Hi developer friends (esp #opensource -y types), if you have ditched twitter for #Mastodon for ideological reasons (I suspect you are many because... wow.), would you please drop me a note and tell me a little about it? I'd appreciate it. I'm just trying to get an idea of where people are on this right now. I'm feeling very conflicted. For now, I am still cross posting, but I'm feeling ickier by the day. #TwitterMigration Boosts welcome and appreciated.
And at what point is it going to just be unacceptable to post to the bird? I don't think many I know would sign up for Truth social, but will they stay and be boiled frogs as something they used to like slowly becomes Truth social 2.0? What about brands? Many have paused advertising but are still posting. How do you feel about those that continue to participate?
@katherined there’s a whole server of them at fosstodon.org
But yes, ditched Twitter on day one or two of Elon and very glad to be gone. It brought me not much good and a whole lot of bad over ten years.
In the month or so I’ve been here, I’ve made incredible connections that would have never happened on Twitter.
@katherined I still have a foot in both camps, mainly because most of the DevRel folks I speak to are still there, and long email chains when I just want to say hi or share a crappy pun seams a little much.
Most of my FOSS friends have moved over, and many of the #HPC crowd are slowly coming, but for now I'm trying to slowly ease the transition for them.
Ex is that HPC.social is also doing community blogs, maps and more. Not just mast, so getting people interested in one eases the others
@katherined it’s also worth mentioning that academia as a whole is all over the place on how to react to it.
Many are happy to criticize, are indignant about the situation (insert other descriptors) but seems to be stuck in a form of idle curiosity on what will happen next, unwilling to leave for fear of “missing out”
I feel like someone in a psych 101 course saying this, but it’s like they’re truly addicted and stuck in a loop.
@fclc I see that too.
@katherined The only thing I'm still using the #BirdSite for at this point is customer service complaints to merchants who aren't in the #Fediverse yet. I'm neither reading nor posting anything else there.
Full disclosure: Just to be clear, though I've got 30+ years of #FOSS dev experience, tbh I never really used #Twitter for that.
@jik customer service is going to be the last holdout I think. Mastodon for pleasure and the other thing for complaints sounds about right.
@katherined I am one of the founders of Opalstack, we are a traditional linux web host. We are "all in" with the federation. 1. Product adoption lifecycle as discussed in "inside the tornado" make this very clear. 2. "web2.5" This is perfectly in the middle of 'web3' and 'web2' in such a comfy way.
3. "birdchan" "elon was a lurker" This is just my personal spin on it and we went "all in" before I saw this, but once it clicked in my mind I could not unsee it.
@katherined I just felt gross being on Twitter with everything that happened. I'd created a Mastodon account a couple of years ago, but there just wasn't a critical mass of the crowds I interact with to really make it interesting.
My Twitter bubble was pretty nerdy and split between FLOSS, HPC, and math folks, and a decent number of people from those "camps" now have at least a semi-active Mastodon presence.
There's definitely interactions I'm missing out on, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@katherined I’m not a dev, but my main reason is I don’t endorse or use products / services / shop at stores when my morals don’t line up with the owners.
I avoid Walmart and Amazon as much as I can because of their labor practices.
I don’t use Facebook because of their Privacy flaws.
I’m moving away from Twitter because E.M. has given a free pass to everyone who is posting vile stuff. He even participates in some of it.
I've moved completely to #hachyderm (many of the people I followed on Twitter either have or are in the process of #twittermigration).
No regrets, not missing Twitter at all 🙂
@katherined Felt icky hanging around. I never really posted much - mostly just lurked and followed friends. Some have come here - and the ick factor lost out. I ripped off the band-aid and here I am!
@katherined This is a great point. I don't feel that it is at that point yet, because it really is a tough migration. I have to really try to find news updates and the interaction here is still tiny compared to the bird site. With latest updates from the site like terminating the trust and safety council, I think that time is getting closer and closer.
@katherined
Got more follows & followers with Covid crisis & lockdown. Great French medical community & followers. Most still there & seem in a pretty comfy bubble after having blocked zillions of antivaxxers/deniers. I sometimes lurk when in the mood for their personal stories. I'd say 20-40 accounts lead the pack. Mostly, the docs seem to have decided to continue with public messaging given the latest "wave" & hospital crisis. Some are on a mission, others can't do without their online nest...
@katherined To me this feels on the spectrum of shopping at Hobby Lobby/eating at Chick-Fil-A. I don't do either of those things, nor post on Twitter, but I'm not sure I'm ready to judge others for engaging.
The difference, of course, is that Chick-Fil-A doesn't use their sandwiches as a platform to spread their bigotry and hate. Twitter is quickly becoming *only* a platform for that.
@katherined Does this mean you're asking about the acceptability of "flipping the bird"? (Bad joke, sorry) 😄
Seriously though, I don't really put out any of my work related stuff on social media (typically sensitive and for large brands)... so ... I honestly don't know.
Think of it this way - are you ok with content you write going to Mr Musk? 🤔
@katherined Same.
I cross-posted for about a week, but then I realized every interaction, from reading a thread to cross-posting, helps that man child and his awful gang. Literally every interaction strengthens the birds business numbers.
And just like with folks who refused to mask or get their shots, I find myself mentally tsk-tsk'ing folks who remain active on the fowl site.
Might be unfair, and they might be stuck there for the time being, but there you go.
@katherined I'm feeling exactly the same. Had ditched FB, Google, MS, and other already before, which felt really great at the time. Twitter was (and is) the only remaining platform left in my portfolio which is not open and free.
Fighting with myself every day. I know I should close down over there. News is not an issue, I'm well equipped with RSS feeds. But my fellow #drupal friends are still there, don't know if I can afford to loose contact - whereas I have other ways to talk to them, still.
Feel your pain. But you cannot have your vegetables and enjoy them too. Fighting evil (and that is what Musk is about) takes sacrifice and focusing here makes here better each day.
An interim workaround is to use the Nitter add-on to your browser to see what people you have followed are reporting.
Once installed you see posts but cannot interact.
Couldn't agree more. I'm about to win this fight with myself soon.
@katherined I couldn’t stay at Twitter after seeing how Elon treated the staff. I do agree there’s a lot of excess hype around Silicon Valley and a lot of tech companies are probably a bit overstaffed, but that’s no excuse for treating folks terribly. Some of the metrics used were ridiculous too. Measuring programming prowess by lines of code or code complexity is absurd. Both of those can be maintenance nightmares or depend on the language involved (some have lots of boilerplate)
Right now I'm still letting my Mastodon posts automatically post to the bird and link back to Mastodon, but I start to feel like any participation there is problematic. I feel bad for my friends in DevRel and such who have worked hard to build their communities and for whom Twitter is an important communication tool. I am anxious to see how people adjust.