabe successors, it remains consistent. There is one Twitter where everyone can talk to anyone.

Does Mastadon not allow anyone on any node to talk to someone on another node? I've stumbled upon Mastadon before, but not yet grasped how the decentralization works.

(30-11-2017, 05:46 PM)jkl Wrote: Theory: Mastodon, the dozenth attempt at making GNU Social a viable Twitter alternative, will not succeed. Twitter will continue to be the leading micro-blogging network because, unlike its various wannabe successors, it remains consistent. There is one Twitter where everyone can talk to anyone.

1. One should keep in mind that Mastodon is not GNU Social, even though they can communicate among one another.
2. The whole point of the anti-Twitter microblogging movement is that is isn't one thing, but that there are multiple instances. I don't see how this is an argument against Masodon or any other decentralized MB network
3. Why does everyone have to replace Twitter? Can a network not exist for itself, without having to replace another?

(30-11-2017, 06:09 PM)Tmplt Wrote: Does Mastadon not allow anyone on any node to talk to someone on another node? I've stumbled upon Mastadon before, but not yet grasped how the decentralization works.

AFAIK you can follow anyone from any instance, but the administrators have to decide what other instances they will federate with and share a "federated streams" (quasi a global stream of all posts) with.

i've not used it in a while but https://mastodon.social/@xero
i'm also on some private nodes https://slime.global/@xero

you use private nodes b/c they have less load, cool domains, and usually custom css.

the admins decide what nodes will be publicly displayed on the federated timeline of that instance. but you can follow (and see posts) from anyone on any node. you just need to use their full instance (domain) and username.

zge Wrote:I don't see how [multiple instances] is an argument against Masodon

It just makes it harder to communicate with other people than it needs to be. Unless all my friends are on the same instance then I've got an extra hoop to jump through with some people than I do on other networks like Twitter and Facebook. Diaspora* has the same problem iirc where the product itself wasn't bad but being decentralised worked against it rather than for it.

zge Wrote:Why does everyone have to replace Twitter?

Everyone doesn't have to, but Mastadon is in this instance because it's filling the same niche of a micro blogging social network.

Microblogging isn't a niche, Twitter has 330 million active users.
*Decentralized* microblogging is the niche Mastodon strives to fill,
it doesn't have to compete with Twitter.

(06-01-2018, 11:29 AM)Foggalong Wrote: It just makes it harder to communicate with other people than it needs to be. Unless all my friends are on the same instance then I've got an extra hoop to jump through

why? b/c their "username" also includes an instance name as well? you can follow anyone on any instance from any other instance, regardless of it it's federated or not.

you can follow me as "@xero@mastodon.social" from any node. but if you're on the same node you can just use "@xero". but now that the total number of nodes has exploded i think everyone has just started using user@instance names all the time now just to be specific/sure.

You can find me via @mrtnrdl@chaos.social

Does anyone have a suggestion for a decent android-client? I used mastalab for quite a while, but it feels sluggish sometimes... :(

(16-02-2018, 10:09 AM)mrtn Wrote: Does anyone have a suggestion for a decent android-client? I used mastalab for quite a while, but it feels sluggish sometimes... :(

Twidere (https://github.com/TwidereProject/Twidere-Android) is an overall very nice, and from a android perspective it seems very well built, as compared to some other apps. It can communicate with Mastodon, but isn't quite as refined as it's Twitter support, which to be fair has it's issues too. But it's getting better all the time.

I might end up using mine. @sm0g@mstdn.io

I really miss identi.ca before it went the pump.io route.