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1/2 I have deactivated my account on Twitter (X), which began in 2007. Under Elon Musk, Twitter has not only decided to stop blocking bigots and liars and pro-insurrectionists, it has actively welcomed them, with apparent support from Mr. Musk.
@waltmossberg This speaks volumes, Walt. X is indeed a cesspool and your leadership here will have a big impact.
This is an existential moment for the web and the concept of open standards like #ActivityPub
Thankfully @Gargron has labored for years to create a viable approach that could form the foundation for an open social web. And many here are working to make the user experience simpler and more approachable for mainstream users.
Your presence on @Mastodon is incredibly important now.
@mike @Gargron @Mastodon Thanks, Mike. I’ve been on Mastodon quite awhile, as you know. But I rarely used it, because (a) it can be confounding to use (yes, I can figure it all out, but you know I favor things average folks can grok quickly) and (b) content moderation matters hugely to me and I need to know what the policies are for multiple servers and who is responsible….
@mike @Gargron @Mastodon …here’s an example of the complexity here: I just tried to react to a post about my leaving Twitter, and was met with a big notice saying I couldn’t do that because I wasn’t logged into the server where it lived. I thought all the posts and replies were interchangeable among servers.
@waltmossberg @Gargron I just love this thread! Seeing Walt and Eugen conversing about a major friction point on Mastodon reminds me of all the times Walt gave Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and numerous other product leaders direct and unflinching feedback about their products. Walt is the ultimate test of whether a product is ready for mainstream audiences or not. The points he raises here are critical to address. Fair or not, it only takes one bad experience to earn a reputation as "too hard to use".
@mike @waltmossberg @Gargron totally right - his bad experience does seem a bit unfortunate, as communication on Mastodon between servers is pretty seamless. Yes you can click to others' home server pages where you're not logged in, but actually quite hard to do unless there was a link to it.
Your point well made though. The easiest thing to say to a new thing = no thanks, too hard, and then leave. Hope doesn't happen here.
@gpollara @waltmossberg @Gargron Totally. I love when Eugen pointed out that this was a conversation happening on three (and now four!) completely different servers. That is a remarkable technical achievement even though there are still some cracks in the UI which I know we will collectively address in the coming months.
@mike @waltmossberg @Gargron yes that's a v good point - it's actually pretty amazing how well it does all work.
The other limitation this conversation addresses, personally, is threading. If read on the main Mastodon website, it is v hard to follow who's replied to who, etc... Thankfully there are multiple apps and websites that handle this better, but Walt is correct these should be options to use, not essential to accomplish a core social network conversation function.
@waltmossberg @gpollara @mike @Gargron The independent @IceCubesApp is a great one Walt.
Among other things, it allows you to “subscribe” to other servers local timelines without needing to change servers/instances