I’m watching the discussion that’s taking place today on this page, and people are saying that this platform was never made for long form content. It’s always been shorter form content. I legitimately do not understand the reasoning behind not allowing administrators to change the character limit without complicated configurations. I know this is supposed to be micro blogging, favoring shorter posts, because it’s continuously pointed out, to me, and others, that this platform is not a blog but it’s very clear to me that nobody really wants short post to be locked in for everybody. They just want the ability to change it. You can have your flagship instances that keep character limits at 500. That’s totally fine. You can even pretend like instances with 90,000 character limits simply don’t exist if you don’t want to acknowledge them, which, it seems like there is a extreme dislike of instances customizing things to meet the needs of their own communities. None of these rebukes are holding up and it frankly doesn’t make any sense wh... show moreI’m watching the discussion that’s taking place today on this page, and people are saying that this platform was never made for long form content. It’s always been shorter form content. I legitimately do not understand the reasoning behind not allowing administrators to change the character limit without complicated configurations. I know this is supposed to be micro blogging, favoring shorter posts, because it’s continuously pointed out, to me, and others, that this platform is not a blog but it’s very clear to me that nobody really wants short post to be locked in for everybody. They just want the ability to change it. You can have your flagship instances that keep character limits at 500. That’s totally fine. You can even pretend like instances with 90,000 character limits simply don’t exist if you don’t want to acknowledge them, which, it seems like there is a extreme dislike of instances customizing things to meet the needs of their own communities. None of these rebukes are holding up and it frankly doesn’t make any sense whatsoever because if nothing was meant to change, the option for even increasing or even decreasing the character limit would not exist at all, even via code. Let the admins easily setup the character limits · Issue #
12265 · mastodon/mastodon
github.com/mastodon/mastodon/i… #
Fediverse #
Mastodon
Pitch I found useful to keep the 500 characters limit but many instances are already changed this limits, so why can't we let the admins to easily decide how their istances manage the characters li...
GitHub
Matthias
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •@Robert Kingett That's the point. Mastodon wants to be a microblog. That's fine. But the Fediverse is not. There is no character limit.
What I also can't get my head round. Why should Mastodon be anything other than what it wants to be when there are projects in the Fediverse that are not microblogs?
Why not just switch to a project that has all the things Mastodon doesn't want to have? Why is this fixation?
Unlike the closed systems, we have a choice. Why is it not being utilised?
utopiArte
in reply to Matthias • • •@Matthias
To begin with I'm not against such a proposal, do have accounts on mastodon instance that for example have 5k limit and consider that reasonable and better. At the same time I came from diaspora, and wasn't so much looking for microblogging. In any case I loved twitter with only 144 characters, that at least was a challenge. Also the display toot's up to ~500 characters entirely and than go to "see more" already creates a certain self restriction for toots.
That said, to a certain extent this request is just another nail in the coffin of the idea of a #fediVerse. Same as the intent to create a mega instance like #mastodonSocial. #
... show more@Matthias
To begin with I'm not against such a proposal, do have accounts on mastodon instance that for example have 5k limit and consider that reasonable and better. At the same time I came from diaspora, and wasn't so much looking for microblogging. In any case I loved twitter with only 144 characters, that at least was a challenge. Also the display toot's up to ~500 characters entirely and than go to "see more" already creates a certain self restriction for toots.
That said, to a certain extent this request is just another nail in the coffin of the idea of a #fediVerse. Same as the intent to create a mega instance like #mastodonSocial. #Diaspora* and it's developers made the mistake to create such a death star, and the project kinda went down with it, beginning with changes in the code like skipping "likes" because of the burden on the server. Anyone who really is in favor of the main idea of the #fedi and #activitypub, and that is decentralization, should always consider any idea, proposal or request in terms of "what does this mean for the entire setup"?
We already had, again and again criticism by the community on #mastodon because it doesn't respect activitypub definitions or interprets them in an uncommon way. Only dominance in user numbers makes that possible.
Like to say, you only can say:
"I give a sh** on common agreements because I can allow me to do so".
Same goes for the centralization of the community onto one (or two) server, obviously showing off with the fact that the main problems and bottlenecks in social networks weren't understood. That's just a childish conservative expression of the view that "big is beautiful" and that you are successful if you become a big player. Nothing new and not even a mean criticism, we humans are as we are and are children of our time. So if someone is caught by the Zeitgeist and fashion of the moment, that's just what should be expected.
For me it's fine if mastodon has a 500 character limit and that it takes a little bit more of digging into the code to change that. In any case I'd consider it a problem if because of that an instance gets blocked by "the founding father".
We truly don't need any kind of benevolent dictator, and fostering and supporting any kind of hard or softfork of mastodon, as well as all the other projects out their, is way more important than fighting details of a project that's alive and well as it is. In that context, in any kind a true hardfork is creating incompatibility with the activitypub standards at that's what we really should be aware of.
