Just to get ahead of many of the Twitter/Elon fan’s comments: Did I say Twitter and Mastodon were the same? No. Pretty sure I said they are *not* the same. Did I say *anything* about “opinions I don’t like?” No. The fact that so many of the negative comments assume I left over “hearing other opinions” or “bubbles” demonstrates a whole lot of preconceptions about why folks wouldn’t like Twitter. I don’t like outrage, and Twitter is an outrage machine. The algorithm promotes anger over other emotions, and humans *do* have other emotions online. Twitter’s not for everyone as a result. If you like outrage, that’s fine. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. That’s freedom, something I actually care a great deal about. If you’re out here critiquing random people on the Internet for exercising their freedom, stop. Now, if you want to watch this video in a place without a pesky algorithm, check out TILvids. tilvids.com/w/vsMQtvP2Nc6dkKVue7dFt2
Well said! I love your "to each his own" perspective...It's very refreshing to see this in a world of connected anonymity where people tend to say things they'd never dare say to someone's face.
Oh, they're still coming. But at least I can tap the sign! :P Most of the comments have been perfectly respectful, even when they disagree with the premise. I think a certain segment of Muskists are going to see that I dislike the Twitter chaos and immediately have a reaction, and maybe this comment dissuades them? One can hope?
Hey, love your video and yes, some people cannot listen, you should not be angry :-) . If you have portainer up and running, it comes very easy or any other kind of orchestration software. But yes, you need to create a community server. I really appreciate the approach of Mastodon. Federated Social Media could be a relief we all need. :-) So we all need to build the world around us. If some decide to sit beside, not helping and be salty... we can just be friendly and move on. Keep up the good work!
Yes, please do a deeper dive into Mastodon! I see lots of folks that have no idea what Mastodon is all about, and what the advantages are over other social networks (no ads, no algorithm, etc.) I think a video in your easy-going style would go a long way towards easing people's fears and uncertainties. P.S. Thanks again for the video on Barrier, I use it every day with my iMac and Linux laptop and love it!
@@VeronicaExplains It will be great if you could also do a video on how one can spin up his own instance, if (s)he chooses to. I have seen the tutorial on Digital Ocean, but most of it went over my head 😛 . So, a noob friendly video will be helpful 😀 (Actually our HS school's alumni are planning to spin up one for our school's ex students).
Mastodon reminds me of the Fidonet network of connected BBS's. I'm not really a social media type person, but I do like this distributed network concept. Your "in real life" comment resonates with me too - That's one of my primary rules for facebook - you don't get on my list until I've known you in at least one other situation, preferably face-to-face. It keeps down on the drama, um, dramatically.
As somebody who grew up on dial-in channel banks and BBS during the mid-80 to the early 1990s when I got talked to HTML by Al and Barb Smith at the HTMLWiters Guild, your opinion was a breath of fresh hair. Glad I found you.
That was fun! A former coworker's father was the creator of the "Bop-it." He was an independent toy creator who would then sell off the ideas or prototypes. "Polly Pocket" was also his. My co-worker would bring in loads of factory samples and stuff all the time!
As they can on Facebook and Reddit and twitter too. Welcome to the Internet. Oh yeah all the email providers read your emails, all the vpns watch your traffic, and all the word processors track your key strokes. Oh yes and all the sims track your cellphone regardless of brand or os and all the carriers record your phone calls. Guess we a pretty much spied on 24/7. They must really love us.
@@ghost-user559 true and irrelevant. You probably wouldn't like staying in an airbnb with cameras in the bathroom just because the NSA has silent access to your Webcam. The lack of privacy on social media becomes more of a probleml, not less, if your admin is someone who knows you personally.
@@Fopenplop Very true, that is why I don’t think open source spying is any better then corporate closed source spying. Like you said probably worse actually because that person might have something against you personally and an irl way to use it against you.
The local feed is, IMO, the "killer app" of Mastodon. It really does feel like a BBS. I've also been telling my friends that ask to stick to an instance that sounds interesting, but in the end that don't matter cuz you can just move if you find a better one or a more interesting one!
@@repeekyraidcero you can export your toots. There's a simple direct export in the software but I've seen people make scripts and apps that have advanced features too!
There's also something to be said about **not** saving everything you post. I have my toots set to auto-delete after a few weeks, because I don't want my mods to be holding onto my random thoughts forever and ever. Any media I post, I also save to my computer, so I don't worry too much about the timeline itself. My followers/follows/lists are far more valuable to me than the actual toot content itself. That's just me though- everyone's different!
also, hosting your own Mastodon instance opens you up to GDPR and DMCA considerations. not an insurmountable hurdle, but definitely something to keep in mind!
I deactivated my twitter a couple months back not only because of it going downhill behind the scenes but also the constant negativity and hostility about every little thing. It gets tiring, becomes a mental drain of sorts.
I'm currently working on my own. The building it is fine; I've had no problems with that, it's a fun project. But! Having run forums and so on years ago I know that creating a platform is a fraction of the work. Mastodon differs (from Twitter) in that you have to be responsible for your content and moderate it properly. The legal obligations are a minefield of their own (copyright, GDPR (similar elsewhere too), hate speech laws, it's a lot to consider and because of that, mine will be private. But building a community is extremely hard work. Getting users is easy. Keeping them is the hard part
I actually had this dilema. I'm tired of the nowadays corporate social media. But didn't really know how to get into Mastodon. I'll take your advise of joining a smaller server.
