🔥 We are excited to let everyone know that our full website is now live!
We hope this will be an easy way for new users to get started with #Mastodon & join the wider #Fediverse & an organizing hub to build & spread a better, more open social web of ALL fediverse offerings.
Shortly we will be opening up all the code used in this website to a full Open Source license.
Not everything would apply, but we would hope this open source code could be used by anyone building out a similar onboarding portals for the Fedi.
For example: #Calkey, #Pixelfed, #Kbin or #Bookwyrm or #Goldfish or other sites may find parts of the code here useful and not have to rebuild EVERYTHING from scratch.
@Wuzzy Thank you! Is definitely a work in progress - one note on analytics we specifically chose Plausible analysts that is privacy preserving open source offering….zero cookies and and gives zero personal visitor data to us or anyone and helps us judge how the site is working or if folks are getting lost in the site. https://plausible.io/open-source-website-analytics
This next week we are open sourcing the code, specifically offering all to #lemmy#kbin#peertube#calkey and join fediverse portals to use as it helps them - so they don't have to recode anything like this from scratch!
@spreadmastodon
The explainer is OK, more or less but I think it fails to criticize Twitter. IMHO the framing is all wrong: "Lately, a lot of things have gone with Twitter" is not wrong, but it overlooks the 2 key problems of Twitter: Centralization and being proprietary. This gives the company total power.
This is relevant because Mastodon is the antithesis, being decentralized and free software.
I would also add that each instance also has its own rules.
@spreadmastodon@spreadmastodon@fediversereport Looks like a great start. To me the toughest call is instant registration. I guess maybe that's the only way for this kind of low friction onboarding (we don't need to spell out every detail here but I would allow temporary limits on posting or rate limits or the like if servers seem to need them).
One comment as an instance admin: I wish we could stick your onboarding flow into the standard signup (after email verification) on our instance. If your team is able to provide assets and a patch file to the mastodon source to do that I would be in absolute awe. It could also help improve trust since it would just be part of the site on boarding flow rather than a separate website to log into. (And maybe even could go into the project itself)
"One comment as an instance admin: I wish we could stick your onboarding flow into the standard signup (after email verification) on our instance. If your team is able to provide assets and a patch file to the mastodon source to do that I would be in absolute awe."
We are about to open source all of this: so any chunks can be taken and reused in any form. Stay tuned.
@spreadmastodon@spreadmastodon@fediversereport true! But I think there’s a lot of value in an “out of the box” experience in these kinds of things. I’ll poke around when it’s open sourced 😊
Perhaps they are once you login, but I don’t think that’s the right decision. (Specially since the login ask me to input my password on a domain that is not my own instance)
@spreadmastodon@spreadmastodon@fediversereport If I were a new use signing up, it would concern me being asked to enter my new password for a Mastodon server into an unaffiliated web portal.
As we did before for this site, we are “building in public” & in stages.
So while our tool for sign-ups now points to mastodon.social for NOW we propose this round-robin plan. Give us feedback.
We think this model will work for any Mastodon/Fedi onboarding for apps and portals.
Principles of it could be adapted for places like #calkey, #kbin, #peertube, #joinfediverse & others...to balance the ease of sign-ups to decentralization.
I’m not a huge fan of the “make the big sites bigger” approach, even with the round Robin. I understand that lowers the barrier to entry for newbies, but I also think that raising awareness about specialized or regional instances is an important part of Federation.
I respect the compromise that the official app has made for its sign-ups. There is a default “click here to sign up for a big one” button, which could be your round robin choice. But then a “Find another server” option with sorting by different criteria and categories.
Bonus points: even better than the Mastodon app’s flow would be some explanation about why someone might want to consider going one way or the other.
@spreadmastodon@spreadmastodon@fediversereport Over 60k registered users? What the hell's the point? We comply with every single piece of criteria except we'll never be at 60k users, ever, but we serve our geographical area very well. Why don't you run the user through a wizard and then generate a list of instances that have opted in with detailed descriptions? You could make one of the questions user count. This approach does nothing.
Hi @mike - would definitely be up for Canadian.social to be in a future round robin.
The initial set of 60K registered users was just a stab objective metrics for high capacity servers. Very up for suggestions to move that down to numbers that would hit solid but mid-level serves as well.
@spreadmastodon@spreadmastodon@fediversereport Sorry got my back up as I don't think a lot of really good instances would ever hit those numbers. I apreciate the transparency and the effort.
I agree with @mike and @CrazyMyra that the 60K limit's problmeatic and with @brian about the problems of the "make the big sites bigger" approach. What's really needed is a series of questions that matches people to an instance where they're likely to have a good initial experience -- good moderation as a minimum bar, and beyond that based on geography, interests, or diversity. Sending everybody to .social is likely to be counter-productive.
Taking notes on all this, thanks! Definitely will update the MAU and registered users numbers, but want to think more about what still ensures high capacity in an objective way. Up for suggestions to those numbers.
“what still ensures high capacity in an objective way. Up for suggestions to those numbers.”
I’m probably just dense, but I’m not grocking why there needs to be an arbitrary number of users to define high capacity. There are sites that report metrics on the uptime of instances, which seems to be a better measure than number of users.
Saying it another way: I think the ultimate goal is to get a new user attached to the right instance. If they don’t know or care, then fine, go to .social. But if they have specific niche interests, then helping to guide them towards options is in support of “getting them attached to the right instance.”
