Ask HN: How long were you on Mastodon before being attacked?

> But 48 hours is also the time it took for an extremely hurtful and personal attack from a perfect stranger, for no apparent reason, and a host of cheerleaders to renew the attack when I blocked this person.

Without context it's impossible to evaluate your complaint. If it was an anonymous and anodyne profile as you say, what was personal about it? I'm sorry you had a bad experience but, but with so little to go on about what actually happened I can't form an opinion.

Your headline is something of a loaded question and you just created a new HN account to talk about your bad experience of creating a new Mastodon account, and announce your lack of interest in social media based on an interaction that only you know the details of. I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve here.

I created this account after the last previous one achieved 100 karma, precisely because I dislike intensely these popularity contests in whatever form. I saw someone mentioning doing this and thought it was a good idea.

As for the attack, if I have to describe the attack and having to justify my reaction I'm playing the same game of peer validation again.

Elno decided the guy must be a pedophile since he is a foreigner in Thailand, and so likewise this perfect stranger decided based on the avatar ( a piece of baked bread ) or based on any word I used in the description, or the country where I said I was, whatever, I have no idea, to simply follow and insult me in an unrelated way -- when blocked, his contact list continued, at which point for me it's not worth the effort. Maybe they just go after Vietnamese for fun, or French, or Java developers, how would I know why they do this ?

I'm not trying to achieve anything, I described my experience and asked about others. I assume it happens often.

And I'm off as I see this is becoming exactly what I wanted to avoid.

Well, again I am sorry to hear it. What you describe sounds like a kind of information warfare to poison cross-platform interactions, and it's unfortunately widespread at present. If you do not know how to read such situations then it's probably better to avoid social media altogether during periods of upheaval.

I've never used Mastodon but I know that on some parts of the web, vicious verbal attacks are very common. It's part of the price that one sometimes pays for the benefits of a low-censorship environment. Sometimes, like on 4chan for example, it's almost part of the culture. Someone on 4chan calling you an ethnic slur is pretty much just the equivalent of someone here on Hacker News saying "I am sorry, but I must disagree". Different language norms for different spaces.

I'm totally used to such language and it does not bother me. My attitude is that if I'm not getting doxxed, I don't care what people online say about my anonymous identity. I can remove them from my world with one click of a button, after all.

I've never been personally attacked on Mastodon, nor, as a mature adult, would I really care if I was. The bigger problem I've found with Mastodon was how many large communities are ultimately dictated by narrow, usually politically oriented interests.

> But 48 hours is also the time it took for an extremely hurtful and personal attack from a perfect stranger, for no apparent reason, and a host of cheerleaders to renew the attack when I blocked this person.

Was the discussion politics related?

I don't understand, did you comment in a thread which then got you 'attacked'?

Or did they just like, private message you or something?

I admit I had to google mastodon because I've never heard of it,.

When I left Twitter back when it was censoring Conservatives, I found Mastadon a confusing experience, with much less compelling content than Twitter. I didn’t stay long enough to be attacked.

If the authoritarian Left leave Twitter to join Mastadon, that suits me. The abuse I’ve had on Twitter from the Left has been appalling.

less than 9 minutes

that's just personal experience

Unfortunately, you come across as soft. The only way to deal with heartless people is being equally violent.

Obviously, another way is to pull back, which is what OP did.

The best way to build a welcoming community is not to call out others as soft, but instead take the side of those you perceive as soft and ensure they don't get the short end simply for not being agressive.

Sure, and end with no presence online.

If our ancestors had been this cowardly then fascism and hate speech would be norm not the exception.

I do have presence online. My own public web site, where people can contact via mail, and they do.

I have accounts in other services, for work, public accounts. And it is about work, no unwarranted attacks, much less personal ones, even as things may get heated when coding with other developers.

Not wanting to waste time and spoiling my mood everyday avoiding / fighting trolls for no reason and with no benefit whatsoever is being soft ?