@@keso.mp3 The thing I like about Mastodon is that there is no algorithm. However, getting comfortable there takes a bit as there are a lot fewer people using it. Once you get a main topic for your account and a few like-minded users, it gets mich better
I disagree. 1) Joining a local community: I would need two accounts, one for the local community, one for the wider internet, as I don't want to share my location with everyone. 2) Picking one that fits your interests: I am interested in multiple things, so it doesn't make sense for me Also, I don't really trust random servers that much. I prefer to host my own.
Hi Veronica. I liked this video, and I like all your videos really. You have found a very nice approach to making videos and it's a really nice mix of technical content, analysis, ability to communicate it to an audience, with a dash of humor. Very entertaining!
I've explored mastodon, my opinion is those deserting Twitter will find mastodon too complicated, it is not an instant replacement for Twitter. Most deserting Twitter (emphasise word most) will maybe return to see if they are missed. People tend to forget, if the Twitter block facility is used properly they need not be exposed to opinions they don't like.
While I miss BBSes (Citadel > Ivory > *) and have fond memories of having a FidoNet connection on one or two of them (back at the end of the 80s and the early 90s), both they and Mastodon just don't work for me in this day and age and certainly can't replace Twitter for my use case (mainly following news organizations for the news, plus a couple of content creators with erratic posting/streaming schedules).
FWIW...I think the main benefit of starting your own instance is having the "authentication" of tying your ID to your domain name. I think this makes sense for a of brands, governments, and journalists, which at this point, seem to be the least likely to run their own instance.
I initially liked it because I got in an instance with techy people that have the same passions and it’s like getting into a group of people that motivate you to do things but now I kind of don’t. The moderators are really authoritarian - blocked an entire instance because somebody shared there a New York Times article about new research about some medication, one thing to another, blocked an entire instance because moderators wouldn’t kick the account for sharing that…
One of my favorite things about Mastodon is that if you don't like the job your moderators are doing, you can start a new instance or find one that fits your vibe. You might find others in your instance who feel the same way, too. Lots of people bop around until they find what they want- I did a fair amount of digging (asking) before I settled where I am now (a local instance with a mod team I respect).
Your intro melody wakes me up. It makes me turn down my volume and pay attention. Not very relaxing, but like a jolt from 6 cups of coffee. That's why I subbed. You give off the aesthetic of a breaking news story. Quality.
my one issue is that it feels like mastodon and the fediverse are going to become super politicized as most of the people leaving twitter are doing so either under false pretenses (I don't think it's new information there is a lot of misinformation surrounding Musk and the takeover right now) or under entirely correct pretenses, but for exclusively political reasons. I like federated technology as an alternative to traditional centralized systems, I think I'd like to see more pushes for security, encryption, privacy, etc. being taken preemptively, but generally I like the concept. (personally I stay off social media platforms alltogether but I like the concept) The issue is I worry two things will end up happening 1 : Mastodon and the other fednets will become an inherently politicized place much like truth social is now. It almost certainly won't be to the same extent, but ANY extent is very much sub-optimal 2 : People will flock to Mastodon thinking it's any less free-speech supporting than twitter. It's entirely decentralized so literally anyone can make their own instance for whoever they want. Sure you can just stop feding with other instances if they start seriously causing problems, but more realistically it will be one or two controversial users in any given instance, so ignoring that ENTIRE instance because of one person isn't exactly going to happen, so you're actually going to almost certainly start hearing far more things you don't want to, which is exactly what a lot of the people coming to Mastodon seem to be trying to avoid. While a hammer is a good tool, if you try to use a hammer to undo a bolt it ain't gonna work, and then everyone in the room will know that hammers aren't good tools. If people come to Mastodon expecting a highly moderated and locked down platform, they just plain ain't gonna get it, and it's entirely possible people will then look at that and say the technology as a whole is bad, since most of the people coming from the outside to judge it are all coming for the same reason, looking for the same things. there is also a potential third issue which is, something being decentralized and democratic while good on it's own, doesn't prevent tyranny or overzealous moderation. If a lot of like minded people all start creating echo-instances that they DO actually manage to moderate super effectively, that's still not any better than twitter. Sure it's ruled by a majority instead of a minority, but tyranny that gets voted for is still tyranny. I'm not TOO worried here since, well, it's FOSS and federated so worst case people can spin up their own networks if it starts getting too bad, but then we risk having another truth social. People will only spin up those alternatives when they personally take issue with the platform so much so that they decide they need to take action, meaning the people on the most extreme will take action first resulting in the "alternative" likely being just as bad as the original, just in the other direction. It's an inherently complicated issue that's just being made even more complicated by one of the most controversial men alive being at the helm, ensuring there is constant misinformation, misunderstanding, and disagreement.
Very much agree with couple of additions: - Size is the fundamental problem, small communities are inherently easier to maintain than large ones (problems scale faster than linearly). Technology only makes the problem bigger/smaller but anything in "Twitter-scale" is going to be a problem. - The issue of "replacing twitter" with small, stable communities is that it's the opposite of that, adhoc topical communities around some topic that lasts only hours or days. It's really a question what you are looking for.
I would love to see a deeper dive on Mastodon. I have been looking to revamp my social media habits and now is as good a time as any. I would also love to see the follow up on how you configure newsboat.
Love hearing about Mastodon. I've had a heck of time getting it going though. It seems "good" but the hurdle to get into it is a little daunting. It reminds me of starting out in Linux - there is something great there but cracking into it is a bit rough at first.
