The re-brand of the Fediverse as "Mastodon" has created big problems -- problems that were both predictable and preventable.
For one thing, the honeymoon period for Mastodon is over.
People aren't willing to ignore its flaws anymore because it's the one alternative to Twitter that has traction.
Now people want creature comforts.
But guess what? Because the entirety of the Fediverse is branded as "Mastodon", people are more likely to migrate to Bluesky than elsewhere on the Fediverse.
To be sure, I'm trying to do my part by hosting servers that are an alternative to Mastodon, and banging the drum about the rest of the Fediverse.
But the stats don't lie.
Once people arrive to Mastodon, they're unlikely to try the rest of the Fediverse because Mastodon does a bad job letting people know that the Fediverse is bigger than Mastodon.
So what happens when Mastodon experiences detraction?
People simply leave the Fediverse.
I know a lot of you like Mastodon, and I'm not telling you to *not* like it.
What I'm saying is that no platform can be all things to all people, especially with functionality that's as purposely limited as Mastodon.
So instead of making people feel bad because they can't do what they want on Mastodon, it's an altogether *better* idea to recommend another Fediverse service.
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social and there are so many other really really nice places in the Fediverse :calcpicodance:
@JungleGeorge
& even if you don't go there, there are specialized apps like pixelfed that serve needs Mastodon doesn't!
@atomicpoet
Agreed, we need to replace Mastodon reference with Fediverse
I just made a blog post for tomorow where I have done just that as I added a link to the NASA account as they posted a link about black holes.
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social Which I do as offten as I can, but I don't have that much tractions on peoples.
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social
Indeed.
And now that the a Mastodon team has proven themselves not to have the courage of their convictions, all of the people who have specifically wanted a feature limited experience are going to lose that.
At the very least, they're the most likely people to find another home within the network, I guess. But it would never have been an issue if the like from Team Mastodon to people looking for more conventional features had been "look at Misskey/Pleroma/Friendica" rather than "Fuck you, this is the only way".
@kichae Exactly!
It would have been so much better if all those people wanting quoted posts were told, "You should really try something else. You can *still* talk to people using Mastodon, but it will give you an experience more to your liking."
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social Almost as if the attempt to monopolize decentralized content networks has woefully backfired, as anyone perplexed by the contradiction inherent in "decentralizing using a single vendor" could have predicted.
@atomicpoet Agreed. Mistakes may have been made, but hindsight is easy. The #MastodonMigration created a big disruption in a community that had been debating these principles, for years. Things change. Now it seems Mastodon will get some of these features. Hopefully that will address the concerns of those who petitioned hard for them.
Also, now that people are getting more familiar with distributed systems, introducing real viable alternatives should be easier. Let's try.
@atomicpoet I used to be on a BBS, then I was on Myspace, then I was on Blogger, then Wordpress, then Facebook, then back to Wordpress, then Instagram, then Twitter, and now Mastodon. I still sometimes blog and I only follow family on Instagram. We all have different likes and needs & they change over time. I love Mastodon today & I'm not looking to move, but if something better comes along or my needs change then I might jump. It's really not that big of a deal if someone doesn't like it here.
@atomicpoet
How about referring to the kinds of other Fediverse options that provide additional capabilities as "Mastodon+"?
"Regular Mastodon may not have all the bells and whistles that you want, but Mastodon+ does!"
@atomicpoet
There's nothing that says "we" can't just start to use the term when responding to people expressing frustration with regular Mastodon.
"If you would like to be able to RT, you can, you just have to get an account on a Mastodon+ server, they're part of the Fediverse too."
@joeinwynnewood I found your question intriguing enough to ask everyone about it.
I wonder how Mastodon gGmbh would feel about that.
@atomicpoet
It would seem he/they have forfeited the right to weigh in on it (or at least it would be rather unwise from a PR perspective for he/them to do so).
Yuki (스노 雪亮) 
@joeinwynnewood@mstdn.social Would it not infringe on Mastodon's trademark? And to paraphrase his words, ask Pleroma users if they want to be called "Mastodon".
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social
@youronlyone @atomicpoet
It's only infringement if a corporate entity uses it in their public facing (sales and marketing) material. We're just random people on the intertubes who can call things pretty much whatever we like.
I don't know any Pleroma users, so I'll have to leave that to others who do.
The question is if having more users on their servers via the #TwitterMigration is more important to them than the words used to describe their servers.
@joeinwynnewood@mstdn.social I see. But, if the word becomes used in that way, would they not lose their trademark? Take for example, Xerox. The brand “Xerox”, here in the Philippines, is lost its trademark decades ago because they failed to protect it. Their brand has turned into a regular synonym for photocopier.
