I read something recently that gave me food for thought. An alternative has to be 10x better for people to switch; and the core experience is what convinces people, not cool extra features.
I don't know how universally applicable it is, but I wonder how Mastodon stacks up in that. Personally I think it's 10x better, but is it really? Or more importantly, are we communicating clearly that it is?
@Gargron "10x better" sounds like BS, to me, because you can't actually quantify relative quality like that in any sort of measurable way.
Taking the question as "enough of an improvement for people to switch", it depends a lot on two things. a) the use case of the person who might be switching, and b) how steep of a learning curve they're willing to go through to give another service a chance. (1/2)
@Gargron @InspectorCaracal the immediate reason people don't try mastodon in my experience is entirely the UI is incredibly intimidating (its based on something intended for power users).
(the reason they don't stay when i do invite them is because 'their friends aren't here' which is pretty nebulous to me)
@oct2pus @InspectorCaracal π jailed for power user crimes
@Gargron @InspectorCaracal i know this is a big commitment but i really do recommend a new and/or alternative UI at some point.
@oct2pus @Gargron @InspectorCaracal I strongly agree. The UI of mastodon is extremely intimidating.
That's uncharitable. It's easier to find people who have similar hobbies or interests on Twitter because it has a larger userbase.
@InspectorCaracal i mean i just really don't think that way personally and i don't really get the argument...you can continue using both websites at once its not like you can commit only to one social media site.
i just made new friends and called it a day
-, digital natives Show more
@dulcet ...are you a bot?
@dulcet okay I see on reviewing that you are not a bot, so I just wanted to let you know, that last bit with the Rolling Stone interview was for some reason a reply to me
@Gargron (2/2) Mastodon has a much steeper learning curve than other contemporary social media sites, which presents a large obstacle to switching. The only ways to get people past that obstacle are to give them sufficient motivation to keep going *before* they really get the core user experience - and the core user experience is what the "10x better" is about.
I don't think most people who could switch are getting sufficient motivation.
@InspectorCaracal Does Mastodon actually have a steeper learning curve than Snapchat though? That shit opaque af
@Gargron Yeah, it does. Snapchat, you pick up, you make an account, you take pictures, you add people. Sure, a lot of the features are weird and unintuitive but that just means most people wouldn't use all the features when they get started.
Mastodon already starts off at a disadvantage because you have to figure out how the system works before you even sign up, and since that's an inherent part of the fediverse, it needs to be done Extra Well.
@Gargron I have yet to figure out what that Extra Well would actually *be*, though, or I'd have given suggestions ages ago. π
@InspectorCaracal I guess one of the most important things we can do is try and make the best of the user sign-ups we do get. Let's consider the server selection to be our Great Filter. Most people who join say that content discovery is too difficult. What can be done for this?
Trends, follow recommendations, popular content leaderboards. There's uhhh opposition to all of those in the community. Idk what to do.
@Gargron What I think could be valuable is finding out what those people who are saying content discovery is too difficult are expecting the content discovery to actually be like. What kind of content are they expecting to discover, and how do they want to be seeing it?
@InspectorCaracal Not gonna lie they ask for things like trending hashtags lmao
@Gargron I'm not surprised. >.>
The thing is, a lot of people ask for features because they're used to seeing it, not because it's a valuable addition, or because they haven't thought about what they actually are getting out of it. So in the case of trending hashtags, what do you get out of it? You see what people are talking about right then.
The thing is, on Mastodon, that's what looking at the local and federated timelines is for... ooooh, I had a thought
@InspectorCaracal The signal to noise ratio on the firehose timelines has become too low for them to actually be able to tell what people are currently talking about.
@Gargron I'm trying to think if showing, say, the 10 most recently used unique hashtags in a given timeline column, regardless of frequency, would get booed for the same reasons as trending hashtags. I think it would avoid most of the complaints, but still give people a quick way to see what other people are talking about - which is the function that trending hashtags serve.
@InspectorCaracal Recently I was thinking how I could count when someone gets a follow from a recent account, and then add a list of most-followed-by-new-people accounts to the last screen of the onboarding screen.
Another thing that would be useful to me personally, count interactions with people you are not following, and then get recommendations to follow them, because I legit forget even if I boost someone a lot.
@Gargron I fear this has the effect of amplifying 'popularity', and replicate the shitty birdsite social dynamics related to that... (each user should have the possibility to custom hide counts of following/followers to the whole fediverse imo, not a popular feature perhaps but a long-sighted one) @InspectorCaracal
@bob @charlyblack @InspectorCaracal @gargron I also have the impression that content discovery is overrated (it will only help you find popular content) whereas the total tine spent on the platform is what actually drives engagement.
@steko @bob @charlyblack @InspectorCaracal @Gargron chasing the instant gratification of βpopularβ is addictive and destructive. Itβs what made the birdsite a toxic inhabitable place, an endless contest of who shouts the loudest. Actual engagement is slower, not addictive and requires work. As mastodon is not at mercy of VC, it can afford the luxury of not pursuing popular
@gargron @InspectorCaracal Something I liked in early Google+ was Circle Sharing. People could define a list of people they followed, as do we (although it is easier to use: from a profile you can add it to a list). And then you could share the list in a post. People could click the link, view the list, and import them all into a list of their own. People would then boost the toot containing the big list and there was fast growth. I don't know why they dropped it.
@Gargron I actually really like that second idea a lot.
