What if this place was just a platform for talking to people? What if we didn't compete for social space? What if there was actually respect for the ideas of others regardless of their social standing?
I see that possibility here. Please don't screw it up.
@ChuckyX Possibly. Ergh.
@ChuckyX @Abbynormative Heard of VSCO? It's Instagram for hipsters who got sick of Instagram. They don't show followers/faves—looking at someone's work, you don't know how popular they are or how likes it got.
I like this—it dissuades engagement-whoring, and you can post stuff you care about, without looking like a loser because only four people liked it.
Also encourages discussion: you're not going to see someone has 700 followers and think, oh they're too royalty to talk to.
@csilverman See, that sounds awesome. @ChuckyX
@Abbynormative I'd love for that to be true...I think https://freehold.earth/users/KatamariChaos/updates/126 had it right...but I think some people are too good at seeing every disagreement or demographic difference as a threat for this to be easy.
It's not impossible, just hard. I get disheartened when folks start ranting about how everyone not like them is a Nazi or other-epithet-of-choice.
@Abbynormative We have a chance for something really special with Mastodon. But as I have said before, this will take vigilance and diligence on our part to keep it that way. While precious few are running an instance, we all have block functionality. It won't even take public shaming to keep Mastodon from becoming the cesspool that "bird site", "AdBook", et. al. have become.
@Abbynormative Nope. High School.