Alternatives to Twatter

[Kim]

Someone needs to clue Paul Krugman into what “North London” means when translated from Dogwhistle to English.

I was thinking that earlier.  Has someone molished a dogwhistle equivalent of knowyourmeme yet?

[Mr Larrington]

[andrewc]

As Kim usually makes sensible choices I'm now on @AndrewClark@mastodon.lol .  A lot of the other servers don't seem to be signing people up anyway.


I'm going through my list of Twitter follows & adding the ones I can find on Mastodon.  Quite a few people from here,  a lot of journalists & political wonks.   I note that for some popular Twitter accounts there appear to be multiple Mastodon ones, with nothing posted & a tag saying "bot".  Are people cyber squatting well known names in the hope of ransoming them ? 


Lots of organisations don't have a presence yet.  I suppose if Twitter goes titzup they will have to have meetings & get approvals.  I'm sad to see that the Art Bots haven't been ported over yet as I really enjoy having random works of art turn up in my Twitter feed.   https://twitter.com/i/lists/976556889981906945

[Kim]

I'm going through my list of Twitter follows & adding the ones I can find on Mastodon.

Debirdify helps automate this: https://pruvisto.org/debirdify/

  Quite a few people from here,  a lot of journalists & political wonks.   I note that for some popular Twitter accounts there appear to be multiple Mastodon ones, with nothing posted & a tag saying "bot".  Are people cyber squatting well known names in the hope of ransoming them ? 

It helps if people put their mastodon address in their twitter profile (see above).

Also note that verification on Mastodon works differently from twitter (formerly some opaque process involving documnetation, now an 8$ payment or something).  If you have control of a website and put the relevant piece of code on it to point to your Mastodon account, Mastodon will give you a tick to confirm that's you.  Simples.

I expect people might be hoarding popular addresses, but it's like email.  Just because I'm @kimble4@mastodon.lol doesn't mean @kimble4@mastodon.social is me.  Like with email, I expect confusion from the sort of people who don't pay sufficient attention.

[perpetual dan]

I confused myself with mastodon.social and mstdn.social when trying to log in to the app.

I also see that pixelfed is a thing. Something to take a look at on a proper computer maybe.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[The_Mikey]

To answer the OP, Mastodon.
.

Well, I've joined that, I think, I'm struggling and finding it as user friendly as a cornered rat.

I joined and quickly decided it's a complicated can of worms, the server I've joined is happy with technical subjects but someone has an emotional breakdown every time I post a photo of a duck, and I love ducks a lot more than technology, so I probably need to find a less fussy server, or more likely, simply stop using it and do something else instead.

[Kim]

I confused myself with mastodon.social and mstdn.social when trying to log in to the app.

They'll be completely different instances.  Like gmail.com and hotmail.com are.

One important piece of advice that I've come across (which didn't occur to me, because I have Old Internet Person opinions about sitting down at real computers to get things done rather than twiddling about on mobile devices as is trendy nowadays) is that newbies go to "try out this Mastodon thing", download the official Mastodon app, and conclude that the whole thing is shit.  You shouldn't judge Mastodon by the official app, in much the same way that you shouldn't judge Twitter by the website.

If you do want an app, Tusky appears to be reasonably competent.  There may be better ones.

[Kim]

I joined and quickly decided it's a complicated can of worms, the server I've joined is happy with technical subjects but someone has an emotional breakdown every time I post a photo of a duck, and I love ducks a lot more than technology, so I probably need to find a less fussy server, or more likely, simply stop using it and do something else instead.

I don't think anyone on mastodon.lol would object to ducks.  There are certainly enough cats (and to a lesser extent, dogs).

You would need to not object to the occasional cock, thobut.

[rogerzilla]

Space Karen makes another bid to get rid of his remaining employable staffers

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63648505

[ian]

Space Karen makes another bid to get rid of his remaining employable staffers

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63648505

He's certainly helping us out in our current recruitment activities.

[Kim]

Nice introductory article about Mastodon: https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-get-started-use-mastodon/

[TheLurker]

Space Karen makes another bid to get rid of his remaining employable staffers

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63648505

Saw that and laughed.  What a way to inspire loyalty and dedication, and persuade those most likely to be able to save the company to stay.  Truly the man *is* a business genius.

One wonders if he's realised he's shot himself in the foot and the only way to minimise his medium to long term losses is to run the company into the ground in very short order.

[ian]

I think one of the rules of Business Genius is that the normal rules somehow don't apply. Sadly, this is a belief only owned by Business Geniuses.

The problem with Mastodon seems to be that it needs a several hundred-word primer to get started.

[perpetual dan]

I confused myself with mastodon.social and mstdn.social when trying to log in to the app.

They'll be completely different instances.  Like gmail.com and hotmail.com are.
…

Obviously. Though arguably one looks like a shortened version of the other, and might plausibly resolve to the same place - like gmail and googlemail. Of course the app was offering to help me find a server, but not showing the one I was actually on. And I didn’t have the relevant reminder to hand.

[Kim]

Not that obvious, judging by the number of people who need it repeatedly explaining to them.

I must say I find the Mastodon convention of @username@mastodon.obscuretld irksome.  What's wrong with username@mastodon.somedomain.normaltld?  [It looks like an email address - Ed.]

Also why mastodon.tld/@username and not something normal like mastodon.tld/~username or even just mastodon.tld/username (Yeah, I know, apparently usernames start with an '@' now...)

[ian]

I'm thinking that the Business Genius's definition of extremely hardcore is different to mine. I mean, I have a liberal workplace, but still.

[rogerzilla]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-636723075

Mysterious.  Will it even stay up and running?

[JonBuoy]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-636723075

Mysterious.  Will it even stay up and running?

...or even:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63672307

[Basil]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-636723075

Mysterious.  Will it even stay up and running?

Something wrong with that link.

[TheLurker]

'Mr Musk tweeted:
"The best people are staying, so I'm not super worried".'

Now, some very good people may be staying, but my experience of when companies die is that the *good* people go first, because they know they can get a job elsewhere without too much difficulty.  Truly he *is* a Business Genius.Gerald Ratner AICMFP.

[Basil]

Pleased to see jessphillips has finally arrived in the new place.

[Mrs Pingu]

Musk really is a dickwad.

[rogerzilla]

Space Karen tweeted that it's ok, the volume of tweets has increased.

I wonder what people might be tweeting about?!

[rogerzilla]

https://twitter.com/JoshuaPHilll/status/1593432939127361542

*fnark*

[Polar Bear]

'Mr Musk tweeted:
"The best people are staying, so I'm not super worried".'

Now, some very good people may be staying, but my experience of when companies die is that the *good* people go first, because they know they can get a job elsewhere without too much difficulty.  Truly he *is* a Business Genius.Gerald Ratner AICMFP.

Quite so: the capable and the optimistic head for the exits with their pockets bulging.  There are many good people left behind who cannot easily move for many and varied personal reasons but the backwash of a corporate tsunami always leaves those behind cautious and less committed.  They too will be looking for a way out.

Musk is just like most stupidly rich narcissistic megalomaniacs in that they think that they live in the real world and are absolute geniuses whereas the reality is that the opposite is largely true.  Their status is more by privilege and happy (for them) accident rather than by design.