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How do we get "normies" to adopt the Fediverse?

This is a follow-up from my previous thread.

The thread discussed the question of why people tend to choose proprietary microblogging platfroms (i.e. Bluesky or Threads) over the free and open source microblogging platform, Mastodon.

The reasons, summarised by @noodlejetski are:

  1. marketing
  2. not having to pick the instance when registering
  3. people who have experienced Mastodon’s hermetic culture discouraging others from joining
  4. algorithms helping discover people and content to follow
  5. marketing

and I’m saying that as a firm Mastodon user and believer.

Now that we know why people move to proprietary microblogging platforms, we can also produce methods to counter this.

How do we get “normies” to adopt the Fediverse?

mozz , (edited )
@mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar
  1. Stop calling it “the fediverse”
nokturne213 ,

Every time I hear Fediverse I imagine a universe full of nothing but different versions of Kevin Federline.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@feddit.org avatar

It’s already happening.

People say Lemmy when they mean the link aggregator part of the Fediverse.

People say Mastodon when they mean the microblogging part.

And really okay, at least people get it: one name, one concept

GBU_28 ,

It sounds like a furry cinematic universe

Max_P ,
@Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me avatar

You can’t, because normies don’t care about tech other than it benefits them directly in some way. They care about the experience they get and doing the same thing everyone does because normies are like sheeps.

Normies barely even get how emails work and it’s been like over 40 years. They know if they sign up for Gmail it’s free, they get a ton of space and an @gmail.com address. That’s it.

And even then, people looked at me weird back in 2007 when I made my Gmail account because “everyone uses Hotmail, why wouldn’t you use Hotmail, everyone uses it so it must be the best”. Heck just yesterday, the teller at the mechanic shop looked at me weird because I used [email protected] to place the online order, they were utterly confused. They thought I made a Gmail or Outlook for all of those aliases. People don’t think about using emails, they think about using Gmail or Hotmail/Outlook.

Same with Reddit, it didn’t become popular until normies felt like they were missing out by not being on Reddit, and arguably that was Reddit’s downfall flooding the site with the same repeated arguments and opinions over and over. And for that too, I’ve been told my “Reddit looks weird” because I use a third-party app. People want to use Reddit so they download Reddit.

Normies don’t use Twitter because they want to microblog, they use Twitter because their idols are on Twitter and they want to mimic them. If Taylor Swift opened a Mastodon account and posted exclusively there, we’d get a massive spike of users. And they all would want to register on the same instance as her and it would be the only viable instance to them.

They just want to fit in and do the same as the others, using the same services and same apps and everything. “Influencers” are everything these days.

The best way to get normies on the Fediverse is IMO, endorsing Threads and BlueSky, which will effectively force them to integrate because those platforms integrate.

isaac ,
@isaac@lakora.us avatar

I'd like less focus on the network and more on individual servers, with their own names, policies, and reputations. Then users aren't thinking about whether to join one huge network - they're thinking about whether that server is the kind of place they want to be. (https://wandering.shop is a good example of an instance that is explicitly going for certain vibes.)

It would allow individual pre-existing communities to create their own spaces, ones which would prioritize those communities' experiences and needs over their connection to the rest of the fediverse. I'm imagining something like Dreamwidth or Fur Affinity or the many old-fashioned forums out there, just with the ability to follow users or navigate to topics on other instances if you know their names or URLs. I'm really not worried about discoverability outside the instance - to me, the instance is the platform, and anything outside of it is just an additional thing I can get to if I want it.

That being said, I think this approach is probably incompatible with trying to create a general-purpose social media site that also attracts a large number of users, at least not without a hefty marketing budget.

@dch82 @fediverse

gregor ,

Bluesky is FOSS tho…

dch82 OP ,

what are you talking about? bluesky isn’t open source, the protocol is, and it reeks of embrace, extend, extinguish by branding itself as an open network

Tywele ,

How can it be EEE if it’s their own protocol?

Also there is much more open source from Bluesky: github.com/bluesky-social

dch82 OP ,

I don’t actually mean it’s EEE but that whatever they are doing feels similar; besides, with one big server controlled by a corporation in the centre of their ecosystem, they could “defederate” any rising AT-compatible competitor servers out of existence.

