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Comment by NoraCodes | Hacker News Reader

The spelling is "Mastodon", like the extinct megafauna. The client also displays other ActivityPub feeds.

It's still a horrible name. Doesn't roll off the tongue, unfamiliar to a broad audience, connotations of extinction. And don't even get me started on "toot".

I won't, since instances like mastodon.social have been using "post" for over a year now.

Personally I think "toot" is perfectly fine; no sillier than "tweet".

Tweet is a noise birds make when they're talking to each other

Toot is a fart

Horns toot. One can toot their own horn even.

It's ambiguous and overloaded. Even if you explain to users (a situation you should never find yourself in), they'll still subconsciously maintain the overloaded meaning.

Yes how will people ever wrap their heads around it? Those poor stupid users…

Yes but as arses tooting is funnier that interpretation will always take precedence

At least it's not as bad as Bluesky's skeet, I'll give it that

E: returning from a rabbit hole. Looks like Mastodon retired toot back in 2022 anyway (and skeet was never officially sanctioned by Bluesky)

The toot is moot.

Don't forget X's xeets!

Not to mention people abbreviate it as "masto", which just sounds stupid.

I think your downvoters haven't noticed your username. Thanks for the chuckle.

I'm glad someone got it.

If you want to follow me on Mastodon, BTW, you can find me at @masto@masto.masto.com.

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