mastodon.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit

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@nellie_m @mastodonmigration @aurynn @aral

"Please, when you mention Mammoth, do also mention that they
a) require you to sign up on their instance when you use it."

That's simply not true. I did use it on my own instance for testing.

(I'm not defending Mammoth, but I think misinformation and misrepresentation won't help anyone)

@michael @nellie_m @mastodonmigration @aurynn @aral You'll have to forgive the iPad screenshots but here's the evidence that you absolutely can use any instance.

The list of servers you're given to search/browse when you click "Or sign in to an existing community?" is quite extensive.

@aral @pieceofthepie @michael @nellie_m@home.social @mastodonmigration @aurynn That... makes sense.

How many times have you heard people say that the "pick a server" step is a stumbling block to newcomers?

They've decided to solve that in a particular way. I don't see anything that suggests they would prevent users from migrating later if they choose too.

@nikclayton @aral @pieceofthepie @nellie_m @mastodonmigration @aurynn it would certainly be possible (probably almost trivial) for them to disable migration capability at any time.

Nik

@michael @aral @pieceofthepie @nellie_m@home.social @mastodonmigration @aurynn And that would be the appropriate time to block.

@nikclayton the appropriate time to block is now, before they have a chance to do harm. Like we did with Gab. @michael @aral @pieceofthepie @nellie_m @mastodonmigration

@aurynn @nikclayton @aral @pieceofthepie @nellie_m @mastodonmigration I’m not sure the comparison with Gab is helpful. Very very different situation.

@nikclayton arguably that would be the worst time to block, as it’d do most harm to innocent users stuck on a defederated server, that they also couldn’t migrate away from anymore either.

@aral @pieceofthepie @nellie_m @mastodonmigration @aurynn

@michael @aral @pieceofthepie @nellie_m@home.social @mastodonmigration @aurynn and a block now would harm real users *now* for a hypothetical future scenario.

@nikclayton to be clear: I’m not advocating for blocking now. But I think blocking if migration ability was removed would be worse.

@aral @pieceofthepie @nellie_m @mastodonmigration @aurynn

@nikclayton It’ll be too late then. Imagine blocking mastodon.social today. You might as well block yourself. Now think about how large they want/have to get because of VC (hint: larger than mastodon.social).

@michael @pieceofthepie @nellie_m @mastodonmigration @aurynn

@aral @michael @pieceofthepie @nellie_m@home.social @mastodonmigration @aurynn yes, and?

You appear to be moving the goal posts. Are you now advocating for blocking any instance that has more than X users?