Service Update Mastodon… The Adventure Concludes

[AgentPete]

In April of this year we set up a dedicated Mastodon server for Litopians. The idea was, as it is for most everything we do here, to experiment and get some first-hand experience of what the new tech is all about and how it might (or might not) play a positive role in our writers’ lives.

There was at that time a flight away from Twitter for Musk-related reasons. Which still continues, except the destination website is now the Zuckerberg-related Threads. (Is being pwned by Zuck really any better than being pwned by Elon? I somehow doubt it).

And in due course, I’m sure the media will be touting Jack Dorsey’s Bluesky as the Twitter-killer.

Whatever.

From my own experience, it seems that Mastodon has an architecture that is deliberately designed to keep groups exclusive and difficult to discover. Which is nice if you want a place for you and your friends to hang out undisturbed… but not so great if you’re an author wanting to be… discovered.

Finding other people to follow on Mastodon is tough – unless you know them already. Which pretty much defeats the purpose, at least as a marketing vehicle for writers.

Therefore, I think we’ve reached the end of the road with Mastodon. I’m planning to pull the plug at the end of this month. If you need help or assistance migrating your Mastodon presence to another server, just let me know.

p.

 

[Pamela Jo]

In Ireland there were about 7 other possible groups to join. Four of those had Furry in the title. Just saying.

 

[Peyton Stafford]

In April of this year we set up a dedicated Mastodon server for Litopians. The idea was, as it is for most everything we do here, to experiment and get some first-hand experience of what the new tech is all about and how it might (or might not) play a positive role in our writers’ lives.

There was at that time a flight away from Twitter for Musk-related reasons. Which still continues, except the destination website is now the Zuckerberg-related Threads. (Is being pwned by Zuck really any better than being pwned by Elon? I somehow doubt it).

And in due course, I’m sure the media will be touting Jack Dorsey’s Bluesky as the Twitter-killer.

Whatever.

From my own experience, it seems that Mastodon has an architecture that is deliberately designed to keep groups exclusive and difficult to discover. Which is nice if you want a place for you and your friends to hang out undisturbed… but not so great if you’re an author wanting to be… discovered.

Finding other people to follow on Mastodon is tough – unless you know them already. Which pretty much defeats the purpose, at least as a marketing vehicle for writers.

Therefore, I think we’ve reached the end of the road with Mastodon. I’m planning to pull the plug at the end of this month. If you need help or assistance migrating your Mastodon presence to another server, just let me know.

p.

My experience, too.

 

[James Charles]

Yep, I joined Threads. Zuck has his hooks all over the place:

If anyone is looking for me:

Threads: james_charles-author

or Twit:

https://twitter.com/JamesCharles__

 

[gbhunt]

Thanks for trying @AgentPete ! Now on to the next

 

[Bloo]

Damn, it's dead already.

Mastodon is...extinct.

Thanks for having a go

 

[CarolMS]

Thanks, @AgentPete, for setting things up to try Mastodon out. I suspect we all had a similar experience with it, or saw the same negatives. It was a good learning experience, though. I, for one, am going to avoid jumping onto any new tech bandwagons until we get a better idea of what their potential might be--bad as well as good. I'm not happy with what's coming up in my Twitter feed much of the time these days, and may leave it because of what's going on there. But I won't be jumping onto Threads right away either (not a fan of Zuckerberg). I'll just wait and see.

 

[Jonny]

Yes, would agree. I found it a bit too insular. Some alternatives go the other way and are too outsular(yeah, I made that word up ).

Some kind of happy medium that somehow filters out the nutters would be great.

 

[Jinn Nelson]

@AgentPete I'm really glad you decided to try out Mastodon because it gave me a chance to learn how it actually works and try it in a small, safe space. It seems I'm the only person here who liked using Mastodon and how it works. I had no trouble finding lots of interesting people to follow and chat with. Anyway, I'm having a really busy summer and can't keep up with posting right now so it seems I'm too late to migrate my account to another server? Is this still possible?

 

[AgentPete]

@AgentPete I'm really glad you decided to try out Mastodon because it gave me a chance to learn how it actually works and try it in a small, safe space. It seems I'm the only person here who liked using Mastodon and how it works. I had no trouble finding lots of interesting people to follow and chat with. Anyway, I'm having a really busy summer and can't keep up with posting right now so it seems I'm too late to migrate my account to another server? Is this still possible?

Aargh... no Jinn, I'm so sorry, I gave it a day or two just in case there was anyone like you who needed to migrate. It's gone now