The continued growth of mastodon.social is putting the #Fediverse in danger (here's why: https://fedi.tips/its-a-really-bad-idea-to-join-a-big-server/).
The quickest, easiest and most effective way to solve this would be if the official apps & website stopped promoting mastodon.social, and instead promoted a rotating selection from a pool of reliable servers with solid track records.
If you're comfortable using Github, please give thumbs up to all these:
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android/issues/568
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios/issues/1023
- https://github.com/mastodon/joinmastodon/issues/1052
p.s. To avoid repetition of replies:
-If people forget name of server they signed up on, it's written on the email they received when they signed up.
-Mastodon.social is in no way more reliable or easier than other servers with similar or better track records.
-If Mastodon gGmbH does not trust anyone else to run a server properly, why should anyone else trust Mastodon gGmbH to run a server properly? "Trust me, but I won't trust you" is a terrible argument in a collaborative project.
p.p.s. Thanks for all the replies, they are interesting and thought-out but many seem to be addressing slightly different topics?
This particular problem of centralisation is being caused by a very specific thing: the "Sign up on mastodon.social" button on the official apps and official site.
If we want to stop this wave of centralisation, we need to focus on changing this button so that it no longer directs people to mastodon.social.
The Fediverse is unique and precious, let's not lose it.
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services also Mastodon could implement a service to try and discover your server address if you forgot it like Pixelfed has.
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services i wonder how we balance this with the "average user" (yes, i'm looking at you, tech-illiterate aunt sally) not knowing what a server is, how to find one, or what choosing one entails.
i only bring this up as mastodon (the software) wishes to become a more widespread social platform/solution versus the competition, so this type of first-experience UX should be considered carefully
to be clear, i don't think we should push users towards mastodon.social – but how is that done elegantly?
@yuvalne@tooot.im
You can discover your server address by checking your emails, everyone who signs up gets an email from their server 🙂
If necessary you could search the emails for "mastodon".
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services @yuvalne@tooot.im Or, you can try to find it using web search engines. One possibility is to create a new account, use Mastodon's internal search, and migrate from account to another.
@eladriagon@thepride.network
None of the UX needs to change at all, they just need to change the server they are putting on the front page of the site and app.
Instead of promoting mastodon.social they have a reliable third party server that has a good track record that's similar or better than mastodon.social.
For a user the UX would all be exactly the same, but the growth would be spread out on more servers.
Fedi.Tips
