Hi!

It's been a week! The poll about a hashtag to help new Fediverse users has closed.

This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to write a post or two to discuss and summarise what I've learned this past week.

Then, because suggestions have come in, I'll make a new post which will be another stand-alone poll for the coming week.

So 162 people voted on this poll, and 56 boosted and many participated in a really good discussion.

The hashtags (#)FediHelp and (#)MastodonHelp were top, with 45% and 36% of the votes.

The most important new suggestions were, in my opinion (#)FediTips and (#)MastodonTips.

I'll explain why.

An important point was made by @aral that there is already existing infrastructure around the (#)FediTips hashtag and account.

The aim I have is to give more energy to work to help new users of the Fediverse, so the idea of adding more hands to existing work is attractive to me.

Likewise people including @bjornlarssen made the point that 'Fediverse' and 'Fedi' might be opaque for new users.

My reaction is that it won't matter so much what the hashtag ends up being, what matters is that it has energy behind it.

This is why I'm planning to run the new poll with four options, two of which say 'Fedi' and two of which say 'Mastodon'.

Namely Feditips, FediHelp, MastodonTips and MastodonHelp.

I absolutely take the point made by those including @HistoPol that there are other tags such as (#)welcome and (#)newbie that can be used to help people.

I totally agree and I don't mean to dismiss that by my choice of these four options.

My choice is based on the fact that a hashtag needs to be dedicated and narrow enough so that if you use it, or you follow it, you can be pretty sure you'll get new people asking for help.

I also take the point that, by definition, it will be hard for new people to know about a relevant hashtag to use. Many new people will still use (#)introduction. I plan to monitor that tag and keep offering help.

But I think that if we can get dozens or hundreds of us behind the idea of a particular hashtag to help new ueser that it will percolate through the social media grapevine.

How did people get the idea of making an (#)introduction post in the first place after all.

So, to restate my aim.

I want it to be easy for someone who is new and unsure to post a question using a particular hashtag and quickly get help.

Likewise I want someone who wants to help be able to monitor a hashtag and offer help.

Curently looking at all of the possible tags there's not the activity that we'd expect if thousands of new users were asking for help or getting it.

Since already we have more activity in these hashtags because of this meta-discussion I think if we agree and push a hashtag together we can make it much more of a live custom in the Fediverse.

A form of horizontal peer-to-peer helpdesk feature.

I don't want to have to rely on app makers or server administrators to do all this.

Now I've written this meta-meta discussion 😀 I'm trying to be open and accountable about what I'm doing and why.

It's up to you if you think this is worth doing with me!

Now I'll make that stand-alone poll and then I will SPAM it all week and then next Saturday I will start being active on whichever hashtag we choose together ❤

Hi, I think we need even better ways to help new users.

Thousands are signing up every day, but many leave soon after because of confusion.

My idea is that we get behind a hashtag and make it a kind of decentralised helpdesk for new people. This is already happening and I want to add energy to this.

Which hashtag would be best to unite around?

• #MastodonHelp (49%, 174 votes)
• #FediHelp (18%, 66 votes)
• #MastodonTips (16%, 59 votes)
• #FediTips (15%, 54 votes)

Hey! The poll about a hashtag to help new people on the Fediverse has ended!

Over 350 people voted and the hashtag that got the most votes, by far, was #MastodonHelp, on 49%

So following on from the earlier discussion I propose we give #MastodonHelp a big boost by using it, following it and mentioning it, so that it takes on the function of a decentralised help desk.

This is a bad move ;)

Mastodon centralizing is the problem, not the solution for #openweb reboot.