So why not Mastadon?
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2025
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Having tried it: choosing an instance is too confusing for a typical user (especially as a minor bit of research suggests there's a risk your instance could disappear at any moment) and there's a culture of policing content and style amongst users that's quite offputting
In Germany mastodon is a real choice for the science community. There are some bigger organizations and universities hosting their own instances. Even the German government runs its own instance and some ministries do their public relations over them. For example @dlr@social.bund.de is the German NASA pendant. https://wisskomm.social/about is a dedicated instance for German science institutions.
I don’t think we really acknowledge how off putting the signup process is.
You need to choose a server. You do this by:
- searching for a server focused on a topic you like
- checking the community rules to make sure it’s that right balance between anarchy and authoritarian
- checking the posts to make sure it’s not nazi infested
- checking the block lists to make sure it’s not overly restrictive, but does block the nazi shit
I recently moved to a new mastodon server and honestly I had like decision paralysis for a week trying to find one that was a decent compromise.
I’d think the science community would be smart enough to understand Mastadon, and that the science journals and universities would be running their own instances.
It’s not really a matter of “smart enough” though. It’s a matter of UX design. Introducing friction into signup is like the best way to block adoption of a service.
I believe the issue is purely perspective.
People are still thinking of it as a platform they need to sign up on.
Its much more a network of independent platforms and the initial friction is that independent institutions should run their own instance (most already have their own website, its not much different)
From that point the user does have an easy signup. The server is the institution they are part off and it wont disappear unless they themselves pull the plug.
If everyone is just going to join a few popular stable instances we centralize back into the current internet where a few players dominate digital space and everyone including government has to rely on those entities.
I think you nailed it. Communicating this concept is the biggest friction point. Barring edge cases, if someone tells you they're on Bluesky you know exactly where to find them.
We understand the perhaps inevitable downside to that but most people don't have the time or will to think of it.
The people we're discussing wouldn't even know to think to check for those things in the first place, would they?
Does the average person know to be suspicious of nazis in an online community? Or read the rules? I think if they know enough to check the blocklist they will either be into it and want to investigate or be turned off entirely.
It might honestly boil down to the average person not wanting to read something.
Scientists read things all the time, but have better uses for their energies than researching social media platforms (like curing cancer or whatnot).
Plus even once you join an instance, finding content across instances is another hurdle, and continues to be thus basically forever. And then someone else can at any point steal your name on some other instance and pretend to be you. There are a number of issues that Bluesky purports to solve that Mastodon refuses to.
Mastodon can say "I am such a nice man, why will nobody use me?" all it wants, but at the end of the day people go with what works for them. If it tried being responsive to user feedback it could have been different... and the same goes for Lemmy too (we treat centrists and especially conservatives horribly here, and I don't even want to begin to describe how we treat Windows users, then collectively wonder why people don't want to leave Reddit and come here). If we want a different outcome, we might want to try a different set of actions to achieve it.
(especially as a minor bit of research suggests there's a risk your instance could disappear at any moment)
I understand why this would be more important on a microblogging service but I thought Mastodon already had am account migration feature?
I really want Mastodon to succeed, but it’s a ghost town.
"Be the change you want to see in the world." - Gandhi
It's the same with how we got Lemmy more active over the years...
I still use it, but there’s just more people I like to follow on BS.
Really? My feed is constantly full
lmfao
no, it isn't. not by a long shot. my feeds are bumpin' every day.
yes, you have to poke around to find people to follow so your chronological feed is populated. in that way it is like mid 2000s social media (read: thefacebook) before Zucc implemented the algorithm to shovel slop to the pigs.
Because social media isn't about community it's about showing off and showing out.
Marketing.
Twitter's blue bird interacts better with a bluesky... So having that tie-in made people go to one rather than the other.
Mastodon? Mastadon doesn't say anything to market the attitude, or even what the product is.
Twitter did, because it was like, short bird-like communications. That made sense. Bluesky was reactionary marketing at the right time/place to convert negative sentiment about Elon Musk.
You take your blue bird to the blue sky, and leave Twitter.
....Mastadon? Pretty sure they were a band in the 2000s. Other than that and the Wooly Mammoth, it doesn't have much of an association with anything relevant. Calling it Beugle, or Smoke Signals, or Flight, or something more relevant would probably have caught more attention.
This seems like a reoccurring theme with open source projects unfortunately. Its a rut I don't know how we break out from.
Have you tried using both?
Yes.
Now imagine your average person doing that.
It wasn’t hard. I opened the Mastadon app on iOS and followed the on screen prompts.
You've never had to set up an app for someone?
The thread is about "science" community tho. They're more likely to deal with new stuff and figure it out quickly.
It must be a network effect rather than having to "pick an instance".
Ah yes, let's take absolute control over online discourse from one private, for-profit organization and give it to another. That'll fix everything!
While Bluesky seems [mostly] fine right now, it's not a long term solution. We need public online spaces that aren't owned or governed by any single entity. Or more appropriately - we need to improve the ones we already have and do whatever we can to bring people here.
Also, Bluesky has terrible algorithms and gives almost no control over your main page. I kept seeing exclusively political content from one specific side in my country (including some very obvious bots). Pressing 'Show less like this' on a few dozen posts every day produced no results over a few weeks. This ultimately led me to delete my account, as it made no sense to browse a platform that is actively showing me only the things that I don't want to see.
Wafrn is an app that natively federates with Bluesky. It uses it's own PDS and Appview, and relies on Blacksky's Relay (which is operated independantly, not by Bluesky PBLLC). Wafrn also supports ActivityPub and federates with Mastodon instances without Bridging (as it's actually ActivityPub-first).
Twitter-like social media wasn't really my style. Took me a couple years to sign up for Mastodon from when I first encountered it. Then another year to really find a small server I liked. But I really love it. What I love most is that it never expects me to check it frequently.
I want to like it but I guess I haven't put the energy into it.
But I never liked twitter either.
I actually enjoy Bluesky more than either of them but still haven't opened it in at least a month or two.
Never mind, I browse all and didn't realize the community I was in.
Sorry for bringing this negativity to your space.
~~I hope they learn their lesson in 5-10 years.~~
lmao
🤷♂️