can I say that it's *really distressing* to hear POC say that they might as well leave mastodon.
Not distressing as in "I'm made anxious by hearing their complaint", (though it does make me anxious), "and wish I didn't have to hear their complaints"
It's distressing that we haven't made a space that listens to their voices and that things are bad enough that "I might as well go back to TWITTER" makes sense, like twitter is a more welcoming place for them.
THAT'S A PROBLEM
@tcql honestly?
I'm not entirely sure why the idea that Twitter could be a more welcoming space for _anybody_ has to be this extremely shocking idea.
Like sure it's terrible for some people, but great for others! Just like any social media network! Hell I've had much better experiences on REDDIT than Mastodon. yknow.
The whole "we're better than Y site" mentality drives me nuts coz it often comes from sites where I've faced a fair bit of trouble.
@creatrixtiara @tcql It's shocking because being safer is one of the core goals of the project. And also because we confuse software, and who is currently using the software. For example, Mastodon would allow a group of activists to create an instance dedicated to the BLM movement, and you wouldn't depend on some white CEO's approval and tolerance, it'd be entirely within your hands and control. Given this potential I do consider it shocking that folks would want to go back to Twitter... but!
@tcql @creatrixtiara but: I understand that Twitter has a lot more people and already established communities of PoC and it's much easier to get support there currently. This is what I've been told by some folks who left for reasons like this.
Hearing it is of course always heartbreaking. But I'm not sure what I can do to help with this.
@creatrixtiara @tcql What I hear a lot on here is PoC folks looking for fellow PoC to follow. That's where having an instance based on common interests beats a general-purpose one like mastodon.social. Perhaps we should examine whether there's any instance that already exists that would allow those people to use the local timeline feature to find each other; and whether we can do more to highlight that instance and promote it.
> I'm not entirely sure why the idea that Twitter could be a more welcoming space for _anybody_ has to be this extremely shocking idea.
Because Twitter has a sewer of WN running through it, seemingly from top to bottom?
like honestly I think it's because so many of us have had/seen terrible experiences on Twitter/etc. and if explicitly trying to do better
isn't actually getting better results
it implies there's no reason to try at all, there's no hope period :\
@sydneyfalk @Gargron @tcql yeah see this sense of defeatism isn't actually all that helpful.
Twitter has been around a lot longer than Mastodon has. Making Mastodon trustworthy is going to take time and effort. Giving up after less than a year just means there wasn't really that interest to be actually "safer" - it more communicates "hmph well they don't want to believe us so fuck them"
> I'm not entirely sure why the idea that Twitter could be a more welcoming space for _anybody_ has to be this extremely shocking idea.
> this sense of defeatism isn't actually all that helpful
This isn't coming from a sense of defeatism -- this is me trying to explain why it's shocking.
(I fully admit I HAVE a sense of defeatism, but I'm not expressing it -- I just think it's why I see this particular reaction's chain of internal logic.)
@sydneyfalk @Gargron @tcql I'm referring to the idea that this implies there's "no hope at all".
With respect, 'implies' is not 'means'. It's 'implies'.
If you fail at something when explicitly trying it, one potential implication is that it's not achievable at all, and that's a disturbing one.
@sydneyfalk @Gargron @tcql It's possible that anything is not achievable, not a lot of things in life are guaranteed. But the fact that it could *fail* doesn't mean it's not worth trying.
Why is the possibility of failure so disturbing? I don't understand this logic.
@creatrixtiara @sydneyfalk @tcql Um sorry but your previous message to me sounded nothing *but* defeatist - you shot down my idea on how to possibly solve the problem and all but said we should all give up and go to Twitter. :/
@Gargron @sydneyfalk @tcql who are you referring to, me or Sydney Falk? If to me - I said that idea requires a lot of work and also that saying a space is "safer" is a lot different than actually being safer (Ello had the same problem when it started).
If what you're getting out of this is "well just give up then" that's on you, not me.
@Gargron @sydneyfalk @tcql I am very VERY concerned that critiquing the viability of one idea is now taken as some sort of statement of "well then just give up now". It's an idea, one of hopefully many. It can - and should - be refined.
having said that: I think that's about the only thing I can contribute to this discussion, I'll bow out now -- please feel free to untag me from here, I'm not equipped to try to navigate any further on this river of thought
@Gargron @tcql That's asking for a LOT of steps: create Instance if it doesn't exist already, finding that instance, getting enough of a critical mass of people, etc etc. With Twitter people are just THERE already, you don't need to learn how to set up Twitter on top of it.
Also just saying "it's safer!!" doesn't actually mean it's safer.