To go old school-ish, it's like the different rooms on CompuServe or IRC. Or Digital Talkgroups on DMR, D-Star etc on Ham radio. I hadn't looked into it much aside from thinking of reserving a user ID or handle or whatever it would be called. This was a good primer on it.
I've had a few mastadon accounts that servers have disappeared, and now there is no way to delete the accounts. Some instances still have those old accounts listed in search results
Were you just listening to my phone call? A couple hours ago had mentioned to my friend I was leaving Twitter, but didn't know where to go.. Thank you! The BBS is BACK!
Thanks for the sane overview. I had the same thoughts about single-user instances as I watched tech friends set them up last April. Community, not technology, is what will make or break the Fediverse. It sounds like you might be an excellent person to do a deep dive on the community, norms, side-effects, user tools, and settings. Maybe even include a discussion on filters Anyway thanks again!
i'm completely on board with your point of building a community....however, here are some of the more important reasons to host your own mastadon server. 1 - if the instance you have joined decides to go down (especially a smaller one) then your account and all your info is deleted. 2 - if the instance you are on blocks/bans/censors another instance or person from another instance YOU will not have access to that community/person. hosting your own mastodon server doesn't mean you have to run a full blown social network because you can still connect and communicate with other instances/people that you want to support and be involved in whatever community you want, while still having control of your own 'identity' and data that can only be taken down by YOU. but if you're a beginner and just want to stick with only one community and beholden to whatever they decided your instance should have external access to then that's entirely up to you. just my 2 cents ;)
From 2:58 until the end of the video, I wondered "Can I find a copy of that handbook?" (Spoilers: I did on Amazon, add that to my cart). Anyway, when it comes to Mastodon, I'm not eager to move over to the platform just yet. Juggling another social media platform would be a bit much for me, and I use Twitter to keep up with Linux distros and content creators, and no I'm not going to run the "rm -rf /" command on my soical life directory to get rid of people that have both Mastodon and Twitter (obligatory Linux joke). Now if by some chance that I felt a disturbance in the Force as if all of Twitter's servers were computing 1s and 0s were suddenly silenced (obligatory Star Wars joke, I've embraced the fact I'm a nerd), the move from Twitter to Mastodon would be imminent. Just not right now, maybe when things are more stabilized.
Mastodon seems overly complicated to me, so I'd appreciate a basic primer on how to use it. The Linux Experiment did one and it was good, but I got a bit lost in the details. Thanks for your videos; you're one of the best Linux channels!
Caveat: I don't social media BUT I used to follow a few C++ Gurus (these seemed to to have become sparse contributors, I haven't opened Twitter since before the Pandemic). Then I heard about Mastodon from the "On the Media" podcast (recommended non-partisan review of press and TV news coverage. Focus is US but I am in/from the UK). The article was obviously in response to the ""You know who" debacle. The podcast interrupted my musing on what would be an ideal on-line agora. I had got as far as open source and "governed" by (most) of the users. C'est ici, this guy starts talking about Mastodon. Sounded like just the thing and I went on TH-cam to see what my subscriptions had to interest me and ....
Just as a word of caution use a VM with relatively high storage volume. It somehow caches browsed media from federated servers. Its somehow a lot more than my synapse server.
Interesting. I didn't really pay much attention to this because I never used Twitter and I assumed this was just yet another alternative platform for those leaving an existing one (usually for nonsensical political reasons). But your explanation suggests there's far more to it. Decentralized communities that can't be outright controlled doesn't quite seem like the fit for the average person leaving Twitter. I must know more.
I have tried joining the fediverse three times now, and each time, the instance I join (which seemed stable and popular before I joined it) immediately dies
If i deside to make my own instance it's not gonna be big. My instance of mastodon be place wher people supporting my work could talk, they could download stuff and so on. Diputes can sometimes be nightmare but they can be reduced to almost nonexistent level with clever planing, simplifying rules and so on. It's never easy be moderator but you can make it easier on your self by clever planning and by not being typical human who likes to make things unnecesarily complicated.
Veronica said "Sysops", that word isn't used too much today. Like many I'm a @localhost sysop using Synchronet BBS. that'd make a great video if your into it. Have a wonderful day.
Let's see...you touch on a piece of software many have never heard of, then ask if we want a dedicated deep-dive video on it? Umm...YES PLEASE!! :). On the surface, the decentralized nature of Mastodon reminds me of the old FidoNet (yeah, I'm that old) -- everything is visible on every FidoNet node (assuming the node(s) participate in carrying such content, of course). I really would be interested in seeing different use-cases. One thing I can see is a company using it for automated system status updates via the Mastodon platform. Seems like it can be as open or closed as you want, which is huge because there's no need to use a hosted model such as Twitter for "internal" messaging.
Having only one social media account that is over 30 years old that is connected to a nonexistent email this is my interest level in social media. Most of my social inter action is with people in real time dealing with real life, my phone number and texting is what I use most. The only thing close to my contact list is the list of blocked numbers from tella marketers and at last count that was over 200.
First time seeing you in my feed, and holy shit a COBOL dev?!? COBOL, FORTRAN, and Linux Kernel devs are the true grey beards of the internet mad props to you for dedicating a portion of your career to such a specialized language. I am but a bastardized network engineer myself with hands in everything infrastructure.
the only reason i would like to spin up my own instance of mastodon is to learn how. i personally have little need for most social media, so i don't really care for it from a user prospective.