They might not now, but don’t ever trust a company to not do this.

Tywele ,

What would be the point of putting in the effort to make Bluesky or other ATProtocol apps selfhostable if they didn’t want people to do that? Doesn’t make any sense

dch82 OP ,

The danger (as they can see) are not selfhosters, but larger competitive instances. They don’t allow AT servers of over 10 users and 1500 events a hour. This is clearly targeted to prevent large-scale instances (fediverse style) from being created.

How many bluesky users actually selfhost?

Tywele ,

As your link states these are just early access limitations.

Bishma ,
@Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I’ve had more than one person tell me they don’t think microblogging is worth any learning curve whatsoever. They’d rather not use anything than have a single conversation about federation or feed building.

FeelzGoodMan420 ,

The Fediverse needs a hell of a lot of work before we can even consider mass adoption.

L0rdMathias ,

You don’t. If they don’t wanna be here, don’t take on this huge crusade to get them here. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. They must take the final step themselves.

Focus on making lemme a desirable place to be, less on getting people to use the communication tool you happen to prefer.

missingno ,
@missingno@fedia.io avatar

In order to get more people on Fedi, we have to get more people on Fedi. People will go whereever everybody else already is. That's the only thing keeping Twitter alive, even though almost everyone there will openly admit they hate it, no one will actually leave Twitter because everyone else is still on Twitter.

It's a chicken-and-egg problem that I don't think Fedi can actively do anything to solve. Or rather, I think it's too late to solve. If there's any competitor that has a chance, BlueSky has established a much bigger userbase in far less time, and that's enough momentum to potentially get there. Anyone who's leaving Twitter will go to BlueSky before they ever look at Fedi.

shortypig ,

I’m guessing a lot of comments will be of the “why do we want to?” variety.

stsquad ,

Quite. Go to the big services that know how to moderate and maintain (and importantly pay for) a public square. But also encourage the interesting ones enable federation for wider coverage.

breakfastmtn ,
@breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca avatar

To do that in the short term, the Fediverse probably just needs more money. The competitors have a fuckload of it and can introduce features way faster because of it. I think Mastodon’s been “exploring/planning” quote posts for like 18 months and haven’t even begun working on it. I’d love to have user-controllable, optional algorithmic feeds in Mastodon (not replacing the main reverse-chron feed) but I can’t imagine it existing in less than 5 years.

Mods cracking down on the plague of ‘polite’ harassment (ex. passive-aggressive FYIs about CWs) wouldn’t hurt. It’s not as bad as it used to be but it’s chased a ton of people away.

I think in the long term the Fediverse has an advantage. The only real goal Fediverse services have is to get better for users. At some point, Bluesky and Threads will have to make money or die. I don’t think they have a way to do that without damaging the user experience.

earth_walker ,
@earth_walker@lemmy.world avatar

Fedi client app developers need to design fedi client apps in a holistic way to include a custom server (as with Mammoth’s moth.social) or create an account for the user on one of a curated selection of other servers, without forcing the user to choose one.

It’s a severe problem with trying to grow fedi that general users are expected to understand how servers work and make an informed decision about which one to join. General users don’t care about this topic and will quickly turn away when it is forced upon them. That’s why the client app needs to handle this for the user without making a fuss about it.

These apps also need good discovery features and feeds with posts that are trending generally and for specific topics. Then devs need to make money with those apps somehow, then they need to market those apps (at this point, it goes beyond just “devs” and expands into an organization with a marketing department, etc.).

Then, hopefully fedi’s inherent advantages of interoperability and resilience will naturally cause people to choose these user-friendly, effectively marketed fedi client apps over things like Instagram, Tiktok, etc. After all, if it can’t compete on its own merits with all other factors being equal, there’s no point to it for most people.

BeAware ,
@BeAware@social.beaware.live avatar

@dch82 first, "normies" have to not get harassed when they come here.

Unfortunately the biggest Fedi software refuses to add automated reporting of offensive posts so if it's not reported, the admins won't even see it.

