Comment by Lazylazycat@lemmy.world on Mastodon has hit 2 million active users today!

Can someone tell me what Mastodon is like please, I have social network fatigue and can’t be bothered to try another one? 😅

how did you make it to Fediverse-B without knowing about Fediverse-A?

I know of Mastodon but haven’t browsed it. I came to Lemmy first from Reddit.

Just like twitter except what you see on your feed is reliant on what #’s or people you follow. So you essentially have more control over what you see and you wont get any posts from some rando like twitter does

Mastodon is hard to get into because at first you only really see what is coming from your own instance. You have to really look around and find the people and topics you want to see in your feed. It’s a much more carefully curated set of content than you get from Twitter, which just bombards you with hot takes and garbage all the time.

It’s not like here at all. No shitposts. Only people who use their real name and work for some non profit sharing their highly intelligent news bulletins. I haven’t found any memes

It’s really interesting… i gave it a shot a few days back. You’ve to follow stuff or hashtags you’re interested in for things to show up… after that take it slow and follow more things… I’ve found some really good music playlists, art, programming discussions on there. There’s also an explore section which shows trending topics and posts. I can recommend it as the users are mature and in my experience not toxic.

It’s like twitter but without the bullshit. I’ve never used twitter so not interested in Mastodon, but I’m glad it’s out there.

I think the most enjoyable feature is that there is no algorithm in Fediverse. And decentralization means that if you host your own server for Pixelfed (instagram equivalent) for example, your data will go offline at the moment you disconnect your server from the internet.

Lemmy is great alternative for Reddit especially if you’re into tech.

I think there’s a lot of value to the algorithm, but it needs to be based on real engagement rather than arbitrary bullshit that a soulless corporation wants to promote.

I subscribe to a lot of people, but not all of their content is worth seeing. Having it curated down to just the stuff that’s actually popular can be nice. It’s definitely tricky to make that work in a fair and useful way though.

Some people are building systems on top of Mastodon, for example https://fedistats.cc/trends In the end something like “plug in your own algorithm” would be great.

The nice thing is, if an instance wanted to put in the effort they could totally make an algorithm. We will have to grow a lot before it’s worth the bother to make a good one, but it’s totally possible.

And thanks to activityPub there is interoperability between services. I only have a Mastodon account, but I can follow people on pixelfed without problem. It moves the focus back onto communicating rather than being on the platform

What do you mean by “no algorithm”? There must be something controlling the order of “hot” vs “new”? Or do you mean the kind of algorithm that shows you suggested communities?

mathematically simple

And, as far as I can see, neutral. Doesn’t put you in a bubble like other social networks do, because it’s not trying to milk you for engagement.

the user feed is just made up of posts from people you follow in chrono order.

You can also follow hashtags, block hashtags, and block words/phrases.

The Local Timeline shows posts from everyone on your instance. The Federated Timeline is a fire hose. It shows all posts in chronological order (as received by your instance).

Also you don’t need a blue check mark to post relatively longer paragraphs.

It‘s like Twitter basically, but since it‘s also in the fediverse there is a bit of overlap where Mastodon people can comment on Lemmy/kbin stuff too anyway. Usually they have something like @LostCause and hashtags like #mastodon and so on in their comments, that‘s how I typically spot them.

So their growth is relevant for us, but you don‘t need to make an account there.

Thank you, this makes sense. Can I view Mastodon posts from lemmy.world? I can’t recall seeing any but maybe it’s not obvious.

If a mastodon user mentions (@) a community, they’ll post there. They can also reply to comments on Lemmy and you’ll see it. Unfortunately I don’t think Lemmy has a way to see regular mastodon accounts/comments right now other than that.

Got it, thank you :)

@Lazylazycat as an example, hello! i’m replying from Mastodon on https://mastodon.social.

for some reason i can’t see your profile pictures (on lemmy accounts, kbin are fine apparently)

Oh hi! See on my Lemmy app you just look like any other user, that’s cool. I don’t have a profile pic but maybe you wouldn’t see it if I did?

Can we post on their instances too? How?

Test @kodemystic@mastodon.world

Testing @tangocharlie@mastodon.social x’D

Yes I want to know this too, ty.

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Mastodon has hit 2 million active users today!(lemm.ee)

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