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Give mastodon a chance.
3 years ago
Hey, I'm posting a journal to share my thoughts on twitter's trainwreck situation and the mass migration to other platforms.
Currently people are looking for places to move from twitter, places like FA, itaku.ee, Cohost and even Tumblr.
And, in my opinion, none of them are sustainable replacements for twitter.
● Furaffinity: Nowhere close to a twitter experience, stuck in the past with its code held with duck tape.
● itaku.ee and cohost: Centralized websites like twitter, which is a matter of time until we run to some of the same issues (more on that later).
● Tumblr: WHY?? This website is vague about nsfw content, I don't understand why people are considering this website an option.
My suggestion? Use mastodon. Seriously, give it a TRY, I see people constantly ignoring it for apparently no reason other than "I don't want to".
It literally works like twitter, it's open source and it's decentralized, which means if the server you signed up to goes down, it does not take the ENTIRE mastodon userbase with it.
Think of it like e-mail, if your provider (e.g.: @yahoo.com) ceases to exist, other providers (e.g.: @gmail.com; @outlook.com) will remain operational, because they don't depend on your provider and they're able to interact with each other.
Currently cohost and itaku.ee are receiving an influx of users, which the latter became slow and nearly unusable.
If you still want to use them, it's okay, I won't stop you. But understand that it's a never ending cycle, if one or both of them goes down, there will be another massive migration.
I've signed up to https://meow.social back in january, but they're currently closed for sign up due to a massive influx of users.
But you can look for any other servers through https://instances.social, you can click here and type "furry" in the search bar to see a list of available servers.
And the last option is for me to send an invite code to you sign up to meow.social (it's better to sign up in available servers, but I can do that as well).
Here's a screen recording of the user interface: link
And... that's about it, I just want my voice to be heard this once, thanks for considering checking out this journal.
Also, my mastodon is @miau@meow.social
Currently people are looking for places to move from twitter, places like FA, itaku.ee, Cohost and even Tumblr.
And, in my opinion, none of them are sustainable replacements for twitter.
● Furaffinity: Nowhere close to a twitter experience, stuck in the past with its code held with duck tape.
● itaku.ee and cohost: Centralized websites like twitter, which is a matter of time until we run to some of the same issues (more on that later).
● Tumblr: WHY?? This website is vague about nsfw content, I don't understand why people are considering this website an option.
My suggestion? Use mastodon. Seriously, give it a TRY, I see people constantly ignoring it for apparently no reason other than "I don't want to".
It literally works like twitter, it's open source and it's decentralized, which means if the server you signed up to goes down, it does not take the ENTIRE mastodon userbase with it.
Think of it like e-mail, if your provider (e.g.: @yahoo.com) ceases to exist, other providers (e.g.: @gmail.com; @outlook.com) will remain operational, because they don't depend on your provider and they're able to interact with each other.
Currently cohost and itaku.ee are receiving an influx of users, which the latter became slow and nearly unusable.
If you still want to use them, it's okay, I won't stop you. But understand that it's a never ending cycle, if one or both of them goes down, there will be another massive migration.
I've signed up to https://meow.social back in january, but they're currently closed for sign up due to a massive influx of users.
But you can look for any other servers through https://instances.social, you can click here and type "furry" in the search bar to see a list of available servers.
And the last option is for me to send an invite code to you sign up to meow.social (it's better to sign up in available servers, but I can do that as well).
Here's a screen recording of the user interface: link
And... that's about it, I just want my voice to be heard this once, thanks for considering checking out this journal.
Also, my mastodon is @miau@meow.social
I do think it's good people are considering other platforms, but I wish people would stop tying themselves to ONLY that platform. Never put all of your eggs in one basket. Post on multiple sites for maximum exposure, and tie them all together by linking them in your LinkTree (free), so that if any one site goes down, it's a minor inconvenience at best, and people still have multiple options of platforms to follow you on.
Artists especially shouldn't ONLY be using Twitter, or Twitter-like sites, because they suck for art. Especially as a viewer; you can only see one image at a time, and it's a pain in the butt trying to see all of the artist's work because of it. Even if the accounts ONLY post art, and don't have reaction posts/image memes, it's still a pain trying to see all of the artist's content. Should be using actual gallery sites as well as Twitter, so your viewers can actually see your work easier.
But I absolutely agree on using multiple platforms, twitter-like platforms aren't made for posting art and it should be used mostly for sharing/exposure purposes, but considering that people are willing to use itaku.ee and/or cohost.org, mastodon (or any fediverse platform) shouldn't be overlooked.
But my issue with these platforms is the centralized nature of them, once they decide to ban X content and/or the website goes down for whatever reason, it'll be a major blow for artists and users alike.
Using mastodon (or other platform that is part of the fediverse) alleviates this issue, the e-mail example I wrote in this journal sums it up.
For example, you can explain these sites in short, simple sentences:
FA: You can post art to your gallery and browse other people's galleries.
Twitter: You can post short messages and media, and you can follow people whose content you like.
Now, when it comes to Mastodon... The first thing that people usually mention about it is that it's "decentralized", and then they have to explain what that means to begin with. And then they talk about how there are different "instances" (another term that they also need to explain), and that you need to join one but apparently can still see posts from people from other instances (which I actually only learned after reading a reply to this journal), but I also remember seeing people mentioning that you can't be on more than one instance, and that you'd need to create a separate account for that?
You see, maybe Mastodon makes more sense once you start using it, but when it's so complicated to understand the site to begin with, a lot of people feel discouraged to give it a try. People like things that are easy to understand with a simple sentence.
The concept of decentralized isn't something new, but I'll admit that I had to look it up when I first learned about it, using e-mail as an analogy (because it is a decentralized technology) is a quick way to wrap your head around the concept.
As for instances, I agree it's not a suitable name for something that could be called "servers", even if it's the appropriate term as a programming jargon.
And yes, your account belongs to the instance you've signed up to, but it doesn't restrict you to follow people from other servers, or check the federated timeline, which shows posts of people from other servers. You also have the option to migrate your data to another server from what I've noticed, but I haven't tested this feature myself.
It's true, it is a lot of explanation, but it's one thing to describe how it works compared to just trying it out yourself.
And I don't want to make it sound like the site isn't worth checking out just because it's hard to understand; I just mean that I think a lot of people will refrain from trying the site because it's complicated to understand. You see, I've seen many people trying to explain Mastodon, but it's always been confusing because of the specific things such as instances and your account being locked to one instance, and so far I think your explanation has been the most efficient one. On the other hand, when I first heard of sites like FA and Twitter, it was pretty clear what they were about right away.
This is one of the main reasons why I don't think Mastodon will get very popular, even if it's a good site.
This is the reason I've stayed off of Mastodon, personally - though I don't have an alternative social media I can recommend. (As it stands, I don't think there is a single platform that's widely suitable.)
At this point in time, mastodon doesn't have end-to-end encryption for DMs, but the platform will warn you about it before you send your first DM to anyone.
But it's good that Mastodon is working on this problem. If they resolve it sooner rather than later, I'd consider them more seriously as an alternative.