Since the proposed “Mastodon+” is on the same usage category, using it as a generic term for something, would it not jeopardize their trademark? And they would have to act to protect their trademark?
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social
@youronlyone @atomicpoet
I don't know why you are barking up this tree.
I'm not talking about any one flavor of micro/mini blogging type of instance in the Fediverse that isn't Mastodon I'm suggesting a moniker for the entire class that prospective users not satisfied with the limitations of Mastodon will easily understand.
@joeinwynnewood@mstdn.social Oh. My sincerest apology, I thought it was up for discussion and exploration, and maybe through it we can come up with something everyone agrees about. Anyway, thank you for indulging my curiosity and answering my questions earlier. It's deeply appreciated. Shalom to you.
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social
@atomicpoet I appreciate your drum banging. I tried Calckey and it’s so much more engaging. Idk enough about Bluesky’s protocol but I plan on making a library (typescript) that can translate between protocols. Maybe that sounds dumb, but even within ActivityPub there are already competing sub-standards.
@uc It's not dumb at all. We should achieve decentralization, make this war between protocols meaningless.
@atomicpoet yeah I really want to see it. I want to see identity decoupled from servers, and also expansion to ActivtyPub to be more fluent with fetching arbitrary data. There’s a whole ecosystem that opens up if any type of software can integrate natively.
@lashman @atomicpoet I don't think all of Mastodon is bad. For instance, I'm quite comfortable on Vocalounge.cafe. Mastodon.social though? Yeah, absolutely not.
Dave No One @atomicpoet
Mastodon became popular with the Twitter Exodus. I am here for 5 years now, but used it only rarely when it was a cosy little nerd community.
I thinks the different #Fediverse services should try to target people to leave the commercial networks and join the corresponding #Fediverse services, like:
Twitter => #Mastodon
Facebook => #Diaspora (is this still a thing?)
Instagram => #Pixelfed
Each of them is different, but all of them become more interesting when more people are on them
@dans_root Sadly, Diaspora is barely alive. The reason is that it hasn't adopted ActivityPub.
@atomicpoet
Oh, ok. That’s sad. I had an account there, too in 2018, but there wasn’t too much going on. I was primarily looking for some kind of privacy friendly social network at that time.
@dans_root
I thought Friendica was the facebook equivalent. At least I keep hearing about it. I haven't tried it though, since facebook isn't really my thing.
@atomicpoet
@sowth @atomicpoet
I was never on Facebook, because of its privacy practices, and because I don’t like to talk about myself and my life. So I am quite happy here, just commenting about this and that.
But it might help if there would be some kind of overview which #fediverse platform serves for which kind of purpose, for those folks who are not familiar with all of them.
I hear new names, like #calckey, but have no idea what’s it about and what the difference to #Mastodon is.
@sowth
Thanks! I understand the general principle, but I don’t know why I would want to switch from #mastodon to #calckey or #friendica or #pleroma or whatever, unless it’s FOMO or just the wish to foster decentralization even further.
Maybe I need a #Mastodon account and some of the above because they serve different purposes?!
People are lazy and if something works well, then why change? Do I support the idea of decentralization when I have a Mastodon and Calckey account?
@dans_root
I haven't had an account on most of these systems, but I've read alot about them and looked at some of their public facing feeds. So my thoughts may not be 100% accurate...
Basically, mastodon and pleroma are quite similar. Pleroma even has an optional mastodon front end, so it can look like masto. The main difference is the communities and technical features--pleroma uses less resources etc
Peertube is video hosting like youtube. Lemmy is essentially a reddit clone--people post links/pictures and others up/down vote it and have real threaded discussions about what was posted. Writefreely/plume are long form blogging. Pixelfed is an Instagram clone--you take pictures with an app and it instantly posts them.
Wordpress has an activitypub plugin floating around and is apparently working on making ap native to its software.
@sowth Thanks for your summary. That matches my (basic) understanding. What I don't understand is when people often refer to as #Mastodon should not be understood as the #Fediverse (clear) and people should go elsewhere for decentralisation.
This might be true for a specific service like Mastodon, where you might say "don't use the largest instance, go elsewhere". But if I like the way information and interaction goes on Mastodon, then other services are no replacement but serve other purposes.
@atomicpoet wouldn’t the average person get overwhelmed by options and leave anyway?
@rtswiz I don't understand this mentality. The average person visits multiple websites every day. They register to multiple services.
