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The continued growth of mastodon.social is putting the #Fediverse in danger (here's why: fedi.tips/its-a-really-bad-ide…).
The quickest, easiest and most effective way to solve this would be if the official apps & website stopped promoting mastodon.social, and instead promoted a rotating selection from a pool of reliable servers with solid track records.
If you're comfortable using Github, please give thumbs up to all these:
- github.com/mastodon/mastodon-a…
- github.com/mastodon/mastodon-i…
- github.com/mastodon/joinmastod…
Replace "Join mastodon.social" button on front page with button promoting rotating third party server from pool of reliable servers
At the moment the front page of JoinMastodon is implying that people who want to join Mastodon should join mastodon.social. This is causing the Fediverse to centralise, as the percentage of active ...FediVideos (GitHub)
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Charlotte Aten
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Luigi.exe (Dragonheart System)
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Luigi.exe (Dragonheart System) • • •I am not one of the people who attacks Eugen personally, he's done more than anyone to popularise the Fediverse, we owe him. I don't agree with people who attack him.
But he doesn't really respond to criticism, and for some reason none of the others at Mastodon gGmbH respond about this issue either.
The only action Masto gGmbH has taken in response to my posts about this is banning me from trending on mastodon.social (that's why FediTips posts don't ever trend there any more).
Still Nmyownworld
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Sensitive content
Anson
in reply to Still Nmyownworld • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Anson • • •@ansonkennedy
If you just want one suggestion a very similar and equally reliable alternative large alternative would be mas.to
If you want a selection of good medium-sized servers to choose from, you can find some at fedi.garden all of which are human-curated and have to be compatible with certain requirements listed at fedi.garden/about-this-site/
Fedi.Garden
fedi.gardenlxskllr
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •@ansonkennedy
What's your opinion of .world? I picked this cause someone I was interested in was here, but didn't give it any thought. It's absolutely default, and reliable. The "default" is bad cause it's only 500 character toot limit, but otherwise, it works well.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to lxskllr • • •@lxskllr
I don't know much about it, but it is up to date on the latest version, it has a detailed published code of conduct, it has multiple staff, its admin has posted recently and it has been operating since 2022 so those are good signs.
Its about page is at mastodon.world/about
Mastodon
Mastodon hosted on mastodon.worldStill Nmyownworld
in reply to Still Nmyownworld • • •Sensitive content
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Still Nmyownworld • • •@Still_Nimmy @Eeveecraft
Oh yeah, neither would I, and I don't think it's the fault of moderators on mastodon.social.
I think this problem is due to the leadership at Mastodon gGmbH, and they are the only ones who need to respond about this.
elenlaw
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Glowing Cat of the Nuclear Wastelands
in reply to Luigi.exe (Dragonheart System) • • •@FediTips@social.growyourown.services
Luigi.exe (Dragonheart System)
in reply to Glowing Cat of the Nuclear Wastelands • • •@deathkitten
Paradoxically, by letting the instance they own balloon in size, they have to pour more and more resources into maintaining it.
So regardless, they have to spend more resources, and they chose to spend resources that's leading to the Fediverse being more centralized.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Luigi.exe (Dragonheart System) • • •Doug
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •They have the resource no other instance has, so there is no pressure to add better moderation controls that appreciate and respect the federated nature of moderating non-flagship instances.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Doug • • •@doug
Yeah, there's too much power in one place:
-Main devs of most popular server software
-By far largest donations of any Fedi project
-Owners of by far largest server
-Owners of by far most used apps
-Owners of trademarks that let them control use of word "Mastodon" on social networks
...if they get majority of Fediverse users too, that would make a heck of a package for a takeover.
Luigi.exe (Dragonheart System)
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Wait, I just read this blog post:
blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/05/…
And I gotta admit, that is a cowardly response. Their excuse literally just is, "Because it's easier!" You know what else is easier? Centralized platforms. Does that mean they're better? No. We pay for convenience with our freedom.
This line is especially stupid, "This gives us a far better chance of showcasing what decentralized social networks have to offer instead of having that person bounce and never hearing from them again." How does growing an instance to 30+% of the userbase "showcase what decentralized social networks have to offer"??? Doesn't that literally do the opposite? And then they buried their heads in the sand and haven't addressed it since. That's pathetic.
A new onboarding experience on Mastodon
Mastodon BlogMatthew likes this.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Luigi.exe (Dragonheart System) • • •Yeah, they should have transitioned it to promoting one rotating server from a pool of servers, and then it would have been just as easy for beginners but would have spread the growth out to stop it centralising.
They can still do this now, and I'm hopeful they see sense on this 🙂
MsMerope
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •is that your local timeline is not a fire hose.
Julian Fietkau
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •I feel like when people ask for randomly assigned servers, there's a strange forgetfulness about which specific problem the default server was meant to solve.
Among people who signed up in 2022, the biggest reason (by far!) why people involuntarily left – that is, wanted to keep using Mastodon but failed to – was that they changed phones or browsers or just wanted to sign in on another device, and couldn't because they didn't know what server they were on.
Julian Fietkau
in reply to Julian Fietkau • • •We can't be telling people “don't worry too much about all that server stuff for now” and also “oh you don't know if your account was on mstdn.social or mas.to, then you're just outta luck sorry”.
We also know that asking fedi newcomers to pick their own server does not work. Your suggestion addresses this point.
My conclusion is that having a default server for all newbies (not invited by a friend) is the best practical approach. Somewhere people can get their bearings.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Julian Fietkau • • •@julian
1. There is nothing about mastodon.social that makes it more friendly for newbies. It is technically identical to signing up on any Mastodon server.
