@ElizabethLeeCo it's absolutely fine to encourage people to move, but how exactly are the admin "making spam accounts easier to create"?
Let's encourage fedi diversity without the misinformation how about? 🤦♂️🤷♂️
@ElizabethLeeCo I've got an account on the Elk instance, does moving my account to that work? Or is the Elk just another form of Mastodon? Consider me confused, and how bad is the issue?
I just read about SDF being its' own instance (one of the oldest in existence) and so I will stay with the weirdos like me.
@fmhilton@ElizabethLeeCo If I may: think of Elk as pretty decoration around Mastodon, or a filter. It uses Mastodon itself as a foundation and rebuilds the experience but to use Elk with Mastodon you still need to have a presence on a Mastodon server. You are on the Mastodon server mastodon.sdf.org but are accessing it through the Elk web client instead of the default Mastodon web client.
The spam problem seems to have occurred due to decisions taken by Eugon Rochko, principal creator of Mastodon, to have his mobile app - the most popular choice of interaction with Mastodon on mobile because it's seen by newcomers as the default - direct people to one single solitary Mastodon Server, Mastodon.social. He's done this to try and make it easier for newcomers to join up, to take away the formidable initial confusion about which server to join. But what we're seeing is that spammers now have a large place to target. Whether those two things are connected is debatable, but the coincidence of one occurring after the other is strong.
In reaponse to these actions many admins of other servers are now threatening to block his server, "defederate" from it, because not only is the spam an issue but many fundamentally disagree that his server should become a default at the expense of other servers and communities. They also fear if it becomes too big it could be bought over like Twitter just was, allowing corporate forces a foothold here. If they proceed to block it, any account on Mastodon.social will lose access to that server. if many do it, people on Mastodon.social will be isolated from all of those servers on the Fediverse.
That's the problem in a nutshell and why we're seeing calls for folk to move before they find themselves isolated.
It's a very divisive issue and one that has the potential to split the Mastodon-sphere into (yet more) ideological camps.
Oh, and a small note to your own situation. You're on a different server, mastodon.sdf.org, so you wont have to move. But if any of your friends or followers are on .social and your server administrator decides to defederate from it, you won't be able to talk to each other, which is why people in the comments above are suggesting reaching out to their friends on .social now.
This post (see link/quote) goes more into the spam side of things, and makes me think I'm the one conflating the spam issue with the other concerns. Perhaps its just about the spam at the moment.
My opinion currently is that asking accounts to move from Mastodon.social is premature, somewhat reckless, and dont have much weight behind them. The likliehood of a mass defederation from mastodon.social is pretty low.
@Uraael@ElizabethLeeCo Thank you for the explanation. I'd read about the 'open invitation' for users to congregate on Social (and with the usual problems attached) and did not think that I would have to migrate myself. SDF is one of the older instances, from what I understand so it is also pretty stable. You did clarify the situation. Thanks! Have a great day!
@ElizabethLeeCo From the admittedly limited understanding I have of this, people have been looking for an excuse for a while, and I'm not really seeing any patience to give mastodon.social the time to fix what is inherently a scaling issue that would need time to address. If whoever becomes the biggest server gets booted when people start making spam accounts on them without a collaborative problem solving process this whole thing is doomed
@AbandonedAmerica@ElizabethLeeCo I wasn't talking about anyone specifically. Just that whole conversation. I'm always confused when people start talking about switching servers because I really like it here.
@AbandonedAmerica I don't have the spoons to argue (it's not something I brought over from the birdsite) but the tl:dr is that spamming didn't happen before he changed his landing site to have people join Masto. They don't have to join through that landing site but most don't know any better. Before, it was harder to join and spammers had to do research if they wanted an account. Too much work for them.
@ElizabethLeeCo oh, I'm not in a position to argue either nor do I want to, my friend. But I guess the issue I see is that there is a bunch of people who don't want the user base to grow, and there are those that do and are trying to make it easier to do so - but growing does bring in spammers and so forth which requires time to fix. This conflict is going to go on as long as there are people with different views here, and making people hop instances to deal with that is a deal-breaker for me.
@ElizabethLeeCo honestly I think a lot of people, if required to hop instances even once because of inability to resolve issues among admins, are going to quit. I'm not saying I am, and people are entirely within their rights to defederate instances they don't agree with. But it's not going to have a positive impact on long-term growth and sustainability if that's the first solution. It's one thing if an admin is a Nazi (or enabling them), but spam accounts are gonna happen with growth
@AbandonedAmerica
We're gonna have to agree to disagree on how utter lazy spammers are in regards to how easily they give up when faced with slight barriers.
@ElizabethLeeCo I'm not really disagreeing though - but realistically, what ARE those barriers? How do you set them up and implement them? Figuring that out and putting it into place takes time. Which is why I don't think it's an overnight solution. Moderation always is a huge issue, even for huge companies that have a staff and care to fix it. Here it's a lot more DIY and learn on the fly in that sense. So it's going to take time.
