this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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I like Lemmy a lot, and I liked Reddit before. I never really liked Twitter, just followed some NASA accounts that told what certain probes/landers/rovers were doing. I'm interested in Mastodon because federated platforms seem to sustainably fill the gap the big 5 are trying to enlarge. What kind of content are you guys getting from there?
Lemmy was kind of jarring at first, but extensions like the universal link switcher help a lot. Any stuff like that to help onboarding Mastodon? Thx folks.
Cats. Mastodon has a lot of cats. It's great.
I follow hashtags on Mastodon sort of like how I follow communities on Lemmy, but instead of "content" I get quick thoughts from people. It's different but, as someone who also didn't use Twitter, it's nice to have a space where the barrier to engagement is a bit lower; you need a thought, not a link or discussion, and sometimes that's enough to prompt engagement.
It's more a question of culture imo, not necessarily site design. I've seen a few communities use reddit for microblogging (posting quick half formed thoughts in self post). No reason it couldn't happen on lemmy
For me it's probably best described as "background chatter", so mostly a bunch of different news sites that aren't important enough for me to go into my RSS feed, bots posting notifications, and random thoughts from bloggers.
There are those that help you to stay on your home instance as well, but the big one for me is StreetPass for Mastodon, which finds and collects Mastodon accounts as you browse the web. That way you can organically build your network without much effort. You'd be surprised how many accounts from news sites, open source projects and people with blogs you can find that way.
StreetPass is such a fantastic idea, I had no clue it was a thing but it might actually be the thing that manages to get me into microblogging
For what it's worth, here's an account that reposts everything NASA puts out: https://social.beachcom.org/@nasa
link for reference https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/469273-lemmy-universal-link-switcher
Any questions/requests direct here please :D
Good job on the script :) you should put a link to it in your lemmy bio so people know it's you
That's a really cool script. Does it work for posts/comments that haven't federated to your instance yet?
Unfortunately not directly. However, the request it makes will trigger federation if it wasn't already triggered, so using it sometimes makes federation happen which will make it work for future users/your later self.
If aomeone posts a direct link to another instance, you'll be brought to the version of it on your own instance instead of moving sites. This means you stay signed in etc.
Thank you, sir or madam
I was for a long time unable to understand the appeal of the structure of Twitter/Mastodon.
Recently I have become an active Mastodon reader (reader; I have made no public posts). I realize now that it is basically an RSS reader: you follow sources (people/organizations) you are interested in and get to read those in reverse-chronological order. If you aren't an organization, celebrity, journalist, activist, politician or otherwise someone whose thoughts people in the outside world would care about, then there is no real point in ever posting anything there; people will not read it anyway because they aren't following you. This is unlike the discussion-forum structure of Reddit/Lemmy where ordinary people are meant to participate.
Yeah, I treated Twitter as a RSS platform where I could follow subject matter experts like scientists and writers and artists I liked.
I also used it to follow people and groups that weren't like me so i could learn. Like, "disability twitter" opened my eyes to some things I took for granted, because you had regular people dealing with those things just talking back and forth about it. If I shut my mouth and just listened, it opened up a whole new world.
For small-time creators making either art or science, Twitter was a good platform to get little chunks of info out to your followers. I don't know that Mastodon fills those shoes yet, but I hope it will.
It's not necessarily as one-sided as newsfeeds. Regular people can still publish and have a small audience of their own. That's why Twitter, Mastodon etc. are classified as microblogging platforms.
Universal link switcher? What is that
What other stuff am i missing from the lemmy experience
I made this https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/469273-lemmy-universal-link-switcher
This is so pog
I had never seen this before today, but it's what I've been low-key looking for every time a followed link logs me out. My Lemmy experience was already good, but you just made it even better. Thank you so much for taking the time.
Hey, thanks a lot everyone! Got something to start up this week :-)
I don't go on there a lot, but...it's micro-blogging. People post their opinions, projects they're working on, pictures of their cat, etc. Blog stuff.
For me, it's mostly to connect with autiste. It's great and people are mostly nice.
The keys are hashtags and groups. You need to follow both to create your algorithm.
thanks for telling me about universal link switcher
Hey, thanks a lot everyone! Got something to start up this week :-)
The only thing I use it for so far is to follow ARS Technica as they don’t have a mobile app, so I just subscribe to their news feed through Mastadon. I was never a Twitter user really so I only do it to support the platform.
Since the protest, I’ve really cut back on social media anyway so that’s good. But Lemmy fits as much as I need this stuff.
I never really liked Twitter, either, and joined Mastodon in 2019 for fun. I'm very active in it, now, as I have spent the time curating the stuff I want to see. I interact with watercolor artists, green technology enthusiasts, "good news" orgs, sustainability advocates, and travel photographers. It takes a bit of work to set up, first, but the biggest thing is to search keywords as hashtags and follow everyone you think you might like and interact often with them. You can always unfollow, later.