Anyone here using Mastodon instead of Twitter? Thoughts?
Also, anyone using Libre Office instead of Microsoft or Apple stuff for wordprocessing and slides/presentation? Thoughts?
I use Mastodon. It’s not really a Twitter replacement for my purposes, even if it did replace Twitter in my daily routine. It doesn’t have as interesting accounts, current events don’t go viral in the way they did on my twitter timeline, etc. etc… Part of that might be the accounts I’ve found to follow, but it’s also that Mastodon is fundamentally different in how you can search it and it’s lack of algorithmic recommendations and rankings.
Mostly I use twitter to stay in touch with some people who seem to hate email and to follow some people I’ve never met but who are doing interesting work and post links, etc. to it. Would Mastodon work for this?
I use neither Twitter nor Mastodon.
For word processing, I use AndrOpen Office (which is a different fork from OpenOffice than Libre) on my Android tablet. It is similar to Libre Office, but runs on Android devices, which Libre apparently does not.
It works pretty well, but spacing and formatting can be quirky at times. One example: When you specify something like 6 pt or 12 pt spacing for a paragraph, it immediately converts that to decimal measurements of .08" or .17", which I don’t use as intuitively.
I also have trouble making it save files where I want them. I end up letting it save wherever it prefers, and I use a separate file management app to shuffle the documents into locations of my choice.
I don’t know whether these specific issues exist in Libre Office, but you may find little quirks like that which require learning slightly different ways of completing common tasks.
Yes, as long as you can convince the people to switch to Twitter and you can find those people on a Mastodon instance.
A few months ago, when it the first news came out that Elon Musk was buying twitter, a number of people signed up and/or shared their Mastodon contact. I signed up at the time, but haven’t used it at all, so I’m glad someone started this thread.
I have seen at least one group switch to Reddit, which I already know.
The one thing that keeps me coming back to Mastodon is that it’s where I follow Molly White (@molly0xfff@mastodon.social), the writer of Web 3 is going great! So much good schadenfreude (and sadness) in reading about the calamities of Crypto platforms. (Which I suppose comes to my mastodon timeline directly from @web3isgreat@indieweb.social )
Yes. Maybe not for slides, but I’ve used it for spreadsheets and word processing. It you are doing anything complicated it is not completely compatible, and i tend to need to share my work with others, so i have paid for a copy of MS office. But if you are just creating stuff to print, it if your work is very simple, it’s a solid product.
These days i mostly use Google drive instead of MS office, because of the awesome “edit in real time with your friend” option. It used to be flaky, but had gotten pretty solid. And it’s still free.
Sorry I’m late to this party, but that mammoth Twitter thread made me wonder if there’s a Mastodon thread here.
Anyway, I’m on Mastodon (and still on Twitter). If you want to connect, you can DM me here.
In that other thread, people complained that Mastodon was much harder to use that Twitter, but I don’t see it. I picked a server that made sense (I’m on mindly.social – no manual review was required to create my account) and logged in.
I just switched from the Mastodon app (which is apparently terrible) to Tusky. Tusky seems to be faster and less glitchy than Mastodon.
Choosing a server isn’t a big deal – you can move from one to another if you need to, and take your followers with you.
There’s a lack of content on Mastodon, but maybe that will change if Twitter blows up.
Anyone else trying it? Do you find it harder to use than Twitter?
I’m there. When I signed up a year or two ago, I didn’t find it very engaging, at least for the effort I was willing to put into it at the time. When the Musk deal was signed I abandoned Twitter and tried again. This time I found a small handful of accounts to follow that made it worth it to me and kept me coming back.
It is harder to use than Twitter, even early Twitter, but an important factor is that people are comparing it to their present day Twitter experience and where a new user will be presented with a large selection of high volume, high profile tweeters to follow, and a constant flow of trending topics and suggested tweets. Mastodon, by design, lacks these features.
I guess I never used twitter that way. I blocked suggested tweets and trending topics (somehow, can’t remember how) and just followed the people I wanted to follow – mostly just for jokes.
So, I don’t miss the avalanche of information coming in, but I am at a loss about who I should follow.
