The thing about Twitter is that it really lacks a lot of the features you'd expect from a true Mastodon replacement.
The thing about Twitter is that it really lacks a lot of the features you'd expect from a true Mastodon replacement.
For example, there's no way to edit your toots (which they, confusingly call "tweets"—let's face it, it's a bit of a silly name that's difficult to take seriously).
"Tweets" can't be covered by a content warning. There's no way to let the poster know you like their tweet without also sharing it, and no bookmark feature.
There's no way to set up your own instance, and you're basically stuck on a single instance of Twitter. That means there's no community moderators you can reach out to to quickly resolve issues. Also, you can't de-federate instances with a lot of problematic content.
It also doesn't Integrate with other fediverse platforms, and I couldn't find the option to turn the ads off.
Really, Twitter has made a good start, but it will need to add a lot of additional features before it gets to the point where it becomes a true Mastodon replacement for most users.
@ajsadauskas@fediverse
I will never not boost this whenever I come across this post, it's so good. And read it again in full measure for the enjoyment of it. Thank you!
@ajsadauskas@fediverse The problem with Twitter only having one instance also is: Imagine if some douchebag bought it and tried running it into the ground by inviting all the fashs back in, replacing replacing the Twitter logo with cryptocurrency memes and other weird bs. You couldn't even switch to another instance if a random weirdo like that took over …
@ajsadauskas@fediverse I don’t know if the bad parts of twitter have gotten any worse, but the good parts have certainly gotten worse. It’s just not as good for breaking stories as it once was.
@ajsadauskas@fediverse while amusing in itself, I think that framing things this way is important too, because it lets us shed the veneer that the status quo is the thing people need to match before any new ideas are allowed to be examined
But Twitter is improving! It already copied several great features from Mastodon, like no italics and bold markup, "tweets" in reverse chrono order, full-size image previews instead of thumbnails (and always at the end), removed the "dislike" button...
It even went one better than Mastodon and limited tweets to 250 chars instead of 500.
Another Mastodon feature that Twitter still lacks is showing the same boosted toot, in full, every time someone boosts it.
@ajsadauskas@fediverse
Most of the people I know who use Twitter try it for a short time and tend to bounce off it. I can't see it gaining enough critical mass to be relevant.
Also, since my work workplace expect me to be on it, it kind of has that LinkedIn vibe where you're not really supposed to have fun there, but just talk about work based topics.
@ajsadauskas@fediverse The ability to "edit" is something Twitter reserves to paying customers. Musk is never one to resist picking up a dime that drops on the pavement...
@ajsadauskas
I started reading it very skeptically until I realised I had unconsciously mixed up Twitter and Mastodon in your statements.
Totally agree 100% once I cleared that up ^^ @Fediverse
@ajsadauskas@fediverse twitter did have a bookmark feature – obviously it doesn’t now since it doesn’t exist since I left it, but when I was there and it existed my bookmarks were the precious thing of value I used to look after
@valsombra@ajsadauskas@fediverse I am totally on the same page. I have posted more and read more info on mastadon in 6 months than I did the 8 plus years on Twitter.
I am the most non-tech person I know. Only bought an Android phone a few years ago because it was impossible not to have a number. Even then, I only use it for photos and as an alarm clock. Know my way round my beloved MacBook Pro because I've had them for decades, but anything else and I'm all at sea.
Even I managed to get my head round Mastodon after being kicked off twitter.
@hapalochlaena@ajsadauskas@fediverse ah, feeling snide and superior to hundreds of millions of Twitter users, and pretending that you can sum them up with a single insulting word! it must feel rather good, hm?
@ajsadauskas@fediverse I think i am still having a problem with you saying twitter being a replacement for Mastodon. Twitter started in 2000 and Mastodon started in 2016. What I think you are saying is that Twitter needs to add more features to catch up to Mastodon.
@ajsadauskas@fediverse fun read but when someone toots and calls tweets as silly... 😛
just kidding, don;t wanna get trampled. also shouldn't they be "barking" now with the new logo that they got recently. i only know form what someone had posted here.
"barking up the wrong post" would be a common there probably
@ajsadauskas@fediverse one killer feature is a recommendation algorithm... or it was... it seems that the owner pulled the plug this week or last week to save server costs, because now my Twitter homepage stopped having anyone I wasn't following. Very bad business decision by the owners. Concerning. !
It was fun seeing all the confusion and pushback on Hacker News by all those our-thing-is-bigger #birdsite :birdsite: folks, when reading your great toot. Oh, and completely missing the satire, of course.
Mastodon and Twitter are very different beasts. Neither fills the other's niche. I used Twitter for one thing, and that one thing is completely impossible on Mastodon.
(People see a new, strange, but exciting sport on television that they'd not previously heard of, and tweet about it. I loved searching those tweets, and occasionally interacting with the people. Mastodon does not allow this, for no good reason.)
@ajsadauskas@fediverse I originally heard of Mastodon through a friend. They were talking about how they were reluctant to join because a trusted friend informed them there was a lot of rampant racism and bigotry. However, another person replied to their tweet that Mastodon is decentralized, so those instances of bigotry were not indicative of the platform as a whole. I joined the Project Mushroom server and have enjoyed Mastodon since.
@ajsadauskas@fediverse@donmelton Twitter sounds too confusing. How do you even view a toot there without it getting absorbed into some advertising scheme? Maybe I’ll try again when they get their act together.
@ajsadauskas@sebsauvage@fediverse I've met a transgender person who claimed that Twitter was a decent place when you could use bots to block everyone liking a mean post or following its poster, and it's probably still much more relevant than Mastodon in terms of anime-related communities, for some part because Mastodon doesn't have an equivalent to QRTs while animes are still (hopefully) driven by Asian communities, so Musk banning bots is objectively a bad thing…
@ajsadauskas This so funny and it hits the nail on the head. I notice there is copy-paste plagiarism going on here whoever actually did first write this, possibly someone in this thread, should do a substack or Medium and I will be first in line to sign up.
@ajsadauskas While obviously not as important as the other features you mentioned, account verification against your own website is another useful feature Twitter doesn’t have yet. I’m sure they could come up with a clever alternative though. #twitter#mastodon#twittermigration
@nonsequitur@ajsadauskas P.S. “toot” has always been onomatopoeia for a honk or a whistle, as in “toot toot!”. 😜
I don’t know what your Europeans are doing with your flatulence that you think it toots. Must be the diet. Something to do with the French Paradox?! 🤷♂️ 😂
@ajsadauskas@TeacherGriff love it! I keep seeing tweet after tweet of ppl who took one look at one Mastodon instance with rules they didn’t like & noped away from all of Mastodon, and the replies are all “Wow, never going there!” And for a couple days I tried to correct the misperceptions…then realized, “Ah well, they’ll find some social app they like, eventually.”
Totally support disengaging with problematic birdsite people, but my concern with a lot of the sorts of posts you mention is not the person making them (Mastodon is ill-suited to them and they should stay away) but that they often couch their decisions in general terms like "Mastodon is difficult and confusing" or "Having many different servers is hopeless" or "lots of error messages and glitchy" which are likely to dissuade others from even looking at Mastodon instances.
@IdiotBird@azzageddi@ajsadauskas@TeacherGriff
Having watched a couple of people in particular at the other place, railing against mastodon's 'failings', it seems to be deliberate in some cases. If their following (and maybe income) is based on a degree of constant outrage and conflict, a calmer and more thoughtful platform is never going to win them over. They seem threatened by the possibility of it winning their followers over.