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   Jupiter Rowland (jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu)'s status on Monday, 25-Nov-2024 23:09:49 JST Jupiter Rowland
   If you write about something that's in the Fediverse but not Mastodon, most Fediverse users won't know that it's in the Fediverse.
   
   Even if you write about e.g. your Hubzilla channel or your WriteFreely blog, hardly anyone will know that they can follow you there. Yes, even when you write about your Hubzilla channel from your Hubzilla channel. Especially Mastodon users won't know what Hubzilla is, they won't know that they can follow Hubzilla channels from Mastodon, and they'll assume that you've just posted from Mastodon.
   
   So if you want people to know that whatever you're writing about is part of the Fediverse and connected to Mastodon, you have to explicitly mention both.
   
   #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse
   • Embed this notice
     Ringwood Unitarians Co-organis (ringwoodunitarians@c.im)'s status on Wednesday, 27-Nov-2024 15:07:19 JST Ringwood Unitarians Co-organis

     in reply to

     @jupiter_rowland But there are loads of pictures out there if one searches. Three attached.

     anban repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Jupiter Rowland (jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu)'s status on Wednesday, 27-Nov-2024 15:07:19 JST Jupiter Rowland

     in reply to

     • Ringwood Unitarians Co-organis
     @Ringwood Unitarians Co-organis
     But there are loads of pictures out there if one searches. Three attached.
     If one searches.
     
     If one wants to search.
     
     If one suspects there to be something else out there in the Fediverse.
     
     But for many Mastodon users, the Fediverse is Mastodon and only Mastodon, and that's an absolutely undeniable fact. Set in stone. It couldn't possibly be any different. They don't even take into consideration that it could be any different. "Fediverse" is the name of the Mastodon network which is nothing but Mastodon and more Mastodon. Full stop.
     
     Why else do so many Mastodon users use "Fediverse" and "Mastodon" mutually exchangeably or even out-right claim that the Fediverse is only Mastodon with such utter confidence?
     
     Why else does the revelation that something that isn't Mastodon is connected to Mastodon and claims its place in the Fediverse leave so many Mastodon users deranged enough to generously dish out mutes and blocks in an attempt to make the Fediverse only Mastodon again, or at least make it feel like it's still only Mastodon?
     
     #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse
   • Embed this notice
     Jupiter Rowland (jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu)'s status on Wednesday, 27-Nov-2024 15:07:21 JST Jupiter Rowland

     in reply to

     • Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic
     @Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic No, it's rather because people don't know what's in the Fediverse and what isn't.
     
     I mean, at least every other Mastodon user thinks the Fediverse equals Mastodon and only Mastodon.
     
     Let's assume I mention my own Hubzilla channel somewhere in some context. I'll hit two obstacles. One, three out of four Fediverse users have never heard of Hubzilla, so how shall they assume that it's a Fediverse project if I don't explicitly tell them so? Two, again, many think the Fediverse is only Mastodon, so how shall they assume that Hubzilla is in the Fediverse when it's completely unimaginable to them that there could be anything else in the Fediverse that isn't Mastodon?
     
     Also, especially on Mastodon, nobody can tell where my post is from. Next to nobody looks up any posts at their sources anyway. Mastodon doesn't show where a post came from, software-wise. And net everyone can tell from certain signs (what mentions look like, what hashtags look like) that something came from something that's very much not Mastodon. Only the very few who can be bothered to look at my post at its source will notice that it came from something that has "Hubzilla" written on top. For the majority, everything in their Mastodon timeline came from Mastodon.
     
     #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NotOnlyMastodon
   • Embed this notice
     Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic (daniel@social.dhelonious.de)'s status on Wednesday, 27-Nov-2024 15:07:22 JST Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic

     in reply to

     @jupiter_rowland Isn't this mainly because Mastodon works tag-based rather than because of user ignorance? If you use a hashtag that's relayed to, say, mastodon.social, and the post shows up on their timeline, I would expect that most people wouldn't know or care where it came from?

   • Embed this notice
     Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic (daniel@social.dhelonious.de)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 21:39:48 JST Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic

     in reply to

     @jupiter_rowland Interesting dynamic, thanks for the summary!

     I still wonder how people coming from Facebook are not able to find out about Friendica, Hubzilla and co, as their experience with Mastodon must be very unsatisfactory. But then again, most people have no media competence whatsoever.

     Apart from Mitra, I have actually heard of all these projects. But well, I'm interested in this stuff. As always, your posts are a great source of knowledge about the Fediverse!

     anban repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Jupiter Rowland (jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 21:39:50 JST Jupiter Rowland

     in reply to

     • Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic
     • Christine Lemmer-Webber
     @Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic But I don't understand why Mastodon is so popular.
     In order to understand it, you have to go back to Mastodon's origins in 2016.
     