Still figuring out my “social media strategy”, but I’ve found that having an alt account on a different instance comes in handy. With the influx of new users, my instances had understandable downtime during upgrades and with the ability to export/import accounts you follow, I just switched to my alt when my home instance was unavailable.
A video on Mastodon and some of the other Fediverse services like Pixelfed would be great. Especially something that covers how to follow an account from one service to the other. i.e. How to follow a Pixelfed account on your Mastodon. There are many questions about it. Like if I want to share pictures on my Mastodon, do I have to create a Pixelfed account on some instance and then share the Pixelfed posts on my Mastodon (i.e. is your only option to share images to host them on some other service? I have found that adding even other Mastodon users by copy-pasting URL from the Follow pop-up dialog is far from intuitive. I think it limits Mastodon to technical users
A deep dive would be excellent, and also. I had no idea people were making single-user instances Honestly seems a bit pointless, and also. Depending on how it's set up you have the option of moving or redirecting to your account on another instance in case the current one ain't your thing. But I will say, for those looking to self-host. Maybe look into Pleroma, still federated, but less resouce-heavy
I check my twits about once every three months or so due to how isolated it is. After years on the platform, I still don't understand why people claim it's a news source. Do we have proof people are leaving, or is this just word on the street?
What is doing the context reply with attribution in the messages below? Is it Mastodon or You Tube? I have kept a very small presence on social media because Google and Facebook removed features of Usenet in about 2011 that would have allowed for threading, attribution and context reply that would have been supplied with Markdown as a standard. I know that Markdown had been supported om Reddit and Slashdot from the beginning, and that because of mobile devices and the price of IM no one uses it, but bringing it back might bring some accountability to what people say on social media The blog and bare naked text blocks may have contributed to the chaos and rudeness on today's social media.
Hey Veronica! Love the little comment warning pop up! Slightly off topic but seeing the system administration handbook in the video made me think…would you ever fancy doing a video on your favourite Linux books?
I've had a long winded annoyance with twitter, since they stopped helping musicians around 2015. I figure that Mastodon will be an excellent place to help our movement #WEATNU grow and has existed since 2014, an experimental music movement and label.
So, is a "solo-instance" by definition non-federated? Can't one run their own solo-instance and still federate with all the other instances? Or instances of ones own choosing?
It might be! But, I think it's quite possible the same concept applies. Rather than spinning up your own, which can be lonely, consider joining another and getting a feel for it. I don't know about image stuff - Instagram-esque stuff is *not* my thing - but Peertube is pretty lively. I simulpost these videos over on TILvids (tilvids.com) and I'm pretty confident in saying TILvids is eager to keep growing. TILvids doesn't federate the same way as other instances, but I'm still enjoying the videos from my fellow creators (and I get a lot of interesting feedback over there).
![ง้อ (ALRIGHT) - FOURTH Prod. by URBOYTJ [ OFFICIAL MV ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Qs8ZeV6Dqj8/mqdefault.jpg)
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 76 | คู่เอก "ผึ้งหลวง vs สมิงดำ"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9SBshmGQOIM/mqdefault.jpg)
Just to get ahead of many of the Twitter/Elon fan’s comments:
Did I say Twitter and Mastodon were the same? No. Pretty sure I said they are *not* the same.
Did I say *anything* about “opinions I don’t like?” No.
The fact that so many of the negative comments assume I left over “hearing other opinions” or “bubbles” demonstrates a whole lot of preconceptions about why folks wouldn’t like Twitter.
I don’t like outrage, and Twitter is an outrage machine. The algorithm promotes anger over other emotions, and humans *do* have other emotions online. Twitter’s not for everyone as a result. If you like outrage, that’s fine. If you don’t like it, that’s fine.
That’s freedom, something I actually care a great deal about. If you’re out here critiquing random people on the Internet for exercising their freedom, stop.
Now, if you want to watch this video in a place without a pesky algorithm, check out TILvids.
tilvids.com/w/vsMQtvP2Nc6dkKVue7dFt2
Well said! I love your "to each his own" perspective...It's very refreshing to see this in a world of connected anonymity where people tend to say things they'd never dare say to someone's face.
You honestly shouldn't have even bothered typing this up. No point responding to Elon Musk stans preemptively.
Oh, they're still coming. But at least I can tap the sign! :P
Most of the comments have been perfectly respectful, even when they disagree with the premise. I think a certain segment of Muskists are going to see that I dislike the Twitter chaos and immediately have a reaction, and maybe this comment dissuades them? One can hope?
Hey, love your video and yes, some people cannot listen, you should not be angry :-) . If you have portainer up and running, it comes very easy or any other kind of orchestration software. But yes, you need to create a community server. I really appreciate the approach of Mastodon. Federated Social Media could be a relief we all need. :-) So we all need to build the world around us. If some decide to sit beside, not helping and be salty... we can just be friendly and move on. Keep up the good work!
Yes, please do a deeper dive into Mastodon! I see lots of folks that have no idea what Mastodon is all about, and what the advantages are over other social networks (no ads, no algorithm, etc.) I think a video in your easy-going style would go a long way towards easing people's fears and uncertainties.
P.S. Thanks again for the video on Barrier, I use it every day with my iMac and Linux laptop and love it!
Thank you, I'm glad the Barrier video was helpful! And yes, I am hoping to do a deeper dive into Mastodon at some point!