@Gargron One thing I personally would love to see, is an easier way to discover developers that use Mastodon. Iβve been following these issues for quite some time in the hopes that someday keybase will add an official way to add a Mastodon handle verification:
> content discovery is too difficult. What can be done for this?
Better filtering of local and federated timelines.
One advantage of Mastodon is that you can hear people you don't know, but there's much noise.
There's a gray area between following and muting/blocking.
Allow to move users and domains to a "low priority" or whatever timeline. Kind of muting, but with the option to see what you are missing and change opinion.
@osoitz I mean, column filtering is a good feature idea that could be implemented better, yeah, but it's not actually a solution for content discovery, it's a solution for content filtering, so it reads like you jumped into a conversation because you saw an opening to talk about your personal pet issue despite it not actually being the topic at hand. 
@osoitz I agree that we could use better column filtering but that's really not relevant to the actual conversation that had been happening.
>it reads like you jumped into a conversation
Ooops, sorry for interrupting, let us know when you are finished, so that the rest can talk.
@osoitz That was uncalled for.
@gargron
It is the entire concept of site-sanctiomed popularity we should reject. Algorithmic popularity is what makes interaction on FB and tw the mess it is.
We should never forget that FB originated from a site meant for guys to grade coed hotness. That is still the underlying mindset. And it's shit.
you only have yourself to blame, eugeniou
@InspectorCaracal @Gargron instances.social and joinmastodon.org already do a great job at pointing people in the right direction.
Maybe we should tell new users even more directly where to go. How about we geographically map instances (self reported vague location of server admins or whatever).
Then when I sign up to this "Mastodon" everyone is talking about I'll be rerouted to the instance much closest to me. In the best case, from my own city.
@InspectorCaracal @Gargron But that's all the question of the Fediverse.
Thinking about it, Mastodon is carrying with the responsibility, of promoting a social media that has a complex concept behind it.
@lorabe @InspectorCaracal @Gargron users don't need to understand federation to use mastodon.
Most email users don't get federation and that's okay.
@Gargron @InspectorCaracal Choice paralysis of "what instance do I choose" is a high wall. They already have to choose to use Mastodon, now they must choose which instance. Too many choices, they'll never get on-boarded.
Better idea: put off instance choice until later. Have a newbie instance to let the federation concept sink in, then allow them to migrate (with followers intact) to a new home later.
@lordbowlich @Gargron I don't think that would be a good idea, but it does give me AN idea, which is since we have the joinmastodon landing page anyway, find a way to use the API to streamline going from joinmastodon to actually registering on an instance. Like a "registration process" kind of thing, which is effectively like putting the instance picker as part of a username selection and then passing that user's username and email to the target instance's registration.
@lordbowlich @Gargron To describe in a less wall of text way:
1- Go to joinmastodon.org and click "Join Now!"
2- Enter your email and the first part of username.
3a- Have the second part of the username be a dropdown, populated from instances that are open registration.
3b- There should be a button to limit that to "available usernames" - i.e. instances where [username] is available.
4- Click "Register on [instance name]" at the bottom that becomes available after choosing an instance
5- Then all you need is a way to prepopulate the sign-up field on the target instance with the email and username field, letting the user enter their password and registering on the site as normal.
Or heck, you could skip passing the email entirely and have the email entered along with the password.
@lordbowlich @Gargron The basic concept behind the idea is that instance selection gets "hidden" in the sign-up process instead of being a thing you need to read about before even starting to sign up, so it's not so much of an apparent obstacle.
@InspectorCaracal @lordbowlich That has tradeoffs though, as you can no longer familiarize yourself with the rules of the instance before signing up
@Gargron @lordbowlich I would disagree and have two possible responses to it:
1) You still can, since you're still *actually* signing up on the instance's website.
2) Putting a link in the sign-up page to the rules page of the target instance after selecting it seems like it would be pretty simple.
@InspectorCaracal @Gargron @lordbowlich reading rules is a higher wall than browsing to the registration field yourself.
It's correct that respecting the local rules of an instance is of tremendous importance.
I argue, that one should not sign up for an instance which will later kick one out for rule violation. The new user would get the impression that this represents the whole fediverse.
@Gargron I'm sort of thinking about it like making a character in an (MMO)RPG, when you're picking a race and class and stuff, and it gives little mini-descriptors of each thing just to get the gist of the thing across (could be like the short About from the instance?) and you *can* go out to the docs or the wiki and read all about that class and its stats and skills, if you want, but you can also just quickly pick something and go.
@InspectorCaracal @Gargron A registration flow like that would be a lot easier.
@InspectorCaracal @lordbowlich I wanted to not allow API registrations to prevent the easiest way of spam bot registration, but that really might be effective. And I know that @WAHa_06x36 would be happy about being able to add a register screen to his app.
@lordbowlich @InspectorCaracal Honestly this could, to some extent, explain the much faster pace of growth early on, before joinmastodon.org was created and everyone was linking to mastodon.social.
@Gargron @InspectorCaracal I know my thought process when I signed up was -- I want to be on mastodon.social because I don't know the maintainers of any of these other instances and whether they'll be reliable or not sketchy.
6 months later, I feel comfortable with the idea of migrating my main to an instance geared towards my particular interests.
@InspectorCaracal Yes, but it's like when the SV crowd talks about the 10x developer or whatever. It's unquantifiable, but at the same time you get an idea of what is meant. That being said you're right, this may not be applicable to Mastodon. For all we know, people would use literal garbage as long as enough famous people were also using it.