@feditips

>Tell people to sign up on the website.

IMHO, the website is better than any app. You get the full functionality of Mastodon, and the site is coded to display really well as a mobile webpage. I tried using like 3 different apps, not liking any of them. Why? Because I've been trained to assume the mobile webpage is dogshit.

Then I finally had the notion "what if I look at a mobile webpage?" IT'S REALLY GOOD.

@feditips Valid points, but consider Mastodon org ≠ fediverse. Open-source tech, but org shouldn't guide the whole fediverse. Mastodon's app focusing on their servers makes sense. Users can still choose other servers/apps. Reducing friction for newcomers is a fair trade-off, especially with account migration. Helps catch Twitter fall-off. [1/2]

@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?

@feditips
"Pick my own Server"

This wording is lethal, what were they thinking?

@feditips social es el nodo mas estable de todo #mastodon

@feditips

I'm on .social but when I signed up it wasnt via the app it was on my PC, and I didnt understand how it works so just went with what seemed like the default.

My first thought on reading this is that I should move servers. Perhaps a push to get people already on .social to move would help?

@feditips So what can be done? Join PeopleCount.org. Support building a way to break out of the current paradigm of politics, including taking power away from the wealthy and the parties, and naturally empowering unity.

Mastodon is good. But it's designed to communicate without profit, not to actually fix anything. It's a piece of a good future. But PeopleCount is designed to deliver that future.

@feditips let's just move mastodon.social to a second or third position in the list

@feditips Throwing my two cents in the hat: I think this is a necessary temporary measure to improve the onboarding process. There's no way around it: putting this complexity upfront to new users is daunting.

Educating them on how to move their account afterwards and having that process be seamless is the way to go, imho.

@feditips Honestly don’t see the problem. The official app is free to recommend its own instance if it wants to, just as other apps can promote their own. There’s nothing to stop people from switching instances or in fact making their own apps.

@feditips step in the right direction. Get the users into the network with as few hurdles as possible. Having to choose server is a pain in the ass and introduces uncertainty for the users. Directing all to the same server is not ideal but still better than having to chose a server without knowing wtf a server is and what the consequences are

@feditips
this is also just so easy to fix. just reword it to [join mastodon.social] and [pick my own server (recommend)] or even just flipping the colours around. that way you still allow for the easy "just put me in the largest server" option, while at the same time encouraging a large and diverse federation.

@feditips I've tried to get into mastadon a few times now, and always got overwhelmed by the amount of servers and the lack of one popular general one. If you want more users to use mastadon, you have to have one server that people can join if they are unsure where to go.

@feditips I’m no computer expert nor programmer, but I have a question; is it possible to automatically “split” a server into smaller ones as soon as it becomes too big? If it’s transparent to the user, then it would solve this issue, no?

@feditips Is it possible to sell a non-profit organization to a corporation in Germany? I ask because in my country (Brazil) that wouldn't be legally possible.

Maybe @Gargron could clarify if possible.

@feditips 👆 Well-meaning thread without a doubt - but unfortunately one that entirely misses the point that most users of anything, including social media, A. are not tech savvy, B. shouldn't have to be, and C. are focused on the outcome, not the process.

It's definitely correct that concentration increases vulnerability, but the remedy isn't to change the users - it's to give them the best possible entry & path to the preferable solution. This is what we/the 'verse must do.

@feditips @Gargron …perhaps it can be as simple as…just a landing page with the ?most capable? 3-5 instances and then a selection of “I know what I’m doing let me pick.”

The points of concern being (in no particular order);
That the instances in the list are/can take large amounts of new users gracefully and/or have capacity to support them. These can be updated/changed over time.
And that the mobile app has only a small amount of real estate to work with.

@feditips It's super unclear to a new user what the significance of the server is and they need a reasonable default option to use prior to really knowing what it means.

Is there a trustworthy way to do load balancing and spreading across open servers? Make the default "the lightest loaded non-dead instance in my preferred language" rather than any particular server but still provide a default.

I signed up where I did just because it was neither full nor empty.

@feditips
Reading the issue, there seems to be 2 different goals :
- People who want as much users on Mastodon as possible -> let's make the onboarding really easy.
- People who want to keep it spread and federated.

This is a time we have to choose between the two.

#Mastodon is technically decentralized by design. However, its official app tends to be centralized. It’s understandable that Mastodon wants to provide a default option to attract new users, but too many “defaults” make it another #Twitter.

By the way, “@mastodon.social” is really long.