@@VeronicaExplains It will be great if you could also do a video on how one can spin up his own instance, if (s)he chooses to. I have seen the tutorial on Digital Ocean, but most of it went over my head 😛 . So, a noob friendly video will be helpful 😀 (Actually our HS school's alumni are planning to spin up one for our school's ex students).
...and how to make it somewhat similar to twitter:) federated toots and all
I thought the copy cat site sucks
Mastodon reminds me of the Fidonet network of connected BBS's. I'm not really a social media type person, but I do like this distributed network concept. Your "in real life" comment resonates with me too - That's one of my primary rules for facebook - you don't get on my list until I've known you in at least one other situation, preferably face-to-face. It keeps down on the drama, um, dramatically.
As somebody who grew up on dial-in channel banks and BBS during the mid-80 to the early 1990s when I got talked to HTML by Al and Barb Smith at the HTMLWiters Guild, your opinion was a breath of fresh hair. Glad I found you.
Joined for Mastodon, stayed for Bop-It.
That was fun! A former coworker's father was the creator of the "Bop-it." He was an independent toy creator who would then sell off the ideas or prototypes. "Polly Pocket" was also his. My co-worker would bring in loads of factory samples and stuff all the time!
I think it’s important to mention instance administrators can read your private DMs on Mastodon.
As they can on Facebook and Reddit and twitter too. Welcome to the Internet. Oh yeah all the email providers read your emails, all the vpns watch your traffic, and all the word processors track your key strokes. Oh yes and all the sims track your cellphone regardless of brand or os and all the carriers record your phone calls. Guess we a pretty much spied on 24/7. They must really love us.
yes, thats why you should use matrix for DMs and mastodon for social networking only
@@ghost-user559 true and irrelevant. You probably wouldn't like staying in an airbnb with cameras in the bathroom just because the NSA has silent access to your Webcam. The lack of privacy on social media becomes more of a probleml, not less, if your admin is someone who knows you personally.
@@Fopenplop Very true, that is why I don’t think open source spying is any better then corporate closed source spying. Like you said probably worse actually because that person might have something against you personally and an irl way to use it against you.
What other open source can spy?
Just Ubuntu and Mastodon.
The local feed is, IMO, the "killer app" of Mastodon. It really does feel like a BBS.
I've also been telling my friends that ask to stick to an instance that sounds interesting, but in the end that don't matter cuz you can just move if you find a better one or a more interesting one!
But you loose your toots ...
@@repeekyraidcero you can export your toots. There's a simple direct export in the software but I've seen people make scripts and apps that have advanced features too!
There's also something to be said about **not** saving everything you post.
I have my toots set to auto-delete after a few weeks, because I don't want my mods to be holding onto my random thoughts forever and ever. Any media I post, I also save to my computer, so I don't worry too much about the timeline itself. My followers/follows/lists are far more valuable to me than the actual toot content itself. That's just me though- everyone's different!
also, hosting your own Mastodon instance opens you up to GDPR and DMCA considerations. not an insurmountable hurdle, but definitely something to keep in mind!
I deactivated my twitter a couple months back not only because of it going downhill behind the scenes but also the constant negativity and hostility about every little thing. It gets tiring, becomes a mental drain of sorts.
I'm currently working on my own. The building it is fine; I've had no problems with that, it's a fun project. But! Having run forums and so on years ago I know that creating a platform is a fraction of the work. Mastodon differs (from Twitter) in that you have to be responsible for your content and moderate it properly. The legal obligations are a minefield of their own (copyright, GDPR (similar elsewhere too), hate speech laws, it's a lot to consider and because of that, mine will be private. But building a community is extremely hard work. Getting users is easy. Keeping them is the hard part
I actually had this dilema.
I'm tired of the nowadays corporate social media.
But didn't really know how to get into Mastodon.
I'll take your advise of joining a smaller server.
@@keso.mp3 The thing I like about Mastodon is that there is no algorithm.
However, getting comfortable there takes a bit as there are a lot fewer people using it. Once you get a main topic for your account and a few like-minded users, it gets mich better
YES! Cover Mastodon in detail! Give us more information to share with friends and family to encourage using more equitable social media platforms!
To be honest, Pleroma or Misskey is probably easier and better for a personal instance :P
I disagree.
1) Joining a local community: I would need two accounts, one for the local community, one for the wider internet, as I don't want to share my location with everyone.
2) Picking one that fits your interests: I am interested in multiple things, so it doesn't make sense for me
Also, I don't really trust random servers that much. I prefer to host my own.
As always writing a comment to support the channel
Hi Veronica. I liked this video, and I like all your videos really. You have found a very nice approach to making videos and it's a really nice mix of technical content, analysis, ability to communicate it to an audience, with a dash of humor. Very entertaining!
I got so stuck on "cacka-phoney" 😂
I've explored mastodon, my opinion is those deserting Twitter will find mastodon too complicated, it is not an instant replacement for Twitter. Most deserting Twitter (emphasise word most) will maybe return to see if they are missed. People tend to forget, if the Twitter block facility is used properly they need not be exposed to opinions they don't like.
Heaven forfend we get exposed to that
this video has made this sort of service seem way more interesting than any "do you want a twitter alternative" ever could.
Your smile was so happy and cute. Good on you to make it to 250 on Bop-It. It made me laugh and smile too
While I miss BBSes (Citadel > Ivory > *) and have fond memories of having a FidoNet connection on one or two of them (back at the end of the 80s and the early 90s), both they and Mastodon just don't work for me in this day and age and certainly can't replace Twitter for my use case (mainly following news organizations for the news, plus a couple of content creators with erratic posting/streaming schedules).