This is roughly my issue: I stayed in touch with people with shared interests,
I follow an odd collection of people, with shared interests, from
politics to music to work to bad jokes, some of whom overlap, and many who do not, and while most of the connections are not close, I will miss many by leaving twitter
I’ve toyed with Mastodon the last few years every time there’s a Twitter freakout, and this time I’ve really committed to using it. Like any social media, it’s all about who you connect with. I don’t blame folks who get on Mastodon and have no idea what to do next, because unlike other social media services there’s no algorithm pushing interesting stuff in your face. Instead, what Mastodon has is two additional feeds to the “Home” (I.E. Twitter-like) feed. These are the Local Feed and the Federated feed. Local is what everyone is saying on your instance, and Federated is what everyone is saying on every instance connected to your instance. Based on this, here is my advice for folks interested in trying out Mastodon:
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Be thoughtful about what instance you choose to join. I see a lot of folks head for the biggest instances and I think this is a mistake. Yeah, there’s lots of people there, but you’re going to have a hard time connecting with folks. Here’s a good breakdown of different servers on offer. Look for one dedicated to a topic you’re interested in or one that resonates with you. Since you’re on the SDMB I’m sure you appreciate moderation, so when you do find a server that interests you check their about page and make sure they look like they take moderating misconduct seriously.
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Once you’re on an instance, start following people. Go to the Local feed and see what people are talking about. Make note of how folks are interacting, lurk and follow folks who seem interesting but also don’t be afraid to reply. Make an introductory message. In the newest version of Mastodon you can follow hashtags, so find hashtags you like and follow them if you can. Go and skim the Federated feed too. That will show you all the posts from every other instance that folks on your instance follow someone from. This is usually a lot of instances but if your admin is good they’ll have blocked all the worst instances.
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Don’t hesitate to follow people. Social media is about finding people you relate to, so go find them. Follow folks who seem interesting and they’ll probably boost posts into your home feed from other people you find interesting. Build up a group of folks you like to see and you’ll find it easier to use Mastodon. Don’t forget to keep sampling the Local and Federated feed to find other interesting folks.
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If you decide you don’t like your instance, or you see another instance that interests you more, don’t hesitate to uproot and move. Mastodon makes it fairly easy to change instances, just open a new account at your new instance and point the two accounts at each other in the settings pages for each instance. Your followers will be automatically ported over along with who you’re following. Your old posts will stay at the old instance, but folks will be forwarded to your new account.
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There are certain “netiquette” things folks like to see on Mastodon, like Content Warnings on posts for potentially upsetting subjects or making sure your post is “unlisted” when you’re replying to someone so replies are less likely to clog up other feeds. These are largely optional, but pay attention to the admin’s policies and if folks give you guff about it, take it into consideration the same way you would here. Honestly, I think these kinds of norms are the sign of a healthy community and if you find yourself on an instance where nobody’s setting or enforcing rules that’s probably a sign to jump ship, unless you’re a big fan of “free speech.”
Alternatives to the mainstream need to be comparable if not superior, or else the cost of using the main one has to be not costly.
Microsoft Office is so standardized and is mostly problem free, so I prefer it to the free alternatives. Especially Excel: Google Sheets and Libre Calc comparatively suck. But I have no interest in paying for anything Adobe (and now in perpetuity!) so all the freeware alternatives work for me. I get both Office and Adobe CC free from work and only take advantage of the MS option.
I have no interest for Twitter type social media, seems like both sides of the political aisle have now tried to convince people of alternatives and failed.
I mostly agree with everything Mr.E writes here, but I’m going to quibble a little about the connecting with people part and being particular about your instance. It’s mostly about preference though, not that it’s completely wrong in any way.
Many of the smaller instances have specific focuses, and I at least am a person of many, many interests. I’m not super interested in what’s going on on my local instance, but I’m unlikely to be super interested in what’s going on on any of the other ones either. It’s like my email provider, not like my home away from home.
My first few touchstones online were places where I connected with people and became part of a community. When the first couple of places died in one way or another I found new ones where I connected, and when those died I stopped interacting at that level. Depending on how you count this board was my fifth or sixth place to spend significant time, and after … 20 years, I’m still mostly interacting with the posts, not the posters.
Naita has a good point. I see fandom-focused instances and while that might be a good fit for some folks if you don’t define yourself that way I can see how it wouldn’t work. The instance I settled on is one that is general interest but spoke to my personality in a “this is a place where nobody will judge you for being who you are” kind of way, and it has a good mod team that takes making it a good place seriously.
My advice was mostly geared toward folks who are like “Now what?” when they get there, and I’ve seen that a few times. I mean heck, that’s how it was for me and Twitter. It took me years to find folks that I relate to there, and now I get to see Musk burn it all down. Luckily, most of my closest Twitter friends made the jump to Mastodon with me, with a little bit of prodding. There may be some of that too, for folks who are struggling now. If your friends are there too it makes the whole thing a little easier.
Apparently there are only two “instances” devoted to music: one for metal and one for raves. That’s a far cry from Twitter, where there are probably a million accounts devoted mostly or entirely to music.
Instances and accounts are not the same thing. By way of counterpoint, Twitter has no instances dedicated to music yet still has many music-oriented accounts.
Well then I remain utterly baffled by this terminology.