Expectations and preferences around community contributions/interactions · mastodon mastodon · Discussion #36552

There is a long-running pattern of conversations on issues/PRs around some features getting quite heated and sometimes turning into personal insults, venting frustrations, borderline conspiracy acc...

Scaling Mastodon is Impossible

Now that Twitter is dying, what can replace it?

The Failed Migration of Academic Twitter: A Case Study of...

Following changes in Twitter's ownership in 2022 and subsequent changes to content moderation policies, many in academia looked to move their discourse elsewhere and migration to Mastodon was...

The Failed Migration of Academic Twitter: A Case Study of...

Following changes in Twitter's ownership in 2022 and subsequent changes to content moderation policies, many in academia looked to move their discourse elsewhere and migration to Mastodon was...

The politics of decentralization and the libertarian allure of Mastodon – Structural Integrity

I am currently reading the fabulous “Hayek’s Bastards” by Quinn Slobodian. It made me think about decentralisation in Mastodon (yes, the federated social network). And it made me think about the lack of a coherent progressive vision for the digital age. I will explain what that book has to do with both. But let’s go back to the political meaning of “decentralisation” in digital discourse first.

Exit to Community: A Community Primer

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If I ran Mastodon

A community platform for a vibrant, diverse social web.

Mastodon is for the people

How we're thinking about supporting the communities that rely on Mastodon every day.

Mastodon CEO steps down as the social network restructures | TechCrunch

Eugen Rochko is stepping down as CEO of decentralized social network Mastodon. Felix Hlatky will now become the executive director as the company becomes structured as a nonprofit government by a board.

Mastodon Exit Interview

I am currently winding down the Mastodon bots I used to post sunrise and sunset times. The precipitating event is that the admin of the instance hosting the associated accounts demanded they be made nigh-undiscoverable, but the underlying cause is that it’s become increasing clear that Mastodon isn’t, and won’t ever be, a good platform for “asynchronous ephemeral notifications of any kind”. I’d also argue (more controversially) that it’s simply not good infrastructure for social networking of any kind. There are lots of interesting people using Mastodon, and I’m sure it will live on as a good-enough space for certain niche groups. But there is no question that it will never offer the fun of early Twitter, let alone the vibrancy of Twitter during its growth phase. I’ve long since dropped Mastodon from my home screen, and have switched to Bluesky for text-centric social media.

Mastodon - Decentralized social media

Learn more about Mastodon, the radically different, free and open-source decentralized social media platform.

Reading the Digital Safety Act with My Mastodon Admin Hat On

Back in 2024, I published a reading of the Online Harms Act from my perspective as an admin of a Mastodon instance. The Online Harms Act was a proposed Canadian bill meant to regulate social media to prevent harmful content, particularly hate speech and child abuse materials. While the Online Harms Act ultimately did not come to pass (due the proroguing of Parliament later that year), the Carney Liberal government is bringing much of it back with a new Digital Safety Act. In this post, I am also giving the new Act a look from the perspective of a Mastodon admin.

Making Social Media Social

As some of you might know, I am part of a team of people moderating a Mastodon server. And as so many of those servers we’ve been having some problems with fake signups lately. This is about how we mitigated the issue and how it was beneficial beyond that. So for those who don’t know […]

How Does Mastodon Work? - Kev Quirk

I’ve spoken about Mastodon numerous times on this blog. It is the social media platform I use more than any other, but for a new user it can be confusing because it doesn’t work like other social media sites.