Here's a thing that makes Mastodon instances work less well than they could...
when you visit an instance, all the front pages look the same.
"About this instance" is a TINY little link under the sign-up form. This is crazy.
Instances should LEAD with a community description, not bury it.
That's like a newsgroup leading with the OS it used to run the newsgroup rather than saying: "This is a Kenny G community"
@BeansWater that page is awesome... i might have to make that my fifth and final instance...
@BradyDale hahaha, you do you
I can only IMAGINE what that local is like
@BradyDale "this is one of many Kenny G communities: we are legion"
@BradyDale Thanks for letting me to know to look elsewhere: I want a Fourplay community
@BradyDale Not only that, but I looked at a number of instances that didn't even have anything in the "about this instance" area!
@BradyDale alt.music.g.kenny.sax.sax.sax represent
that's probably mostly templating so it might be a good first PR for someone looking to contribute! @BradyDale
well i tried, if anyone wants to pick up the work and keep at it https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/pull/1511 @bkeej @BradyDale
So here is a weird thing that I just realized...
Mastodon does not show you a number with a post to indicate how much reach it has had.
I suppose with federation this would never be complete, but it is still strange.
I wrote this post that went a bit viral, but I have no clue how viral beyond like sitting and counting notifications...
Is that a feature? I am not 100 pct sure it feels like a feature to me.
Is this a confession? I loved hits on Twitter.
Maybe too much?
@BradyDale if you expand the post details, it will show you number of (local) favs/boosts. but I agree, it's a weird combo of low bar for engagement (bc there aren't many users) and limited ability to quantify engagement.
@will ohhhh, I see it now.
Cool... thanks! I thought maybe I had seen something somewhere, so THANK YOU
My ego thanks you
(51 boosts, 60 faves... NOT THAT I CARE)
@BradyDale it's weird, 59 followers here feels like mild success, and 300-ish on twitter feels like abject failure. the online ego is a strange and fragile thing.
There are quite a few Mastodon instances now that have heavily personalized that front page...
Don't forget there are now more than 800 instances...
A very low estimate, BTW...
I believe there might by 2500 up and running by now
toot
@BradyDale Also a whole lot have their code of conduct/FAQ page just left on the default, even when it's written in a language their user community can't read.
@BradyDale @mattskala The homepage can be totally redone - I've seen a few users deploy versions of mastodon from private forks.
@wogan @bradydale @mattskala maybe beacause instances weren't made to become communities ? but only account creation.
Shall we end up with local tl and create other types of instances? : connectors that don't create accounts ( extreme thinking ;)
@Adth @wogan @BradyDale Weren't they? My thread about "what will the network look like when there are 320 million users?" was mostly answered with "Instances are meant to be topical communities."
And if instances block each other to follow local speech-restriction laws, then at least those instances will necessarily be tied to legal geography.
@BradyDale The only customised front page I've seen so far was, naturally, the memetastic.space . It did a fantastic job of convincing me that was not where I wanted to make an account, but only because it was accurate. Naturally the memesters would be most on top of branding
That's definitely what everybody should be doing though, putting it right out there