2. People learn how to do stuff. I have spent most of my free time for the past five years dealing with new people on here and they are not as brainless or incurious as you are making out.
3. Saying most people cannot remember the name of their server while also expecting them to be able to move their account is contradictory.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •@julian
When I posted warning about this in 2023 I had no end of people telling me "Oh you are worrying too much, mastodon.social is just for new people, they'll move on to other servers".
Back then mastodon.social was about 10-15% of active Fedi.
Now Mastodon.social is almost 30% of active Fedi.
Are we going to have the same conversation in another couple of years when mastodon.social is over 50% of the Fedi?
Why would anyone join Mastodon if it's mostly on one server? What is the point?
Julian Fietkau
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Julian Fietkau • • •@julian
It's not a big problem, it's an existential problem. There is no reason for the Fediverse to exist if most of it is on one server.
When I posted about this in 2023 on FediTips, mastodon.social's only response was to ban me from their trends.
When I posted about this in 2025 on my personal account, mastodon.social's only response was to ban that account from their trends as well.
This is not a sign of an organisation dragging its feet, it is burying its head or worse.
Julian Fietkau
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •1. Right. The point is that it is the same server for everyone. So people can do logins and password resets without knowing what server they were assigned.
2. I'm sorry, but this was widespread. I had multiple people in my circles who bounced off of Mastodon because they couldn't remember their server. I believe @evan verified this as well.
3. I would expect them to move after learning what servers mean and which ones could fit them. How long this takes will differ per person.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Julian Fietkau • • •@julian
You're basically suggesting killing the Fediverse for the sake of making it easier.
Do you know what percentage will "bounce" if it no longer has any advantages over much bigger alternatives?
What, exactly, is the point of a Fediverse that operates on one server? Where is the advantage over Bluesky or Twitter/X for that matter?
There would be nothing left of it, it would be just another centralised network owned by a single company that eventually enshittifies.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •@julian
"I would expect them to move after learning what servers mean and which ones could fit them. How long this takes will differ per person."
It has been two years since this was suggested and it just has not happened, the percentage on mastodon.social has gone from 15ish to 30ish.
The process of moving could be simplified but it will ALWAYS be more complex than the process of remembering whether you signed up on mastodon.social or mas.to. It is not realistic to rely on this path.
Julian Fietkau
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Moving accounts will always be a nontrivial process, but after some weeks or months on fedi, people will be more equipped to pick a server they can identify with than they are to remember a random server during initial signup.
And I'm not saying to cross our fingers and hope they'll move on their own. We could do in-app reminders for m.s users, server recommendations like yours, maybe even gradual throttling of overly long-lived m.s accounts. There is room for more ideas.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Julian Fietkau • • •@julian
Telling people to sign up on mastodon.social and then punishing them for signing up on mastodon.social is (with all due respect) not a good idea. It will make people feel gaslighted by Mastodon and put them off the network completely.
Encouraging people to choose a different server to begin with and helping them to do this is innately the most effective way to spread growth out. We know this because it worked when they did this.
Julian Fietkau
in reply to Julian Fietkau • • •And yes, I understand the cons.
IMHO the path forward is to improve the scope & simplicity of the account moving process, and then encouraging people on m.s to use it after some time. Not to abolish the default server.
I've been holding my tongue on this since @andypiper said Mastodon may reply to this with a blog post. But I hope we can acknowledge that a “rotating servers” suggestion is incomplete without an idea to (unobtrusively but reliably) teach people about their own server.
River
in reply to Julian Fietkau • • •@julian @andypiper Suppose we created a shortlist of servers. (Maybe something like 8 or 10?) We give each server a simple little icon. You know, like, "house" "bird" "cup" "mail". Each user then just remembers this little associated ID, acting basically as a shortname or a checksum for the full server name. Then they just remember "I'm johnsmith with the little bird icon".
Maybe we don't like the icons, we use something else. Some other piece of memorized data that's a hell of a lot easier to keep in your head then some domain name that looks just like all the other domain names. As servers come and go, we add new icons (or whatever thing we pick) to the list to represent new servers on the shortlist of possible servers.
Just an idea is all.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to River • • •@riverpunk @julian @andypiper
People learn stuff when they find it useful. My granny knew dozens of phone numbers off by heart because she used them regularly. How many people today know a single phone number off by heart?
If people get used to servers, they will remember them.
If you never ever expose people to servers, they will never even have a chance to learn.
Ulrike Hahn
in reply to Julian Fietkau • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Ulrike Hahn • • •@UlrikeHahn @julian
Exactly. The solution is obvious, there are many servers with similarly reliable track records, promote one of those.
Julian Fietkau
in reply to Ulrike Hahn • • •@UlrikeHahn My central point is about how rotating the default server solves none of this. 😞 Except the difficulty of deciding on a server.
I mean, what do we expect to happen when people forget their server name? Should the password reset process ask people whether they signed up during October or November?
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Julian Fietkau • • •"I mean, what do we expect to happen when people forget their server name?"
Speaking as someone who has actually provided tech support for this over the past 5 years, people can find the name of their server on the email they received when they signed up.
People cannot sign up without an email, and *they always receive an email with the name of their server on it*
This is not the massive barrier you are making it out to be. They can just check their email if they forget.
Chertridge
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •p.s. To avoid repetition of replies:
-If people forget name of server they signed up on, it's written on the email they received when they signed up.
-Mastodon.social is in no way more reliable or easier than other servers with similar or better track records.
-If Mastodon gGmbH does not trust anyone else to run a server properly, why should anyone else trust Mastodon gGmbH to run a server properly? "Trust me bro, but I won't trust you" is a terrible argument in a collaborative project.