@VictorVenema I asked earlier about what people thought about the new influx (of which I’m a part). Really interesting to get your take. Thanks.

@VictorVenema Couldn't agree with this more. Twitter - like Facebook - seems to play into the worst of people. I am so sick of my timeline being populated via algorithms by such toxic bots/paid shills. I like it here.

@VictorVenema Systems drive the actions of the individual. I am from Twitter and lived in the bear pit. Mastodon does not feel anything like the same.

@VictorVenema I think this is very astute. Twitter’s decent into hell had much more to do with its design - and the way it was designed to bring out the worst in us. People are good.

@VictorVenema agree a bit. But it’s more complex than that. Children want the attention of their elders. If they can’t get that by good behaviour they’ll get it by bad. Adults are no different. We all want connection. Some have learnt to get it by being nasty: being shouted at is better than being ignored. Twitter enabled and promoted this. I’ve worded that badly, but I think most understood what I’m trying to say.

@VictorVenema May it be so!

@VictorVenema I never liked Twitter at all.
When I seen the article on this it sounded nice.
I'm brand new and rather impressed actually.

@VictorVenema I would add that Mastodon will never have hundreds of millions of users. Not with the whole "pick a server" process. That alone scares away people who probably shouldn't be microblogging.

@VictorVenema
I think you just need to give us time to adjust & let the confrontation go. As you say we have been trained to react & attack. I'm already posting thongs I normally reserve for my Insta page. As the days pass the tone is easing & CWs etc are being used more

@VictorVenema I think of it as: 'Twitter weaponises being an asshole.'

@VictorVenema Thanks for welcoming us and for your optimism about the human condition - a view which I share.

@VictorVenema the medium is the message, eh?

@VictorVenema As a newcomer a week or so ago, that's good to hear. I wish I'd joined before.

@VictorVenema hope you are right.. Its nice here

@VictorVenema hi Victor can you help in guidance on the use of CW? Politics I get - it’s rare to find a political post that has anything pleasant to say. Religion I also get it as it can get contentious. I saw a single user yesterday fill the timeline with multiple posts farming follows. If allowed at all, that was a classic example, to me, of something that deserved a CW. Is it expected by subject? Is there a server by server difference in expectations?

@VictorVenema I hope we are behaving well, please do call us out if we aren't. I think many of us have been trained to be ranty in the other place and may need gentle reminding that we don't need to be that way. 😘

@VictorVenema thanks for this, and for welcoming us migrants! I am realising the more time I spend on here the ways the Birdsite manipulates interactions by what you see. It’s such a clearer line of sight here, and set up for conversation and ideas (Birdsite did used to do that, but as you say it wasn’t designed to stay like it)

@VictorVenema Hope you’re right!

@VictorVenema I've been enjoying it since I got here, but I fear I may have to move server. My initial choice has become... Unpleasant.