@atomicpoet okay maybe I’m an outlier but most of my family would absolutely be confused by it, at least until after they’re onboarded and familiarized. They use email because they don’t have to think about it and it’s trivial to find a provider.
I guess the current policy with mastodon does hurt discoverability even more but I think making it easier to find those other services and communities would make a bigger difference than changing the signup flow specifically.
@atomicpoet They can add an indicator which kind of fediverse server an account is using, like Calckey. Maybe this could show people that Mastodon is not the only fediverse app!
Once upon a time people took AOL to be the Internet.
@Kencf618033@social.linux.pizza
Thankfully, those same people eventually learned that it's actually Facebook.
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social
@atomicpoet It is not too late. Educating people takes time. #Bluesky is the new shiny object. It has the advantage that they can sell future promises while the Fediverse has to put up. But soon enough reality will bite and that will come down to earth.
To move beyond Mastodon the Fediverse needs a killer alternative application. Calckey is very cool, but honestly it is still a little rough, and has no edit capability (...yet), which has become a "must have" feature IMO.
@mastodonmigration FYI, the edit feature is in beta on one server (blahaj.zone), and it will make its way onto all servers very soon.
This isn't a matter of waiting months for editing. It's imminent.
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social @mastodonmigration@mastodon.online Just spit-balling... It might be a really good idea to develop and execute a real PR plan for a Calckey "launch". Right now it is in "Alpha" and you are gathering "Early Adopter" feedback. It still needs a few things: the default interface needs to be toned down (IMO) and tuned up, edit feature, bigger composition window, bugs stomped, and ready for influx of new users without stumbling. Pick a date about a month from now to announce the "Early Beta Release".... or something. Think of a way to spin as a Fediverse Mastodon alternative. Put out a real press release and contact all the tech media.
The ideal time to execute the plan would be as the bloom starts to go off of Bluesky which should take a month or so. "Bluesky fails to live up to the hype but new Fediverse alternatives emerge..."
In any case, good luck! Looking forward to seeing where this all goes!
@rubicon @atomicpoet@mastodon.social @mastodonmigration@mastodon.online I'm not quite sure why you think that -- Calckey's been out for months, and it's definitely not alpha. Also, you're not even talking to the developers of Calckey in this thread.
@kainoa @atomicpoet@mastodon.social @mastodonmigration@mastodon.online Understood, it's been out, but very few people actually know about it, or what it is. Also, quite honestly, it's amazing, but not yet ready for prime time. The suggestion was to think about a "marketing plan" way to generate buzz and interest. This is something that comes naturally for corporate product roll-out programs, but open systems generally struggle with because they focus on the technology and not on the marketing.
@rubicon @atomicpoet@mastodon.social @mastodonmigration@mastodon.online This isn't a corporate product. I don't know why you feel the need to state your subjective opinion as fact.
@kainoa @atomicpoet@mastodon.social @mastodonmigration@mastodon.online Sorry, we seem to be getting off on the wrong foot. This is an amazing capability. Full stop. You guys are amazing. My thoughts were presented only in the spirit of trying to be helpful and based on a long history with product launches. You are right that this is not a corporate product, and I am sure you are inundated with "helpful suggestions". Wish you all the best.
@rubicon @kainoa @mastodonmigration I catch what you’re saying. But let me give you conjecture. It’s only a matter of time before someone makes a *key app for institutions.
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social @kainoa@calckey.social @mastodonmigration@mastodon.online Was just thinking about how to promote the rollout of Fediverse microblogging alternatives. Sorry to have touched a nerve.
@rubicon @kainoa @mastodonmigration I’m not bothered, and I appreciate your perspective.
@kainoa @atomicpoet@mastodon.social @mastodonmigration@mastodon.online Dishing out thumbs down
emojis to new users who are excited about your application and just trying to help, however misdirected you think the suggestions, are is one way do it. Good luck to you guys.
@rubicon@calckey.social @kainoa@calckey.social @atomicpoet@mastodon.social @mastodonmigration@mastodon.online
As both a dev & marketer - I will admit that Masto has done an excellent and organized job at marketing - both on their site and going all in on the branding. I'm glad Firefish is also going all in on the branding and stepping up to be a 'contender' in the eyes of the market - their site is really great and organized too, very good at pointing out the features - to people who are vaguely familiar to Fediverse. Onboarding to understand the Fedvierse and how to follow people could be improved, like @kainoa@calckey.social had mentioned to someone earlier, they need to actually follow someone to populate their feed - and people new to Fediverse don't understand how it really works but once explained the syntax difference without getting into the weeds of it, it clicks.
