Comment by anw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by anw | Hacker News Reader

I'm happy there is a way to get people off of Twitter, but I do not see Mastodon having a (good) long term future.

I have tried Mastodon off and on several times. For the few amount of good posts I've found in my interests (art and music), venturing out of those interests feels as if I'm wading into a toxic sludge of angry children who can't see beyond their nose.

It seems to be that the Twitter format leads itself into being a great place for angry people to constantly barrage their woes at the immovable world [0].

I understand that the world is cruel and unfair, but I also do not want a constant 24/7 cry of lament that only people who meet every criteria of every type of victim-hood can have a bad day and anybody else is an evil pig who doesn't deserve to live, let alone speak. This can be seen in both to the left-wing and right-wing instances as they both see themselves as perpetual victims from those in power (police, companies, government, soceity on the left, and media, companies, government, society on the right).

This kind of vitriol is already seen enough on Twitter. Seeing it even more so in self-enclosed echo chambers like some Mastodon instances just drives away any potential for normalcy, and therefore realistic ideas or normal conversation coming into their community. The loudest voices drown out others, claiming to have the right answer before they know the question, and not hearing out any arguments or facts that could possibly counter them.

I wish the best for those who join, but hope we find better means of communication than what is currently here. Perhaps a method where there is more talking and hashing out ideas rather than following trends and hashtags.

[0] Somewhat reminiscent to this video by The Onion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjonGtrCyVE

This gets very apparent when you take a peek at ruleset of many instances. For example my instance mastodon.technology just added a rule:

* No unsolicited advice to strangers.

when someone asked what's wrong with recommending alternative software to people who complain about software the reply was:

> sometimes people just want to scream into the void

Which summarizes this micro-blog screamverse perfectly. The fact that this sort of behavior is _encouraged_ is actually quite disgusting in my honest opinion.

I've never used much Twitter but to me it already seems that Mastodon is just as toxic as Twitter and it seems to be by design.

That's such a strange rule to have for a tech instance. Is there really no better reason for it than that people want to bitch about things without actually wanting a suggestion on how to solve their issues?

There's a few related patterns:

- it's often noise because you can't act on it (because you need to use X)

- it's often noise because you already have done your research and are aware of the options. Especially since many people reply even if they don't have particularly novel information or even know a lot less than the person that made the original post. Some people find it grating to get repeated trivial "recommendations" on everything - on Twitter exasperated replies of "guys, I can google myself!" aren't uncommon)

- it's often entirely predictable (i.e. whatever Desktop OS you use, for sure there's someone asking why you aren't using Linux/FreeBSD/MacOS/Windows10+WSL instead (strike the one you are currently complaining about))

- it's repetitive, and especially for more prominent people a large volume of comments

Thanks. It was really bugging me that I couldn't think of optimistic reasons for that policy. I still don't agree with it, but I suppose anyone who doesn't can just make their own instance or find one with different rules.

Remember that having that rule doesn't stop people from asking for advice. If someone wants to say, "this sucks! What's a better way of doing it?" they still can. The rule-as-written doesn't even preclude a replier from asking, "I've got a suggestion, if you're interested?" (although that might still be frowned upon, it still comes across a lot better than "have you tried this?")

> - it's often noise because you can't act on it (because you need to use X)

"screaming into the void" is noise; replying to those screams with suggestions if anything would be an attempt to denoise the network by promoting actual conversation.

The problem here is as I've pointed out that some people clearly don't want to have a conversation — what the value in that? Why post something on public forum if you don't want to have a discussion? Especially when mastodon supports private toots — if you really want to went start a journal or toot "unlisted" or "followers only".

When mastodon just started out federated and public timelines was a joy to read but now it's just constant screaming and yelling and utter thought vomit to the point where I'm certain that nobody browses federated or even public timelines anymore.

At the end of the day it seems that it's a design flaw of twitter that promotes toxic screaming rather than structured discussion and Mastodon as a platform hasn't really done anything to address this.

Also: suggestions where they clearly didn't read your complaint.

I've used Twitter for 13 years and Mastodon for 4... and have seen almost zero toxicity or arguments on Mastodon (in stark contrast with Twitter, of course). That said, I'm on a smaller instance and I don't "browse the fediverse" much, I stick to my crew of "locals", mostly. It's easy to filter out stuff you don't want to hear about, but honestly I haven't even found the need. More and more frequently I'm considering just closing my Twitter account -- as many of my friends have already done.

> Perhaps a method where there is more talking and hashing out ideas rather than following trends and hashtags.

I have limited experience with Mastodon but I share many of your sentiments about Twitter and the current state of conversation on the internet. I think part of the problem is that Twitter (and Mastodon), are not optimized for actual realtime conversation, and additionally we need more competition.

I'm working on a new chat-based discussion site that I hope will add another option for people looking to have real conversations, in a very open, sharable, and simple experience that's easy for anyone to hop into and talk. Feel free to check it out, cheers! https://sqwok.im

You are unfortunately describing things that are separate from any "social network", they are unhealthy and detrimental behaviors that have metastasized and are manifest in society today in general, mirrored and amplified online where people can find whatever pity party echo chamber they fall into, which will then only be amplified through self-reinforced "moderation", aka censorship.

It's actually precisely why we need free speech more than ever, because those who withdraw into self-censored echo chambers need to hear things that are not their favorite things to hear even more than those who demand free speech. Not doing so will only end poorly.

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