People coming from corporate social media are used to ignoring the report button because in their experience, it either doesn't work, or gets ignored by admins anyway.

We need automated reporting.

@fediverse

Blaze ,
@Blaze@feddit.org avatar

Federated reporting would help too

AterNox ,
@AterNox@atergens.com avatar

@BeAware @dch82 Maybe im a little lost. Isn't there a block and report button on Mastodon? I'm using Misskey and both buttons seem to work. I mean im reporting to myself, but the button seems to work. What kind of automated blocking are you trying to do here?

BeAware ,
@BeAware@social.beaware.live avatar

@AterNox @dch82 blocking and reporting work fine.

However, people from corporate social media won't report posts because in their experience, it either doesn't get taken seriously or the admins ignore it. Corporate social media sites don't exactly act on reports in a timely manner.

I'm on my own instance, I moderate for myself. I don't want slurs to exist on my instance at all. However, if I don't see them with my own eyes, I cannot ban the user.

PS. I'm talking about banning users that are harassing others on the instance level. These are user actions. I am an admin. I run my own instance.

@fediverse

AterNox ,
@AterNox@atergens.com avatar

@BeAware @dch82 So Mastodon not have a wordlist you can populate that "removes" posts with the keywords you provide? It took me a while to find it in Misskey, works like a charm,

BeAware ,
@BeAware@social.beaware.live avatar

@AterNox @dch82 doesn't exist for admins. It works on a "user" level. But that won't remove the post or data from the instance, it just "hides" it so the single user can't see.

@fediverse

cm0002 ,

I’m confused, do you mean like automated enforcement rules/algorithms like big SM has? I.e. if user gets reported for breaking Y rule X amount of times ban user for Z amount of time and forward to admin for further action?

BeAware ,
@BeAware@social.beaware.live avatar

@cm0002 no, I want automated reports.

A user using the n word, full on with the hard R, isn't gonna be a good post. It should be automatically reported to me so that I can judge context and take action.

If a user doesn't report it, I won't see it.

I'm on my own instance, I am the user.

If I don't report it, nobody sees it.

That's dumb.

@fediverse

cm0002 ,

Ah, makes sense now, that is dumb. I can totally see why they would have issues with automated enforcement, but what you described I don’t see why anyone would be against it lol

ALostInquirer ,

By automated reporting do you mean something like filters on the backend to flag offensive posts per some custom settings?

osaerisxero ,

I unironically think it would be easier to train users that the report button works now than it would to get automated reporting that was worth a damn implemented.

Lost_My_Mind ,

We need automated reporting.

I’m fine with auto REPORTING, but the actual moderation needs to be a human. Auto moderation is bad. It gets things wrong. It’s how I got banned from both twitter (calm down, this was back in 2018 before it was an elon owned nazi cesspool), and reddit.

On twitter I saw a funny video that was posted, and I replied “Aw man, that killed me”.

I was banned for “inciting death threats”

BeAware ,
@BeAware@social.beaware.live avatar

@Lost_My_Mind yeah, just reporting.

I want to do the actual judgement, but if I don't know the post exists, I can't judge anything and it makes me so mad that possible racist stuff can exist on my instance without my knowledge because I havent "seen" it.

@fediverse

hendrik , (edited )

Create a nice atmosphere.

Make it simple and remove any technical barriers. They should be able to google "Fediverse" click on the first link. Choose a username and be on their way. Find the app with the same name and install it in 2 minutes.

The network effect is a thing. They need to already find lots of their friends, interesting people and their favorite stars there.

And it has to be easy to discover them, if we don't have an "algorithm" that suggests content.

secret300 ,

I think picking an instance is just something people will have to learn and get used to as that’s very essential to the fediverse experience.

I personally hate algorithms picking shit for me and that’s why I use lemmy and why I used reddit back when it first came out. I search out and pick what content I see on my feed.

I definitely agree with more marketing. It’s insane to think there’s a lot of people that still use reddit and never even heard of lemmy

veeesix ,
@veeesix@lemmy.ca avatar

I guess this ties into marketing, but I think rebranding the “fediverse” as the “social web” would be a good start. It has a broad neutral tone that I think is easier for regular people to latch on to.

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