How does Diaspora compare to Mastodon?
My naive impression is that Mastodon is a decentralized Twitter clone and Diaspora tries to be a nonprofit Facebook. Is that correct?
My naive impression is that Mastodon is a decentralized Twitter clone and Diaspora tries to be a nonprofit Facebook. Is that correct?
Feature-wise, Mastodon is a microblogging platform, defaulting to 500 characters per post, and supporting hashtags, images, and video, as well as lists and blocking/muting capabilities.
Diaspora (and the related Friendica and Hubzilla) are social-graph posting platforms, with Markdown-based formatted posts of significant length,[1] organised around Aspects (similar to G+ Circles),[2] and hashtag-based interest seaarch/streams. Images and video supported, multiple Notifications types.
Friendica and Hubzilla add groups and other features, as well as more robust blocking (a distinct weakness of Diaspora).
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Notes:
1. I seem to recall 100k characters mentioned, 16,700 words or so. Novella range. Possibly longer.
2. Google+ apparently took its early design from Diaspora, including its renamed 'Circles' and "Sparks" features.
Diaspora devs are a bit touchy about being referred to as a Facebook alternative, because it inevitably invites comparisons at a feature level, leading to disappointment. They've made it clear they do not aim to be a Facebook clone, and Diaspora will likely not have some features that Facebook has (no photo albums, no events, etc).
Basically, a decentraliced "Facebook like" app.
http://wilwheaton.net/2018/08/the-world-is-a-terrible-place-...
He also used his real name. In fact, he didn't really take any steps to protect himself besides moving to mastadon. Large instances, after all, simply function like an unmonetized twitter.
I kind of think that's the point for a celebrity on Twitter or a similar site.
I am sure it is fine but the network effect is lacking, it is not as if I need to go on there for any reason, don't know anyone on there.
What I was surprised at was that there was no blockchain nonsense going on with it, lurking away in the footer. That really would have turned me off it.
Mastodon itself has no reliance on blockchain.
I've also noted that creating a new account with little visible connection to another can also re-establish social connections fairly quickly. After getting booted off G+ at one point, (accessing the site via Tor), I decided to tweak the entire notion of a trusted identity (having already gone pseudonymous) by naming my new account "The Real Slim Shady". I managed to re-acquire most of my core 20-40 followers over a few days.
(Being able to corroborate the connection from other sites helped, though many people twigged on who TRSS was even before checking.)
I've also seen known users turn hostile in bad ways over time. Much as I've had the experience of knowing people who've ended up committing murder, or serious financial crimes. Vetting is a hard problem.