@brian@spreadmastodon@jdp23@mike@spreadmastodon@fediversereport I think one of the most confusing issue for new users is the limited visibility of posts/accounts that aren't already "known" to their server.
Automatically changing the server plus login prompt when trying to follow/look up someone, limited results when searching for hashtags or trends.
With a large server this happens al lot less while trying to build an initial list of accounts to follow.
Sports should be follow category. There is a super active sports community on Mastodon.
Hockey is missing from your sports hashtag topics. This is an unforgivable sin. #HNOM
I picked some follow categories went to the next step and automatically followed a a bunch of people. Maybe an intermediary step asking if you want to follow these people?
@mike@spreadmastodon@spreadmastodon@fediversereport
Fully behind Mike's point here. Our instance isn't regional, but it's one of the few mainly dedicated to the sort of content you used to find on "Funny Twitter" (ie jokes, memes, shitposting, etc). With just a couple of hundred members, we're never going to be a "recommended" instance on size. And, because few of us use hashtags - there's no better way to indicate you're not funny than putting #/funny on every post - it's difficult to find us.
Initiatives like this are accidentally designed to exclude a lot.
@spreadmastodon@OutOnTheMoors@spreadmastodon@fediversereport Maybe MAU to registered user ratio on servers over 100 registered users? I think it really comes down to the wizard for onboarding. Questions designed to drill down on region, hobbies, interests, then present options that represent the input. Some people want a small well defined community, others want to get lost in a crowd. Also moderation style has a big part to play.
@krinkle@haubles we put in the footer of each page that it was not affiliated with Mastodon non-profit and in our About page…. We added oath in from any server enable tools …happy to consider any other language to make it clearer…
@spreadmastodon@spreadmastodon@fediversereport I’m losing interest in Ivory/Mastadon compared to Twitter. Search makes no sense and doesn’t work. The separation of federated and home is a negative. The lack of short usernames without the @ symbol makes it harder to remember accounts or tell someone about my account. It’s hard to gain visibility compared to twitter. It doesn’t refresh after posts. I’m not that impressed. It just feels like it’s for geeks and not normal people.
@spreadmastodon I applaud the effort but I think the website is misleading and vague.
First of all, it doesn't explain well what #Mastodon actually is. Newbies won't understand. Like, what do people actually DO on Mastodon? The website doesn't tell.
And it's full of marketing #buzzwords like "maximize your experience" (#CRINGE). People HATE this.
Also, I have no idea what the "Enhance" button does and I don't want to find out.
Finally, "Join" literally suggests the biggest server. 😩
@spreadmastodon Oh so it turns out the website does have an explanatinon of Mastodon but it's hidden behind a hamburger menu. This is the same as the explainer text not existing at all. 🙁
@spreadmastodon@spreadmastodon@fediversereport love the ideas and intention here. I'm very interested in all this, I'm building an iOS app for Mastodon currently and have my own ideas about potential onboarding and experience enhancements so I'd love to see how this works.
That said, the site is just spinning forever when I give permission via my current account, do you know how I can fix that? I can create a new one on mastodon.social for testing, but would rather not if I don't have to :)
Typing out hachyderm.io works, when I was putting in my full username it lets me through, authorises with the right account, but then hangs every time after authorising on https://spreadmastodon.org/enhance-account
I put the full account because typing my instance url into the box then hitting enter brings up a "server is required" message, which I misread haha. Clicking the log in and authenticate button works here though
@spreadmastodon will that include the contents of the recommendations such as the notable accounts and reasons, or the hashtags? I'd love to have those basically built in to the app, especially for new users.
My own ideas aren't far off for new users, but honestly I'd rather hand the actual recommendations off a little bit rather than it be purely my own opinion! So if it is coming from spreadmastodon.org then anyone who wants to plug them in would be able to potentially. Just a thought
@jknlsn@spreadmastodon@spreadmastodon@fediversereport server required was also confusing to me as I just put masterdon.social & it wouldn't work - but even using my full account dalereardon@masterdon.social it authorises but then hangs on me
Unfortunately, the three lines menu at the top right of the site does not open on my mobile (Google Pixel 6 pro) when it is in the usual vertical orientation.
Turning it horizontal, I can open the menu, but it's still almost covered by the huge "spread mastodon" logo.
@spreadmastodon you say „This site is not affiliated with Mastodon gGMBH.“ but you help only setting up accounts on mastodon.social. Is this just another trick from Eugen to draw all users to his instance. In addition to providing his site in the „official Mastodon app“ as default?
@spreadmastodon
Quite hidden and btw. at least on my iPhone with Firefox, the site menu does not work. If you press on it, nothing opens. @davidslifka@tchambers
@spreadmastodon
Making about us more prominent for sure helps.
Btw. sporadically, if I first click on one of the main page buttons e.g. „Enhance“ then the menu works for some time. Navigating to other locations, then it does not work again. @tchambers
@spreadmastodon what is your site offering? Why should I sign in? What does it help the fediverse?
Could not found any information on the site. Wondering why folks should register.
@jyrgi66 You don't have to register to browse most of the site, but to enrich your account - to use the tools to find new followers, follow key hashtags, etc, you do, but can revoke that sign in after you are done. Purely optional.
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