@ElizabethLeeCo Also, don't take my tone as argumentative or angry (just saying bc tone is hard to measure for me), I'm genuinely interested in discussing it. Wouldn't do so if I didn't consider you a friend to begin with. So feel free to 100% disagree, I'm not bothered by it at all.
@AbandonedAmerica
The barrier was that people had to choose an instance and there was some effort involved in setting up an account and finding people. Nothing to do with moderation. Which is why it worked so well.
@AbandonedAmerica and my counter argument is, "how fucking lazy are those people?" and "I like that people are relatively smart on here."
Fedi wasn't supposed to be about getting a large following. It was supposed to be about making new friends. People don't do that on other sites 😕
@ElizabethLeeCo IMO that conflicts with the desire for large-scale grow but is an entirely valid perspective. And that's the crossroads this place is at, in a nutshell. But once larger instances that are courting growth start getting defederated over that schism, I just don't see it going well for anyone or the fediverse as a whole. It also is the root of my own internal conflict on this. I don't want it to turn into Facebook but I also think without growth planning it will wither over time
@ElizabethLeeCo me too. I don't want this to turn into a huge drama that splinters apart the whole community. I think given time Eugen will work to address the issue. You're not going to invest the sort of time into it that he has without looking to work out the problems
@AbandonedAmerica a bunch of instances are apparently just silencing y'all until he fixes, which isn't permanent. Kind of a "fix your shit" notice that villages use.
@AbandonedAmerica it's apparently working? This has been a known issue since he changed the landing site but he didn't announce he was doing anything until The Shunning™ (that's what I'm going to call it from now on 😂) started.
@AbandonedAmerica you mean that it shows up in your timelines? I don't think they ever wanted it to be a messaging system because then encryption would have to come into play.
@ElizabethLeeCo oh, a bunch of things. The fact that you can "block" DMs from people that you don't follow but they have no idea their messages don't reach you has been a big issue of late regarding the spam DMs. The fact that it appears in the timeline is another
@ElizabethLeeCo yes, it's totally mute in disguise. Problem being that if I enable it to mute spam DMs real people DMing me are going to think I'm just ignoring them
@ElizabethLeeCo aw, thanks! To me, it's an interesting subject. I haven't fully resolved my feelings other than that I don't want to have to shift instances and lose everything I've posted because of disagreements between instances that don't involve things like abuse
@AbandonedAmerica The fediverse is already seeing huge splintering because of tiny transgressions that server owners overreact to. As a server owner (which is bigger than the server that the OP belongs to), Mastodon.social's spam issue isn't nearly worth getting this upset over. We got around a dozen reports then limited them for a few hours and that was the extent of it. Instance admins need to realize that this is what comes with the territory. Part of the reason I actually prefer dealing with mastodon.social over these smaller instances is because of the more level-headed approach to moderation that it has. Most servers are so quick to suspend other servers that it makes me wonder why they even joined the fediverse to begin with. We ban servers with a focus on hate speech, abusive content and harassment. We're certainly not going to ban an entire instance over a few spambots in our reports 🤷
@glowrocks@AbandonedAmerica@ElizabethLeeCo And right there, the fact you can even mention defederating from mastodon.social in the same breath as 'breaking mastodon' is part of the reason why .social's current course of action is so problematic, quite apart from the fact they've painted a giant target on themselves for spammers. While I have zero problem with flagship instances any that attempt to use their branding power to favour themselves over the rest does the entire network harm.
@AbandonedAmerica@ElizabethLeeCo My feeling is that "the honeymoon is over" as far as spam is concerned, and the only correct response for mastodon.social to have taken is to shut off registration while they find a solution. But as far as I can tell, they didn't... and that's really worrying.
@AbandonedAmerica I think the collaborate part is key, Mastodon maybe needs to have a more transparent and consultative process. (Though making mastodon.social the default server was a response to people complaining that choosing an instance was too hard and dangerous for newbies so rarely will everyone be satisfied, especially around social and cultural issues like moderation.)
Contrary to the ludicrous rumor posted above, he's NOT some oligarch making demands on his personal fiefdom network. Mastodon is #federated, meaning he's not running around, kicking people off on a whim.
MASTODON IS NOT TWITTER. IT WORKS VERY DIFFERENTLY. This is not one large network. It's a bunch of little networks, connected together.
The MISINFORMATION above should've been checked before being posted. The only actions being taken against #MastodonSocial were temporary and technical ones, in response to a #SpamAttack. It's a normal part of Administering an instance (server).
Please do NOT continue to spread #Misinformation and #rumors. This is not Twitter. We don't encourage lies here.
Be sure to follow and VERIFY rumors with accounts like @mastodonmigration and @feditips, for verified FACTUAL information.
@AnneTheWriter1
Eugen is the original admin for the first Mastodon instance, and the creator of the Mastodon software. The fediverse he joined was a network of servers running GNU social, Pleroma, postActiv, Friendica and Hubzilla, federating over the OStatus protocol.
There has been some hyperbolic and unfair criticism of Eugen, including comparing him to Melon Husk. But it's true he's never really cooperated with the rest of the 'verse.
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