Terence Eden
Mastodon enforces a "noreferrer" on all external links.
I have mixed feelings about that.
As a blogger, I want to see *where* visitors are coming from. I also like to see (and sometimes join in) with the conversations they're having.
But, I get that people want privacy and don't want to "leak" where they're visiting from.
Is it such a bad thing to tell a website "I was referred from this specific server"?
Terence Eden
Two years later.
Want to know one of the major reasons Mastodon didn't catch on with journalists and large website owners?
It is *invisible* in referrer statistics.
Here's my blog from the last month.
BlueSky now sends me more traffic than Bing.
How much traffic does Mastodon send? It is impossible to know due to the "noreferrer" header in all links.
(I'm not saying your privacy isn't important. But you can't grow a community if no-one knows you exist.)
Quinn Norton
@ianb @damien @Edent hard agree. i want people to find me and my work, in fact my ability to make a living depends on it.
Ian Betteridge
@damien @Edent But that stifles your ability to be found. Which may well be what you want, but it should be user-level (or instance-level) choice, not software level proscription.
Damien
@Edent I think there's a difference between "the community" and any individual or entity's perceived value of interacting with (or becoming part of) "the community".
I would argue that the community *can* exist without external entities benefitting (or recognising any benefit they might have) from it.
Quinn Norton
@bryanruby @damien @aardvark @ianb @Edent i'm not sure masto is or should be one community, or that everyone needs to have the same reasons to be here. ultimately social media networks are places for social information to be shared and talked about, places for connection and information, and gatekeeping... always fails.
Bryan Ruby 🌤️
@damien @aardvark @quinn @ianb @Edent I agree with that. I personally, don’t mind Mastodon being a little more niche, less mainstream. I see more potential for Threads users to crossover to Mastodon as they learn more and more about the #Fediverse. This includes the news organizations already on Threads.
Damien
@bryanruby @aardvark @quinn @ianb @Edent agree that it's essential to their participation, but my point was a different one - their participation is not essential to the community.
aardvark
@quinn @ianb @damien @Edent is knowing the referrers essential to them referring in the first place?
Bryan Ruby 🌤️
@aardvark @quinn @ianb @damien @Edent I would say it’s essential. News organizations are utilizing resources when they have a social media presence. It’s not “free” to them and participation on any social network comes with risks. They’re going to invest their time and money on those social networks where the analytics tell them they’re benefiting most from. The benefit of being on Mastodon is not clear to them.
Seth :rebel: :fist_raised: ⁂
@Edent You could spin up a url shortener with UTM behind it and track that way, couldn’t you?
Eugen Rochko
@paulsilver @zackkatz @Edent This has been fixed a while back.
Zack Katz
@Edent Interesting, hadn’t considered that.
I wonder if there are Mastodon clients that auto-add UTM codes. That’d be *something* at least.
Paul Silver
@zackkatz @Edent UTM tags are automatically stripped from the URL in the preview box created by Mastodon on the web, which is the biggest click target. I think I saw a post by Eugen saying that might be a mistake.
Quinn Norton
@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent
...more like any journalism at all existing that isn't pure pay to play.
aardvark
@bryanruby @quinn @ianb @damien @Edent is your point about more and better journalism exists because news orgs know who’s mentioning them? Because I see no evidence anywhere showing that journalism has improved because news orgs know who’s pointing people their way. I see a race to the bottom on clickbait in a desperate effort to get more ad sales.
When I was in the biz, I promised my publisher I’d bring more readers by delivering higher-quality content rather than catering to advertisers directly.
Quinn Norton
@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent "catering to advertisers" is not an easy question. higher quality content has been shown to neither bring in more readers nor more revenue, in fact it may bring less than many of the lower quality alternatives. i don't love this fact, but i can't fight with the reality of it. the three legged stool is devastated, it's over, it's gone. for publications trying to do ads and pay writers, being able to sell s premium product is a matter of...
aardvark
@quinn @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent I’m not know which sentence to add your ellipsis to. Sorry, just a little tired and I want to be sure to get your point.
Quinn Norton
@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent
... being able to deliver a particular verifiable audience that is valuable and otherwise hard to reach. That's the realm of the FT, Economist, Vogue, etc. But general, non-identity based news and journalism basically doesn't have a business model at all post internet. You can get foundation funds, or you can target a lucrative audience, but neither of those incentives good general journalism.
Quinn Norton
@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent There is a lot of journalism I *love* these days. But while @ProPublica is AMAZING and I adore them, it isn't and shouldn't be your only source for news. That would be depressing and leave out a lot of useful information about weather and baseball. So things are really complicated and rough for the 4th estate, and what might be the most important job of journalism, the day to day, isn't something you can make a living doing.
Quinn Norton
@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent @ProPublica and as it turns out that even more true when you're doing a good job; traffic ie readers, as cost source on the internet. So bringing in more reader can actually bankrupt you. that's new! and horrible!
ofc with the right set up your traffic can translate to positive cashflow, but getting there is now non-trivial. it takes a *specialist* to figure out how to make a readership into a revenue stream.
Quinn Norton
@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent @ProPublica and that is about gathering and analyzing complicated data about your pub, site, and audience, then massaging that all into a product you can sell ads against with some level of guarantees to your advertisers. But that also means you're going to be gathering a maybe unethical amount of data on your readership and selling it on. This is what nearly every large publication does now.
Quinn Norton
@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent @ProPublica here is an actual map of the first page of the new york times. I promised they don't even know all the stuff loaded onto their page: https://lookyloo.circl.lu/tree/158cc6fc-f099-45d0-afe6-d17ce68f6083 and that is literally just the first page (this tool is the only one that really captures how it works, and the only people using it are in security, not journalism 😬 ) is this an ethical amount and set of data to be passing to no name brokers all over the net? I don't know! No one does!
Quinn Norton
@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent @ProPublica But i'm also not going to tell people to stop doing this because general journalism would cease to exist. i don't care how good and careful your work is, how well you run your newspaper, if you're not catering to rich people, or you're not selling data about normal people, and you're not hyperlocal and *very* beloved, you're not making a living in for-profit journalism. that... takes data first and foremost.
Quinn Norton
@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent @ProPublica maybe i should turn this thread into another depressing piece of journalism i don't really get paid for 😂
Terence Eden
And now, mastodon.social sends referrers!
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/33214
(Don't worry, it is up to your instance to opt in to this. Your Mastodon install is private by default.)
tom jennings
That's a warped measure; one of the corporate mindset of numbers and exposure. The old world.
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