     Mastodon was brand-new. It was somehow discovered by German press that a German lad almost fresh out of school had developed a "Twitter killer". Searing hot story in Germany which quickly spread beyond Germany.
     
     There was also Pleroma, also from Germany, but Pleroma got nothing because it had made the mistake to position itself as an alternative Web UI for GNU social rather than direct stand-alone competition against Twitter.
     
     There was also diaspora*, a Facebook alternative, but it was nothing but a distant memory of a crowdfunding campaign in summer 2010, in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica story, which raised $320,000 when $12,000 were the goal. But diaspora* itself wasn't released with a bang. Some six years later, it was still a public alpha, it was fairly lack-lustre, and the entire development team had to be replaced on the way. Most people had entirely forgotten about it, even tech journalists.
     
     There were also GNU social (formerly StatusNet), Friendica and Hubzilla, but like Pleroma, the general public had never heard of them.
     
     And so it seemed like this boy from Jena had made something that had never been done before, also because he had a ready-to-run software product and not a plan and a crowdfunding campaign.
     
     Fast-forward to 2017. Certain fringe groups were chased off of Twitter: furries, otaku, LGBTQIA+. The only halfway Twitter-like place that at least some of them had heard of was Mastodon. So that was where they invited each other. Within no time, #awoo was one of the hottest hashtags on Mastodon.
     
     It was especially then that Mastodon grew faster than anything else in the Fediverse.
     
     Fast-forward to early 2022. Elon Musk had announced that he might buy Twitter. The first big Twitter migration wave was kicked off. And everyone who fled from Twitter into the Fediverse landed on Mastodon. Why? Here are some reasons.
     
     

     • There were many more Mastodon users who'd invite people to Mastodon than there were Pleroma users who'd invite people to Pleroma, and especially in the western world, there were far more than there were Misskey users who'd invite people to Misskey. Not to mention their respective forks or stuff that wasn't made to be a Twitter alternative.
     • For simplicity reasons, Twitter escapees were never given the choice between Fediverse projects. Instead, they weren't even guided to the project websites but to certain instances, mostly mastodon.social. Not only because more choice would have overwhelmed the Twitter escapees more, but also because you can only tweet so much in 280 characters.
     • Precious few Mastodon users even knew back then that there was more to the Fediverse than Mastodon, much less what there was. Thus, nobody on Mastodon invited anyone from Twitter to Calckey or so.
     • It actually seemed like Pleroma, Akkoma and the westernised Forkeys slept through the migration wave because there weren't actually masses of people guided from Twitter to one of these.
     • Neither of them really had that one big official lighthouse instance that could withstand a massive migration wave of hundreds of thousands or even millions of users. I guess their users were rather cautious. All this in spite of especially Pleroma and Akkoma requiring much fewer server resources than Mastodon. Only Misskey had and still has a lighthouse instance that a) can hold loads of users and b) with a domain that makes it look like this lighthouse instance is Misskey.

     
     And so the Fediverse ended up with millions upon millions of people who initially thought that Mastodon, or even the Fediverse itself, was only mastodon.social. Or mstdn.social or mas.to if their inviters were too lazy to type on their phone screens. But most of the time, it was mastodon.social.
     
     A typical Fediverse invite tweet looked like this back then:
     join mastodon its twitter without musk https://mastodon.social
     
     No link to joinmastodon.org. No mention of instances, much less other instances. And no mention of the rest of the Fediverse.
     
     Well, and now that Mastodon makes for 70% of the Fediverse, and at least every other Mastodon user still doesn't know about the existence of a Fediverse outside of Mastodon, there are still more people trying to invite 𝕏 users to Mastodon than people trying to invite 𝕏 users to anything else in the Fediverse combined.
     
     Tech media and mass media don't help either. Mastodon had a huge boom, but everything else in the Fediverse didn't. Thus, Mastodon was noticed by tech media and mass media, and everything else in the Fediverse wasn't. Thus, tech media and mass media only wrote about Mastodon, but hardly about the Fediverse itself and never at all about Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, Calckey/Firefish, Sharkey, Iceshrimp etc. because they never even noticed that any of these exist. Thus, the general public read about Mastodon, but hardly about the Fediverse and not at all about anything else in the Fediverse. Thus, people only know Mastodon.
     
     And now you have next to nobody on Pleroma trying to invite people from 𝕏 to Pleroma.
     
     You have next to nobody on Akkoma trying to invite people from 𝕏 to Akkoma.
     
     You have next to nobody on Iceshrimp trying to invite people from 𝕏 to Iceshrimp.
     
     You have next to nobody on Sharkey trying to invite people from 𝕏 to Sharkey.
     
     But you have loads of people on Mastodon trying to invite people from 𝕏 to Mastodon.
     
     You have loads of people on Mastodon trying to invite people from Facebook to Mastodon because they've never even heard about the existence of Friendica, much less Hubzilla, (streams) or Socialhome.
     