FWIW...I think the main benefit of starting your own instance is having the "authentication" of tying your ID to your domain name. I think this makes sense for a of brands, governments, and journalists, which at this point, seem to be the least likely to run their own instance.
Geocities? Old school. LOL Great video
I was there! I loved Geocities. Social networking, mid-late 90s style!
I initially liked it because I got in an instance with techy people that have the same passions and it’s like getting into a group of people that motivate you to do things but now I kind of don’t. The moderators are really authoritarian - blocked an entire instance because somebody shared there a New York Times article about new research about some medication, one thing to another, blocked an entire instance because moderators wouldn’t kick the account for sharing that…
One of my favorite things about Mastodon is that if you don't like the job your moderators are doing, you can start a new instance or find one that fits your vibe. You might find others in your instance who feel the same way, too. Lots of people bop around until they find what they want- I did a fair amount of digging (asking) before I settled where I am now (a local instance with a mod team I respect).
Your intro melody wakes me up. It makes me turn down my volume and pay attention. Not very relaxing, but like a jolt from 6 cups of coffee. That's why I subbed. You give off the aesthetic of a breaking news story. Quality.
my one issue is that it feels like mastodon and the fediverse are going to become super politicized as most of the people leaving twitter are doing so either under false pretenses (I don't think it's new information there is a lot of misinformation surrounding Musk and the takeover right now) or under entirely correct pretenses, but for exclusively political reasons.
I like federated technology as an alternative to traditional centralized systems, I think I'd like to see more pushes for security, encryption, privacy, etc. being taken preemptively, but generally I like the concept. (personally I stay off social media platforms alltogether but I like the concept)
The issue is I worry two things will end up happening
1 : Mastodon and the other fednets will become an inherently politicized place much like truth social is now. It almost certainly won't be to the same extent, but ANY extent is very much sub-optimal
2 : People will flock to Mastodon thinking it's any less free-speech supporting than twitter. It's entirely decentralized so literally anyone can make their own instance for whoever they want. Sure you can just stop feding with other instances if they start seriously causing problems, but more realistically it will be one or two controversial users in any given instance, so ignoring that ENTIRE instance because of one person isn't exactly going to happen, so you're actually going to almost certainly start hearing far more things you don't want to, which is exactly what a lot of the people coming to Mastodon seem to be trying to avoid. While a hammer is a good tool, if you try to use a hammer to undo a bolt it ain't gonna work, and then everyone in the room will know that hammers aren't good tools. If people come to Mastodon expecting a highly moderated and locked down platform, they just plain ain't gonna get it, and it's entirely possible people will then look at that and say the technology as a whole is bad, since most of the people coming from the outside to judge it are all coming for the same reason, looking for the same things.
there is also a potential third issue which is, something being decentralized and democratic while good on it's own, doesn't prevent tyranny or overzealous moderation. If a lot of like minded people all start creating echo-instances that they DO actually manage to moderate super effectively, that's still not any better than twitter. Sure it's ruled by a majority instead of a minority, but tyranny that gets voted for is still tyranny. I'm not TOO worried here since, well, it's FOSS and federated so worst case people can spin up their own networks if it starts getting too bad, but then we risk having another truth social. People will only spin up those alternatives when they personally take issue with the platform so much so that they decide they need to take action, meaning the people on the most extreme will take action first resulting in the "alternative" likely being just as bad as the original, just in the other direction.
It's an inherently complicated issue that's just being made even more complicated by one of the most controversial men alive being at the helm, ensuring there is constant misinformation, misunderstanding, and disagreement.
Very much agree with couple of additions:
- Size is the fundamental problem, small communities are inherently easier to maintain than large ones (problems scale faster than linearly). Technology only makes the problem bigger/smaller but anything in "Twitter-scale" is going to be a problem.
- The issue of "replacing twitter" with small, stable communities is that it's the opposite of that, adhoc topical communities around some topic that lasts only hours or days. It's really a question what you are looking for.
"I'm such a nerd ...". Yes you are, and you are awesome! :o)
... and so are you!
More on Mastodon please 🐱💕🐘
I'm not a big user of social media, but “i'm such a nerd“ is mood.
Ahh the good ol BBS days. Awesome video as always.
The issue is a lot of people prefer to create there own echo chamber and if you join one of the larger instances you might see a "mean" person.
Deeper dive into Mastodon please
Life doesn’t exist without Veronica explaining
That was wonderful! And the end made me tear up. 🤣
Oh! A smexy Amiga 1200 in your background..
.. back to your video. :D
I would love to see a deeper dive on Mastodon. I have been looking to revamp my social media habits and now is as good a time as any.
I would also love to see the follow up on how you configure newsboat.
Love to hear a more indepth presentation on Mastodan!
Love hearing about Mastodon. I've had a heck of time getting it going though. It seems "good" but the hurdle to get into it is a little daunting. It reminds me of starting out in Linux - there is something great there but cracking into it is a bit rough at first.
I would love you to do a deeper dive into mastadon. Thanks for the video.
To go old school-ish, it's like the different rooms on CompuServe or IRC. Or Digital Talkgroups on DMR, D-Star etc on Ham radio. I hadn't looked into it much aside from thinking of reserving a user ID or handle or whatever it would be called. This was a good primer on it.
Mastodon is such a beautiful application; I love hanging out on my instance while interacting with the global timeline.