So yes, one of the biggest barriers to adoption is how Fediverse is presented and how each software is showcasing itself - it's just too much info and developers are (usually) not marketers - so the 'public' who isn't tech savvy say it's complicated. It's not as much as it seems to be - so OSS devs need to learn to speak in what problem they're solving rather than what the functionality is - which is what marketers are good at doing. Or work with marketers - but most charge and are unwilling to volunteer their time.
Corporations, like Threads, are and will have a much better time in adopting FOSS and just slapping their brand on it and put a really good marketing spin - because that's what they are essentially, marketing machines, leveraging the work of others (even in the case of selling data...), not developers who market. That's why corporations swoop up the market share - and where OSS devs can and ought to step up and learn how to market better - which is what Masto did.
/end semi-rant - thanks for coming to my ted talk
@mastodonmigration @atomicpoet Every now and then I play with Calckey and admire it, but it's not yet ready for primetime for me.
@atomicpoet Hi Chris. Been following you a while and really like your updates esp as a newbie to the Fediverse. Clearly last couple of days you’ve been posting away on this topic because it’s important. However, Mastodon being mistaken as the entirety of Fediverse is as much the fault of the other parts not distinguishing/differentiating themselves as Mastodon’s for not being to a fault noting it. It’s also not Mastodon’s fault they were in the right place when Musk imploded Twitter!
@Rob How does Calckey distinguish itself on Mastodon when Mastodon users can't even easily see what kind of software a message originates on?
@atomicpoet As you’ve noted, and I know you’ve deleted a bit on reflection after the article on Bluesjy vs Mastodon. The many parts of the Fediverse are small budgets vs Bluesky and it’s VC millions. How does CalcKey compete? On the tails of Mastodon getting us in here. And with you and other passionate users who shout about how good an experience it is on there/elsewhere. But they have to just as Mast does keep iterating/improving. Can’t compete on money, then compete of user experience.
@Rob@mastodon.scot @atomicpoet@mastodon.social
Late to the party - but just wanted to say I personally disliked Mastodon when I found out about it through Fediverse.Party (after learning about Federation because I was trying to rework a Wordpress Multisite to be more like Wordpress.com blogs... but that's an aside).
So I left the Fediverse, because it really didn't seem to do what I needed, yet - though I am keeping an eye on the ActivityPub WP plugin.
When I was on Reddit the other day - again, trying to find a solution to a WP ActivityPub issue - I saw the name Calckey. Not at ALL related to Mastodon. But just, Fediverse. Loved it the moment I landed on the 'sales' page, looked like what I needed, registered an account, and am very happy with it.
So all of that said - I think it's VERY unfair to say "On the tails of Mastodon getting us here".... It's THIS exact type of attitude that others are trying to overcome - that Masto did "oh-my-god such a huge service to the Fediverse by being in the right place/right time and therefore we're the elephant in the room that equates itself with being THE fediverse".
It's not explicit - it's implicit. And very much highlighted by statements such as "How does CalcKey compete? On the tails of Mastodon getting us in here"
I just wanted to add my anecdotal experience to prove that, in fact, Calckey and other softwares are having a great time distinguishing themselves and cross-supporting each other. Masto is great - for those that love it. But I don't believe it's done a lot of good to the Fediverse, and in some cases has turn off people to the Fediverse before they even had a chance to experience other instances - in my experience in talking with people off-platform.
Saying that the other softwares haven't done enough to distinguish themselves isn't fair either.
I believe Mastodon, and other softwares in general, should be doing a better job educating people up front about a) what the Fediverse is and b) what softwares are available for different user experiences.
Since there's no benefit in having "market share" of one instance or another, there's no tangible competition between any software - so there's no reason why NOT to promote other softwares.
I rather like what Calckey/Firefish has done with their feeds in showing the server and software icon. It's fair and inclusive. Why shouldn't other softwares adopt that - to really showcase what the Fediverse actually is?
@Rob@mastodon.scot
I don't know. This feels a little bit like blaming small political parties with popular policy positions for not being able to reach voters when it's the lack of media coverage caused by them not owning major media outlets that's holding them back.
Many of us have been evangelizing for the smaller, alternative services on the Fediverse, and we've been met with the blankest of stares for months now.
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social
@kichae @atomicpoet kinda agree but I don’t think Mast is at fault either, it’s just the one that ex Twitter users fled to. Simple luck of the draw. If the Fediverse is truly a different kinda place and more collaborative than the Twitter/FB/YouTube behemoths are then Mastodon can be used to help the other parts of the Fediverse and shine a light on them. Or are the creators of this ‘verse not the nice people they’re portrayed to be?