2mo ago

what is your opinion on mastodon and other fediverse microblogging sites?? as opposed to forum-type websites

microblogging is something used on a much more personal level while i think forum style social media is mostly for looking for answers and posting things you do, but microblogging social media sites are for that too. also, this is not meant to be offensive, but i think that since mastodon has been in the works for like a long time, it looks more polished than modern websites, so that can be an advantage it has

27 comments

The fundamental flaw with microblogging is that people follow other people. Those people then spew a bunch of random posts on all sorts of topics. Very few people are consistently interesting, leading to a timeline / feed of random crap with a few nuggets of goodness scattered through it. This is unavoidable because of the person-follows-person architecture.
There are other pernicious effects that come from centering the individual. The narcissism, defensiveness, dunking are all enflamed, rewarded and promoted. Mastodon avoids some of this by not using a recommendation algorithm but the fundamental mistake of centering of the individual remains.
Also short-form content tends to be brainrot that destroys attention spans and reduces complex issues to bite-sized hand grenades to lob at The Other.
Combine hand grenades with narcissism and news/politics and the result is kinda predictable in hindsight.

I have absolutely zero interest in participating in any kind of social media that isn't an "anonymous forum." I have no interest in following particular individuals; I'm really only interested in having discussions with random internet users that share common interests. I used PhpBB instances, IRC, and before that BBS systems, and I'm really just looking for the same kind of experience.
So I will never use Mastodon; I think it's a fantastic alternative to Xitter, but the format just doesn't interest me in the slightest.
- Ditto. On top of that, I could not get into the tiny, tiny width of the "Twitter experience" with their web site. I don't need mobile width pages on desktops.
  Responsive Web Design... use it, implement it, never forget it.
  
  Is the 4 column layout not standard on Mastodon?
- I think I'm very similar to you
  I want to have a feed of topics I'm interested in, very rarely do I care about a specific individual, and the case that I do it's probably because they're a local restaurant or something like that, basically all I use Instagram for is a glorified photo menu for food I might want on a given weekend
  
  Same
- phpBB was the best.
  The old forums I frequent have all seen their activity drop, which sucks.
  I prefer the smaller forums centred around common interests. I made a load of friends through those forums.
  I quit reddit recently and it occurred to me that after 10 years, I didn't make a single friend on reddit.
- I mean those are the only "social" media finally

the threadiverse is group discussion. the twitterverse is 'soapbox', or 'old man shouts into the void'
- I love it though. I find it so much fun.
  Although maybe I'd find forumming as fun as microblogging if the people here were nicer.
- threadiverse woa, i like group discussion but i guess you could have that in the uhhmmm twitterverse too tho
  
  yep. i use mbin on my instance, so i have access to both sides of the fediverse unlike lemmy.

My biggest problem with microblogging sites is that I have never been able to get a good, interesting content feed out of them without also getting lots of noise. Following hashtags usually gives me a mountain of retweets (or whatever) and trying to follow groups of related people/subject matter experts gives me lots of irrelevant content. Community-style social media forces people to more strictly categorize their content, I think.
- Last sentence is so true. I feel the same overall

Micro-blogging sucks because it fosters a 'community' of people who are only there to gain popularity/followers.
Reddit/lemmy style social media is more focused on sharing interesting things and having discussions.

Microblogging is mature now and I think it sucks as a communication medium. I think discussion focused sites are a much healthier experience.

Having a larger and more culturally, ideologically and demographically diverse community plays HEAVILY into that side of the Fedivere's favor. I enjoy my time over there far more than over here. People here are extremely touchy and culty, while people over there seem pretty chill. I also think the frontends over there have matured better than the forum software, although we're starting to catch up, and third-party frontends here absolutely outclass the default.

It's like a light bulb reading these comments. I've barely touched social media, wondered why it's of no interest to me, but suddenly I grok it. I prefer the intelligent conversation (and stupid takes too, like mine) of a forum like Lemmy, where there's a much better IQ/batting average than 'social media'.
- Wait, are people unaware that forums, Reddit, and Lemmy are also social media?
  Social networking sites are a type of social media. Discussion groups are another.

I like mastodon a lot. I have basically found my hashtags, people and news sources to follow and so my feed is always filled with content to read. Engagement is fairly good on my instance, at least with popular topics.
But I only have 20 followers in 18 months of being on it so if that kind of thing is important to you then it can be something of a negative. Harder to build an audience without an algorithmic recommendation feature feeding your posts to strangers. I find that to be a positive though.

Individual user driven content where the focus in more on individual accounts I don't really like. Which is why stuff like Twitter, tiktok, shorts, Instagram hasn't strongly hooked me like forum based social media.
I prefer social media where it's more users all fading into the background with the attention given to the theme of discussion or showcasing as opposed to more influencer based social media.

Compared to web-forum sites?
Half-dozen of one, 6 of the other, I'd say. It's like they both don't want to BE UseNET, but want the same federation and reach.
At least a few webfora tools work as mere WebUIs backing onto UseNET NNTP backbone, and that's got the potential to use, preserve and extend the life of that protocol and interchange. But a federation that's older than a few years may not get the love for shine that the neu protocols get.

I personally don't value the microblogging format and never really gave it a shot. It's just personal preference. In my opinion, the site format mechanically encourages low-effort junk, and there's enough of that on sites like this. I only use microblogs as an inconvenient feed for specific niche news updates I can't get elsewhere, like I would an RSS-type feed.
With that said, I support people posting on fediverse microblogging sites rather than on xitter or bluesky. I have to jump through a lot of moving hoops to even view xitter feeds without an account.

Started a post with a topic in the same ballpark:
https://lemmy.ml/post/24189598

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