I would love for you to do more on Macedon it’s very fascinating to me thank you for the continued you make.
I've had a few mastadon accounts that servers have disappeared, and now there is no way to delete the accounts. Some instances still have those old accounts listed in search results
"...or geocities" !! 🤣 love the joke as well as taking me back to my first days on the net
Were you just listening to my phone call? A couple hours ago had mentioned to my friend I was leaving Twitter, but didn't know where to go.. Thank you! The BBS is BACK!
Thanks for the sane overview.
I had the same thoughts about single-user instances as I watched tech friends set them up last April.
Community, not technology, is what will make or break the Fediverse.
It sounds like you might be an excellent person to do a deep dive on the community, norms, side-effects, user tools, and settings. Maybe even include a discussion on filters
Anyway thanks again!
+1 for a broader video on Mastodon
i'm completely on board with your point of building a community....however, here are some of the more important reasons to host your own mastadon server. 1 - if the instance you have joined decides to go down (especially a smaller one) then your account and all your info is deleted. 2 - if the instance you are on blocks/bans/censors another instance or person from another instance YOU will not have access to that community/person. hosting your own mastodon server doesn't mean you have to run a full blown social network because you can still connect and communicate with other instances/people that you want to support and be involved in whatever community you want, while still having control of your own 'identity' and data that can only be taken down by YOU. but if you're a beginner and just want to stick with only one community and beholden to whatever they decided your instance should have external access to then that's entirely up to you. just my 2 cents ;)
I would love it, you learn us more about Mastadon, especially the Social. Thanks
I love the arrangement of Zadok The Priest! (choral music nerd here.)
Huzzah! Yup, that was fun to do. I'm also a choral music nerd! :P
came to the comments to find the name of the music. thanks!
From 2:58 until the end of the video, I wondered "Can I find a copy of that handbook?" (Spoilers: I did on Amazon, add that to my cart). Anyway, when it comes to Mastodon, I'm not eager to move over to the platform just yet. Juggling another social media platform would be a bit much for me, and I use Twitter to keep up with Linux distros and content creators, and no I'm not going to run the "rm -rf /" command on my soical life directory to get rid of people that have both Mastodon and Twitter (obligatory Linux joke). Now if by some chance that I felt a disturbance in the Force as if all of Twitter's servers were computing 1s and 0s were suddenly silenced (obligatory Star Wars joke, I've embraced the fact I'm a nerd), the move from Twitter to Mastodon would be imminent. Just not right now, maybe when things are more stabilized.
Mastodon seems overly complicated to me, so I'd appreciate a basic primer on how to use it. The Linux Experiment did one and it was good, but I got a bit lost in the details. Thanks for your videos; you're one of the best Linux channels!
find an instance, sign up.
@@Abandex369 I know that, but I'm talking about the byzantine system regarding instances and which server connects to whom.
@@ringo8410 each instance on their about page should have a list of other instances of which they do not federate with
Caveat: I don't social media BUT I used to follow a few C++ Gurus (these seemed to to have become sparse contributors, I haven't opened Twitter since before the Pandemic). Then I heard about Mastodon from the "On the Media" podcast (recommended non-partisan review of press and TV news coverage. Focus is US but I am in/from the UK). The article was obviously in response to the ""You know who" debacle. The podcast interrupted my musing on what would be an ideal on-line agora. I had got as far as open source and "governed" by (most) of the users. C'est ici, this guy starts talking about Mastodon. Sounded like just the thing and I went on TH-cam to see what my subscriptions had to interest me and ....
Lmao, love the twitter overview, I’ve never got down with it. I’d love to make my own server but I only have a phone :/
Just as a word of caution use a VM with relatively high storage volume.
It somehow caches browsed media from federated servers.
Its somehow a lot more than my synapse server.
Oh yeah, you'll need plenty of room to run Mastodon!
That's where object storage and a CDN come in.
Interesting. I didn't really pay much attention to this because I never used Twitter and I assumed this was just yet another alternative platform for those leaving an existing one (usually for nonsensical political reasons). But your explanation suggests there's far more to it. Decentralized communities that can't be outright controlled doesn't quite seem like the fit for the average person leaving Twitter. I must know more.
I have tried joining the fediverse three times now, and each time, the instance I join (which seemed stable and popular before I joined it) immediately dies
If i deside to make my own instance it's not gonna be big. My instance of mastodon be place wher people supporting my work could talk, they could download stuff and so on. Diputes can sometimes be nightmare but they can be reduced to almost nonexistent level with clever planing, simplifying rules and so on. It's never easy be moderator but you can make it easier on your self by clever planning and by not being typical human who likes to make things unnecesarily complicated.
Well written and presented, not to mention prescient!
I would love to see a more detailed video. Please make one.
Veronica said "Sysops", that word isn't used too much today. Like many I'm a @localhost sysop using Synchronet BBS. that'd make a great video if your into it. Have a wonderful day.
Let's see...you touch on a piece of software many have never heard of, then ask if we want a dedicated deep-dive video on it? Umm...YES PLEASE!! :). On the surface, the decentralized nature of Mastodon reminds me of the old FidoNet (yeah, I'm that old) -- everything is visible on every FidoNet node (assuming the node(s) participate in carrying such content, of course). I really would be interested in seeing different use-cases. One thing I can see is a company using it for automated system status updates via the Mastodon platform. Seems like it can be as open or closed as you want, which is huge because there's no need to use a hosted model such as Twitter for "internal" messaging.
