Personally, I found it easy. However, I was moving from Google Plus to diaspora, and G+ started off as a diaspora clone. Everything from the UI to the general vibe of the community was very similar.

Hashtags were a little bit of a learning curve, since hashtags in G+ were a useless joke. But in my specific case, I was familiar with tag usage from Tumblr.

So it really depends on where you're coming from. Someone who is only familiar with how things are on Facebook will have a learning curve anywhere they go. Facebook is pretty weird compared to other social media platforms.

I'm not really familiar with Twitter, but I do notice that a lot of people have difficulties transitioning to Mastodon from Twitter. I don't know specifically what sort of advice would help there, but I'm sure it would be very different from the advice appropriate for someone who's only familiar with Facebook.

My point is ... I feel like this sort of advice should be tailored to where someone is coming from and where they're going to.

@smellsofbikes@diaspora.glasswings.com People are terrified of wrong options for everything these days. I will be chatting with one of the handful of democratic schools we have in Melbourne tomorrow. This is a quote we will be discussing.

"Part of the problem is that in recent decades, there has been an increasing insistence on standardised tests. Even four year olds in England now sit a test in the first ten weeks of school. Most teachers are against this. Bus as they want their students to do "well", they end up teaching to the test. As a consequence, students learn there is a single correct answer for everything, including politics and democracy."
Edda Sant, "Democracy in Crisis".

Democracy in crisis – unshackle schools from test results to give children the chance to form opinions

When ideas are presented as topics to be debated, rather than as facts to be learnt, students and democracy benefit.

^{The Conversation}

@Muse wrote:

To make connections people need to realise that they should just start putting stuff up with hashtags. Whenever someone friends me, I check their stream to see if they are a spam account, a troll, or any number of other unpleasant things. An empty account does nothing to inspire me to friend back.

When I first set up my account I didn't find a way to do as you suggest, until I decided to edit my profile. I follow hashtags, but I also want to follow people. When I mouse over a user I should see something to at least offer a hint at what that person likes or follows. We should do the "five things to describe yourself" thing at the very least, so new people can learn who they are interacting with.

@Twinkyit is not that easy to start. Either you have an empty feed or it's full with robots and no people stream.

I have been away for a few years, came back and the first few hundred posts have not included any from a human. Had to trim them seriously.

And now that I did I see months old posts, which shows that Disapora activity is not very high nowadays.

@Muse well, yes, if you put it that way: it never ever have been high activity.

It shall not depend on the pod, since if it does there's comceptionally something very wrong (which there is, I know, but that's beyond the point); your own stream is possibly empty on a low traffic pod, or on your own pod. (You seem to imply that centralisation would make Diaspora work: if everyone would be on the same pod then it would worked well, but when people are spread all around it doesn't.)

My point is that if someone come from Facebook and register on backyard.pod.on.mars then it will be completely different experience than they used to: the stream will be (mostly) empty.

(Bots are not malevolent! They are relaying ~~twitter~~ ~~x~~ ~~shitter~~ muskker, mastodon and other posts into diaspora. Admins do not need to weed them out.)

@grin@spora.grin.hu Actually, I prefer cooperative decentralisation!
You are right, I should have specified that I was thinking of spambots. They are such a nuisance at times, that it's easy to forget that there are other types of bots!

Anyway, I am getting as much socialising and entertainment as I want here on Diaspora! So, I am content.