- Nov 2022
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www.hughrundle.net www.hughrundle.net
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It's not entirely the Twitter people's fault. They've been taught to behave in certain ways. To chase likes and retweets/boosts. To promote themselves. To perform.
Twitter trains users to behave a certain way. It rewards a specific type of performance. In contrast, until now at least, M is focused on conversation (and the functionality of the apps reinforce that, with how boosts and likes work differently)
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I finally realised on Monday that the word I was looking for was "traumatic". In October I would have interacted regularly with perhaps a dozen people a week on Mastodon, across about 4 or 5 different servers. Suddenly having hundreds of people asking (or not) to join those conversations without having acclimatised themselves to the social norms felt like a violation, an assault. I know I'm not the only one who felt like this.
Recognisable. Author was accustomed to quiet conversation and suddenly many others joined those conversations without lurking for a while. To me it felt like many T-migrants brought with them the passive aggressive tone, the streetwise attitude of don't f with me, that kept the trolls and baiting away over there. Classically what one does when joining a new conversation, in a bar, online or wherever, is you lurk to observe the setting and context of the conversation, then signal you want to join by injecting an insignificant contribution (to de-lurk) and when acknowledged you join more fully. That is not what has been happening. Various T-migrants came with the expectation it seems that they had replicated their existing conversations into a new room. Where those in the room already were the new participants, and therefore the ones delurking. The T-migrants weren't budding in, they were continuing their conversation, in their mind, imo. This creates clashes between perspectives on weaker and stronger ties. Vgl [[Lurking Definition 20040204063311]] and [[Lurking Weak Strong Ties 20040204063311]]
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Early this week, I realised that some people had cross-posted my Mastodon post into Twitter. Someone else had posted a screenshot of it on Twitter. Nobody thought to ask if I wanted that.
Author expects to be asked consent before posting their words in another web venue, here crossposting to Twitter. I don't think that's a priori a reasonable expectation. The entire web is a public sphere, and expressions in it are public expressions. Commenting on them, extending on them is annotation, and that's fair game imo. Problems arise from how that annotation is used/positioned. If it's part of the conversation with the author and others that's fine depending on tone e.g. forcefully budding in, yet even if unwelcomed. If it is quoting an author and commenting as performance to one's own audience, then the original author becomes an object, a prop in that performance. That is problematic. I can't judge (no links) here which of the two it is.
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Like when you're sitting in a quiet carriage softly chatting with a couple of friends and then an entire platform of football fans get on at Jolimont Station after their team lost. They don't usually catch trains and don't know the protocol. They assume everyone on the train was at the game or at least follows football. They crowd the doors and complain about the seat configuration.
Compares the influx of new people on Mastodon as the sudden crowding of a train by a loud group. I can see what the author means. My timeline has felt like that.
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For those of us who have been using Mastodon for a while (I started my own Mastodon server 4 years ago), this week has been overwhelming
author has been running his own instance for as long as I have. Not sure if it's a community server or a personal one. Assuming community one.
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Home invasion Mastodon's Eternal September begins
About the impact on Mastodon culture of the new influx of people. Esp now that influx is a significant portion of overall users. Several instances have more than doubled in a week or so. Hence the eternal Sept reference. In the mean time #twittermigration seems to be levelling off in the last day or so.
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