I hope mastodon does get some traction out of Twittergeddon. Not for me since I'm an introvert, but I'm loving newsboat!
That was an impressive Bop-It run, I'm shook...
Yes I would like to see a Mastadon video. Sounds interesting
Hi, I love to watch you every new video. Keep it up. 👍👍
Alright. Subscribed for the Workbench 1.3. You win.
Huzzah! Thank you so much! I've got an Amiga 500 video coming shortly. :)
Having only one social media account that is over 30 years old that is connected to a nonexistent email this is my interest level in social media.
Most of my social inter action is with people in real time dealing with real life, my phone number and texting is what I use most.
The only thing close to my contact list is the list of blocked numbers from tella marketers and at last count that was over 200.
First time seeing you in my feed, and holy shit a COBOL dev?!? COBOL, FORTRAN, and Linux Kernel devs are the true grey beards of the internet mad props to you for dedicating a portion of your career to such a specialized language. I am but a bastardized network engineer myself with hands in everything infrastructure.
Well made video. Keep up the awesome content.
I like to keep my life and my tech simple. Yes its possible!
On that basis Mastodon isn't for me, but if its for you, great!
Oh man, I remember when it was "The Unix Administration Handbook", but it also talked about 100MB ethernet.
I thought I was the only one who still rememberd GeoCities....
the only reason i would like to spin up my own instance of mastodon is to learn how. i personally have little need for most social media, so i don't really care for it from a user prospective.
Thanks !
Nice channel 👏 💕 felt.
That arrangement of Zadok the Priest tho! Love it!
Deep dive into bop it! ™ ;) i'd entirely forgotten the existence of this.
I was banned from twitter and never looked back. It was a 1 week ban that lasted forever :-)
It's OK to be a Bob It nerd, 250 is Awesome. I used to have a Bop It (the original one), It makes me sad I don't have it anymore. :(
Still figuring out my “social media strategy”, but I’ve found that having an alt account on a different instance comes in handy. With the influx of new users, my instances had understandable downtime during upgrades and with the ability to export/import accounts you follow, I just switched to my alt when my home instance was unavailable.
Hola Veronica, i love your content!!!
A video on Mastodon and some of the other Fediverse services like Pixelfed would be great. Especially something that covers how to follow an account from one service to the other. i.e. How to follow a Pixelfed account on your Mastodon. There are many questions about it. Like if I want to share pictures on my Mastodon, do I have to create a Pixelfed account on some instance and then share the Pixelfed posts on my Mastodon (i.e. is your only option to share images to host them on some other service?
I have found that adding even other Mastodon users by copy-pasting URL from the Follow pop-up dialog is far from intuitive. I think it limits Mastodon to technical users
British Coronation Anthem: Zadok the Priest with a beat.
A deep dive would be excellent, and also. I had no idea people were making single-user instances
Honestly seems a bit pointless, and also. Depending on how it's set up you have the option
of moving or redirecting to your account on another instance in case the current one ain't your thing.
But I will say, for those looking to self-host. Maybe look into Pleroma, still federated, but less resouce-heavy
I check my twits about once every three months or so due to how isolated it is. After years on the platform, I still don't understand why people claim it's a news source. Do we have proof people are leaving, or is this just word on the street?
Great nerdy feelgood content!
What is doing the context reply with attribution in the messages below? Is it Mastodon or You Tube? I have kept a very small presence on social media because Google and Facebook removed features of Usenet in about 2011 that would have allowed for threading, attribution and context reply that would have been supplied with Markdown as a standard.
I know that Markdown had been supported om Reddit and Slashdot from the beginning, and that because of mobile devices and the price of IM no one uses it, but bringing it back might bring some accountability to what people say on social media The blog and bare naked text blocks may have contributed to the chaos and rudeness on today's social media.
Cant we just all go back to IRC?
1:00 Boom
I like Mastodon
Still relying on public servers as I have no VPS ready 4 selfhost...
Hey Veronica! Love the little comment warning pop up! Slightly off topic but seeing the system administration handbook in the video made me think…would you ever fancy doing a video on your favourite Linux books?
That’s a great video idea!
@@VeronicaExplains i glad you like it! I’m currently enjoying The Linux Command Line 2nd Ed.
Looking forward to a collaboration with you and @technology connections.
I've had a long winded annoyance with twitter, since they stopped helping musicians around 2015. I figure that Mastodon will be an excellent place to help our movement #WEATNU grow and has existed since 2014, an experimental music movement and label.
cover more about how mastodon works plz
Life isn't an airport. We don't have to keep announcing our arrivals and departures.
"Toots" are a very unfortunate branding choice.
So, is a "solo-instance" by definition non-federated? Can't one run their own solo-instance and still federate with all the other instances? Or instances of ones own choosing?
please do a deep dive on mastodon!
Do the Mastodon thing. Please!
What about instances of the other Fediverse platforms? Would it be worth spnning up Pixelverses and Peertubes?
It might be! But, I think it's quite possible the same concept applies. Rather than spinning up your own, which can be lonely, consider joining another and getting a feel for it.
I don't know about image stuff - Instagram-esque stuff is *not* my thing - but Peertube is pretty lively. I simulpost these videos over on TILvids (tilvids.com) and I'm pretty confident in saying TILvids is eager to keep growing. TILvids doesn't federate the same way as other instances, but I'm still enjoying the videos from my fellow creators (and I get a lot of interesting feedback over there).