Your comment Matthias, as well as mine, is in favor of the fediVerse, not mastodon, in favor of diversity not monoteims. And, I hate to bring it to you but, people are tribal, identify with brands and where raised social walled gardens, so the y expect "eierlegende Wollmilchsaue" and that, as of now, is the platform you are on, so .. let them be, we for our selves will always be on the side of those who reach out to create interoperability and understanding. That's how we tick.
😀
.. my few cents ..
@Robert Kingett
Jupiter Rowland
in reply to utopiArte • • •@utopiArte Tribalism and brand worship are key factors in all this, yes. While some Fediverse users choose the software they use by what suits them best, especially feature-wise, others behave more like fanbois and fangurls. They cling hard to what they use like someone who has been driving the same car brand for decades out of principle and out of being convinced that everything this brand makes is superior to all the competition.
This seems particularly wide-spread amongst Mastodon users. First, when they joined, they were eager to defend Mastodon against 𝕏 as much better. When they learned about Bluesky and Threads, they started defending Mastodon against these two as much better. But the more they learn what else exists in the Fediverse, like Misskey and its forks or Friendica and its family, they even feel compelled to defend Mastodon against these as well as much better.
In addition, there's instance tribalism. "My home instance is better than yours"
... show more@utopiArte Tribalism and brand worship are key factors in all this, yes. While some Fediverse users choose the software they use by what suits them best, especially feature-wise, others behave more like fanbois and fangurls. They cling hard to what they use like someone who has been driving the same car brand for decades out of principle and out of being convinced that everything this brand makes is superior to all the competition.
This seems particularly wide-spread amongst Mastodon users. First, when they joined, they were eager to defend Mastodon against 𝕏 as much better. When they learned about Bluesky and Threads, they started defending Mastodon against these two as much better. But the more they learn what else exists in the Fediverse, like Misskey and its forks or Friendica and its family, they even feel compelled to defend Mastodon against these as well as much better.
In addition, there's instance tribalism. "My home instance is better than yours" or even "my instance is better than all the others!" Not the only reason why Mastodon users refuse to move to a better-suited instance, much less better-suited software, but one of them. That is, this seems more of an issue on Lemmy where users are being judged according to which instance they're on.
But there's also convenience. Moving instances is inconvenient. Always staying on the same instance is convenient. Also, having to configure your account is inconvenient. The default settings being perfect is convenient.
Why do Mastodon users demand all kinds of features be added to Mastodon although they're readily available elsewhere in the Fediverse? Not only because most of them don't know that these features are available in the Fediverse outside of Mastodon, but also because they want these features without going where the features are. They want the features to come where they are. They want the features on the instance that they're on right now.
And if these features are optional, they have to be activated by default on their home instance. Oh, and if they don't like a feature, Mastodon must not add it, or at the very least, it must be off by default on their home instance. Yes, even if it's mastodon.social that they refuse to move away from, home of over 20% of the Fediverse's population. See full-text search. See federation with Threads. See the Bluesky bridge. And so on.
From the point of view of a veteran of Mike's nomadic software, this has to look hilarious. Granted, there is some sticking to brands there, too, even on (streams) where the intentional lack of a brand has become a brand of its own, although (streams) users seem to constantly be ready to jump ships to Forte or back to Hubzilla, should (streams) go under. But there is no instance tribalism. For one, there are only so many instances. Besides, if you go nomadic, you're on multiple instances at the same time anyway.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #NomadicIdentity #Tribalism
Robert Kingett
in reply to utopiArte • • •utopiArte
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •@Robert Kingett
That isn't what I was trying to point out.
Overwhelming numbers of users, of participants in the network gives mastodon developers the ability to "give a f***" about generally agreed on conventions, because they can kinda dictate the terms for the rest by simply imposing them.
Here an example conversation about how different platforms embed audio, actually it looks like part of the conversation is gone, probably due to automatic deletion of posts or answers. Someone, I think it was @Fabio, pointed out that mastodon (or castodpod) declares audio different than the actual activitypub specifications define, there for the content gets differently displayed, if at all. Like to say, they put in the header for audio what belongs in the content string:
tupambae.org/display/0ac89072-…
(just trying to explain somehow, I don't know about the details of all this, and actually don't want to either)
@Matthias
utopiArte
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •Robert Kingett wrote:
To begin with, participation in the code of FOSS is a main goal, to the point that the community taking over the entire project like in the case of friendica or diaspora is the ideal case. I guess @Richard Stallman would support such a statement. That includes softforks of all kinds,in the means of not destroying the base layer of communication itself, that's what FOSS is about.
In general it looks to me that we are not used to the idea of federation and what that means in the first place. We are accustomed to single sites with a single offer and try to adapt them to our needs. The fedi implies that we need to look out for the platforms and instances that have the capabilities we're looking for. People don't get that point because they are trained to be in wallet gardens, stuck with the domain and the platform. And they
... show moreRobert Kingett wrote:
To begin with, participation in the code of FOSS is a main goal, to the point that the community taking over the entire project like in the case of friendica or diaspora is the ideal case. I guess @Richard Stallman would support such a statement. That includes softforks of all kinds,in the means of not destroying the base layer of communication itself, that's what FOSS is about.
