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I joined Mastodon a bit over four years ago. Many of my generation seem to fear that Mastodon will become like Twitter with all the new people. I do not.

The idea seems to be that Mastodon is so nice because its people are nice. I believe most people are nice. Twitter has been set up in a way to make us into monsters and to make the worst monsters look like average folks.

The design choices of Mastodon do the reverse. We will become a bit more like Twitter, but mostly stay Mastodon by design.

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troyella

@VictorVenema@fediscience.or agree. But I still wish we could quote-toot. It’s the best way of starting a conversation. If everyone is nice, then the risk of pile-ons is surely lower?

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Gasch

@VictorVenema I hope so.

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Tina C PhD

@VictorVenema I would imagine that not monetizing outrage would make a difference.

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Arli A P

@VictorVenema Well said. It's just too much politics in Twitter, and it's making me unconfortable 😌

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Doug Bostrom

@VictorVenema

Twitter's design necessarily embedded seriously conflicted objectives (as do most private enterprises, fundamentally), those conflicts leading to unsurprising outcomes.

I share your optimism for Mastodon, which is not only founded on "I hope" but by key design choices. Hope is not a plan, but here there is a plan.

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Zhenbo Li

@VictorVenema IMHO #Mastadon is a decentralized platform. It’s possible, or more precisely, it definitely will develop different rules and cultures in different instances.

I understand that some instances have a strict rule, but such regulations can’t be forced to adopted by others.

Personally, I would mark my boring toots (ie No lettuce at Costco! Feeling angry!) as CW, but I don’t think this should be enforced.

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Tim J
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@VictorVenema Having arrived about a day and a half ago, I certainly hope you're right. I do notice a lot of features that make good behaviour easier and bad behaviour harder—often little design details like seeing the CW button while posting.

But since we're all worried about losing our core Twitter network and trying to recreate it here, I feel there's a risk we end up only following Twitter people and don't encounter as much of the existing Mastodon culture as we might.

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Ralf Stubner

@VictorVenema
I am not sure if it is Twitter or social media in general that turns nice people into monsters. @M_B_Petersen has provided some research that indicates otherwise. Unfortunately I can only find this meta thread right now: twitter.com/M_B_Petersen/statu

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J.A. Jablonski (Jude) 🏳️‍🌈

@VictorVenema I hope you are right, Victor. There is certainly a different vibe on the 2 platforms. Most people here do seem to talk more to each other rather than at. Not all, of course. Now that I've been hear & interacting for a bit I am struck by how the Birdsite is often dry & focused so much on announcing or branding, which gets old fast. (I interact largely with writers/authors/publishing types there.)

Anyway...cheers!

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@VictorVenema mastodon would only change for a tooter if they followed someone who changes them. There's no algorithm on any fediverse platforms, including mastodon meaning you create your own experience. If you are seeing changes in your experience, maybe it's time to visit your following list or your instance. The world doesn't change because of the company you keep, only your world changes. Luckily, in the fediverse it's easy to relocate if you don't like the view.

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Archieinrye

@VictorVenema I’m sure you’re right. And if you look at the politics of the majority who are fleeing Twitter ( especially the #fbpe crew ) you’ll find a common thread to them all - decency.

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Samater Liban

@VictorVenema it’s up to us.

We need to find empathic ways to remind ourselves, that we don’t want to fall back into the old SoMe aggression. And that we don’t want to.

It will happen. The more users come, but also the more polarizing (mainstream & alternative) media flows in.

Rules & tech are one side.

Helping others to understand it, when it happens could the another.

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