@Gargron And all that sulfer and stuff in the air.

@feditips What format should date be written in?

@Mastodon Do the funds go towards just Social or do some of resulting efforts get used by other instances in the Mastodon universe?

@Mastodon I'm seen a lot of people express concern that this new sign-up approach directs everyone to the same instance (Social) and that this will weaken the Fediverse overall. Why not have a centralized sign-up that randomly assigns people to different instances (spread the love). Then, once people settle in they can move to other instances later on.
My prediction is that most people from Twitter (who are not tech savvy) will just stay there on Social. And some of the conversations I've seen argue that this will cause the number of accounts to reach a critical mass desirable to corporations or someone like Musk such that it will be bought out. Can you really turn down $15-20mil?
The idea of a random assignment could even include a short questionnaire to help place people on an instance they might relate to (ie. answers could help eliminate or add in certain ones that they could then be assigned to. Answers could even be used to help generate a short list of only 3 or 4 instances to choose from).

@feditips What about having a central sign-up page that assigns new accounts to random instances throughout the Fediverse (specific ones could opt out)? That way, accounts would be spread around the Fediverse. (Let people choose one if they feel strongly about it). Then, afterwards once newbies are more settled, they could choose to move to another instance.
I don't really know how it all works, but maybe there is a seed of an idea here?

@feditips Just an off-the-cuff idea that I haven't really thought about. What about an initial sign-up where people are randomly assigned an instance as their home? Then, as they learn more about Mastodon, they could move to another instance later?