In general it looks to me that we are not used to the idea of federation and what that means in the first place. We are accustomed to single sites with a single offer and try to adapt them to our needs. The fedi implies that we need to look out for the platforms and instances that have the capabilities we're looking for. People don't get that point because they are trained to be in wallet gardens, stuck with the domain and the platform. And they are used to get pampered and get all their wishes to log them in forever.
You probably could say that the fedi is kinda free open democracy and the walled gardens are capitalist dictatorships.
There are lot's of supporters for capitalist dictatorships, especially when they grew up in them.
None of us is interested in people going back to the asocial dictatorial walled gardens of surveillance. Yet the same way, and with way more impetus, we are against to become those places or willing to change the base line that puts us on a path to become like them, because people with their behavior and expectations imprinted on those sites expect us to become like them, or to adopt behavior and tools that recreate what created the illness of those sites in the first place.
Robert Kingett wrote:
When ever there is a platform that works well and offers what they are looking for, of course that's what we do and what we all should do!
That's what the fedi is about!
That's what diversity is about!
To be more precise, that's the problem we have with people, be it the @Eugen Rochko with his policy to destabilize the federated concept by creating a mega instance like mastodon.social, or others that do things that point in a direction that has been proven to be in detriment to our main goal. That's the moment we become fundamentalists, we become constitutionals. We want to see our prominent people, our "influencers" to tell people not only to use other instances, we want them to promote the fedi in the first place. To be in the first place ambassadors for the fedi itself.
You see, to onboard newcomers in the first place onto in this case mastodon.social might be a good strategy to make the step into the fedi as easy as possible, but than we'd like to see an attitude like:
"You want this feature? Try out #peertube!"
"You want that feature? Try out #misskey, in our road map this goal is far ahead on the schedule"
"You need that feature, try out #pixelfed!"
"You want a eierlegende Wollmilchsau? Try out #friendica!
My goal is a microblogging platform with specific capabilities."
"You prefer a community that mainly speaks spanisch, try out @Roberto :verified_gay:'s masto.es!"
"You are looking for a scientist community, try out sciencecorner.social!" ..
Imagine Suckerberg telling people to check out instagram instead of buying it?
Wouldn't that be an article worth writing about and steering up the media promoted by @Jeff Jarvis?
We are in a different realm out here, in a different league. And if we want to prevent the chance of #enshittification of #theFedi, like @Cory Doctorow described it, we need to prevent the creation of log in effects in the first place.
Your initial toot was about #mastodon and now we are talking about the #fediVerse. That is happening again and again in conversations, just happened recently with @reticuleena
Leena Simon too, because people, as well as VC, and our minds think in terms and goals that are not our main goal as a community, as a #fediSociety. And we need to work on this inside our selves in the first place, because the FOSS community and FOSS development has it's own rules and it's own inertia.
Our ego's, the society that created us, the press with it's attention economy, and VC in particular, they all work on individual success. Our goal, the goal of a better healthier society, a better improved environment for us all, for everyone, takes a different path and needs different tools, behaviors and strategy.
This is about an evaluation of order of interest for all of us, inside each and every one of us. And a specific struggle against our tribal program, our brand recognition program and our very own ego. People like Eugen, or @Daniel Supernault are actually in the crossfire of that, and they are taking the worst part, because they get the heat by all the other's. Heat from the righteous ones, the one's how know everything better but ain't able to even fork a code from github and work on something themselves. They are exposed to VC that bribes you with illusions to buy your project, your ideals, your life, your lifetime, your intentions. Even victims of the fans that cheer what ever they say or do, the whole thing squared.
WE want our free, decentralized, privacy aware internet back. And if people are not able nor want to do the extra mile because they actually just want their twitter or facebook back, we definitely prefer to remain a niche, growing slowly but steady, preserving the main factors that are the fundamental basics of #FOSS, of democracy and a social, free and open society.
We are in a different environment here @Robert Kingett, the order of the importance is FOSS and federation, than activitypub, than mastodon (in the case of your request).
That means our first request to the coders should be to guaranty interoperability and an easy way to create and port profiles to others platforms in the very first place. #Diaspora never even achieved that promise inside their very own network.
We expect anyone out here to put the fedi first.
To promote other platforms instead of becoming the number one.
To foster other instances, the network itself, instead of only foster the own belly.
And we have to work that out, we are working that out.
We have to invent that.
We have to invent and create that mindset in ourselves and in the community.
And we are going to face our own enemies the whole time on our way to the lonely mountain to get rid of the one ring to rule them all, our ego.
@Matthias @Jupiter Rowland @Sean Tilley