     You have loads of people on Mastodon trying to invite people from all kinds of commercial silos to Mastodon because Mastodon is all they've ever heard of, and besides, they try to race Bluesky in terms of user numbers.
     
     When it comes to microblogging, we now have:
     

     • Bluesky: the next Twitter. Also with easy onboarding because it's centralised. (Bluesky nerds: "Ackchually..." @Christine Lemmer-Webber: "ACKCHUALLY...")
     • Threads: Meta Platforms = Facebook = Zuckerberg = evil!1!!
     • Nostr: Either you've never heard of it, or it's a playground for cryptobros by cryptobros.
     • Mastodon: The only non-commercial alternative to the Birdcage known to mankind, but WAYYYYYY too complicated because you have to choose an instance! (Not like both joinmastodon.org and the official app railroad you to mastodon.social. Not like the official Bluesky app doesn't let you pick a PDS to join.)
     • Pleroma: :person_shrugging: Never heard of that.
     • Akkoma: :person_shrugging: Never heard of that.
     • Misskey: only known in Japan.
     • Firefish: :person_shrugging: Never heard of that.
     • Iceshrimp: :person_shrugging: Never heard of that.
     • Sharkey: :person_shrugging: Never heard of that. Apparently, not even the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
     • Catodon: :person_shrugging: Never heard of that.
     • Mitra: :person_shrugging: Never heard of that.
     • And so forth...

     
     In short: Mastodon is only so popular because nobody knows anything else. Its only advantage over the rest of the Fediverse is that many more people know it.
     
     #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon
     Wordsmurf of Mouthshire :emacs: 🍄 likes this.
     anban repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic (daniel@social.dhelonious.de)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 21:39:51 JST Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic

     in reply to

     @jupiter_rowland Sure, you're absolutely right. Their main focus is definitely Mastodon and they cover things beyond Mastodon on the side. I would put this down to supply and demand, as many (inexperienced/non-tech) people join Mastodon.

     But I don't understand why Mastodon is so popular. Is it just because of the Twitter crash? Sure, I also joined the Fediverse when I was looking for a micro-blogging platform, but that's not for everyone.

     anban repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Jupiter Rowland (jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 21:39:53 JST Jupiter Rowland

     in reply to

     • Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic
     @Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic Especially because they make it look like the Fediverse is a) Mastodon and b) all kinds of other stuff that actually doesn't really matter. As you've said, most of the time, they post about Mastodon and only Mastodon as if there's nothing else out there. Lumping everything that isn't Mastodon together, keeping it separate from Mastodon and only marginally touching it, if at all, makes it seem like the non-Mastodon Fediverse isn't worth bothering.
     
     #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon
   • Embed this notice
     Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic (daniel@social.dhelonious.de)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 21:39:54 JST Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic

     in reply to

     • SK

     @sk @jupiter_rowland While @FediTips is on Mastodon and mostly posts about Mastodon topics, I would not say that they contribute to the belief that the Fediverse is only Mastodon:

     https://fedi.tips/what-is-mastodon-what-is-the-fediverse/

     There's even a section called "The Fediverse beyond Mastodon" which describes various platforms.

     But as @jupiter_rowland said, only those willing to look for information can find it, and most people won't.

   • Embed this notice
     SK (sk@hub.utsukta.org)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 21:39:57 JST SK

     in reply to
     @Jupiter Rowland Even some popular accounts such as fedi.tips focus mostly on mastodon and this only perpetuates this belief. Not much we can do about it. Ignorance is bliss for most people.
   • Embed this notice
     Jupiter Rowland (jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 21:40:19 JST Jupiter Rowland

     in reply to

     • Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic
     @Dr. Daniel Dizdarevic I still wonder how people coming from Facebook are not able to find out about Friendica, Hubzilla and co, as their experience with Mastodon must be very unsatisfactory. But then again, most people have no media competence whatsoever.
     Well, for one, Friendica and its descendants have never gone viral. It doesn't help that everything in the family prior to (streams) was made under the assumption of "if you build it, they will come". And especially Friendica was made in an era when phone apps were gimmicks rather than absolute necessities.
     
     Hubzilla lived on Friendica converts most of the time because Friendica was just about the only place where Hubzilla was known at all. I guess most people who jumped ships from Friendica to Hubzilla did it for even more features they might need. This is also why nothing post-Hubzilla really took off: It was mostly known on Hubzilla, but just about all that Hubzilla users knew about it was that it had fewer features than Hubzilla. And people either didn't know or didn't care what was improved in comparison with Hubzilla.
     
     Besides, nobody on Facebook expects there to be a free, decentralised Facebook alternative. And if they don't expect it, they don't Google for it, and they don't stumble upon it. If someone invites them to Mastodon, it's usually either a huge surprise that a free, decentralised alternative to anything exists, or they don't notice that Mastodon is free and/or decentralised.
     
     #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Friendica #Hubzilla