This week, I went over to Bluesky and asked people who'd left Mastodon why they left, and lots of people told me. I grabbed the replies and crunched them and wrote up a summary. I think it's really interesting and often kind of wrenching.
https://erinkissane.com/mastodon-is-easy-and-fun-except-when-it-isnt
#meta
Mastodon is easy and fun except when it isn’t - Erin Kissane's small internet website
After my last long post, I got into some frustrating conversations, among them one in which an open-source guy repeatedly scoffed at the idea oferinkissane.com
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EVHaste
in reply to Erin Kissane • • •This article is fantastic, Erin! And what a cool experiment to do.
I actually almost bounced off of Mastodon originally because of the two highest frequency feedback points here. I'm really glad I pushed through it but I really, really get why most people don't.
Tagging @Gargron , since you basically did a bunch of free product work for the Mastodon team. 😀
Erin Kissane
in reply to EVHaste • • •Thank you! I had to try three times—my first two instances blew up after I wandered off because it was so quiet.
Eugen is probably so sick of seeing my name come up at this point, but I tried to express my very real sympathy in this post.
@Gargron
Eugen Rochko
in reply to Erin Kissane • • •EVHaste
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Yeah, that's a bummer. I try to provide gentle, private feedback to the unsolicited-tip dogpiles.
My hope is that if, culturally, we got to this point where providing alt-text is part of the Mastodon identity (which is rad af), we should be able to do the same thing for the new user welcome and not dogpile folks for perceived CW transgressions, etc.
Erin Kissane
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •I really appreciate the work you do, and I have a little bit of insight into some of the pressure (and constant yelling and assumptions of bad faith) from my work elsewhere. I couldn't hack it for long, myself.
Thanks for reading!
@Haste
Susan, Abbey and Finnegan
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •