[anigbrowl]

This article makes excellent points in a cogent fashion.

I partly disagree with the author that simply pointing at the existence of an alternative is sufficient. One of the reasons I've been very lukewarm about Mastodon is that it really lack the networks effects that make Twitter special; federation is a nice idea but the pragmatic benefits are a lot less clear. Being able to follow, track, and have conversations with individual scientists/scholars on Twitter has been a huge benefit for me, and it's not obvious that federated social networking can reliably deliver that. Another issue is that while Mastodon started well out of the gate 5 years ago (which was when is first signed up for it), very little has happened since then. 'We're not those other guys' is not a sufficient recipe for changing the world.

An excellent point that I do agree with is how 'sticky' Twitter is and how (like many other big tech firms) the tools it gives you when you export your data aren't really that helpful/useful unless you have sufficient programming skills of your own to overcome the quirky formatting issues. It seems like there's an audience for a tool that leverages the Twitter API to scrape your following/follower data into a convenient format and perhaps automate the business of finding and reconnecting with those people on another platform.

I think it's reasonable to say Twitter's utility is rapidly waning, both as described and with each new day's manufactured drama. However, the network effect issue is a big one. If 'science twitter' decamps to 'science.social' it could quickly find itself effectively cut off from its public and derided by antagonists as a 'woke echo chamber populated by high IQ stupid people' to borrow a phrase from what passes for political discourse in 2022.

[viraptor]

> it's not obvious that federated social networking can reliably deliver that

Why not? It's federated, not isolated. If enough people are available to achieve the network effects you're after, what would you lack? (Content discovery solutions are already being created for people who want to play with them)

> It seems like there's an audience for a tool that leverages the Twitter API to scrape your following/follower data into a convenient format and perhaps automate the business of finding and reconnecting with those people on another platform.

https://twitodon.com/ for mastodon already exists

> If 'science twitter' decamps to 'science.social' it could quickly find itself effectively cut off from its public

Why? What's different from frontend social, infosec exchange, etc.? In the general population is mastodon, I can't imagine science twitter being called out as woke.

[gerwitz]

Of all the tools for helping find your follows in the fediverse, I hope https://movetodon.org/ gets more attention. It is easier (no “download and upload this CSV”) and also serves a purpose over time to discover new migrants.

[linker3000]

The site could do with some text explaining what it does, who operates it and a privacy policy etc. rather than just starting off by immediately asking for permission to access my Twitter account. Looks as shady as ... as it is.

[r721]

>If 'science twitter' decamps to 'science.social'

There's fediscience.org and sciencemastodon.com already (Sean Carroll created account on fediscience.org and James Gleick - on sciencemastodon.com among people I follow on Twitter).

[jrhawley]

Author here, thanks for your thoughts.

I agree with you, just the existence of Mastodon/Discourse/others isn't sufficient. The onboarding and home/local/federated timelines of Mastodon can be a bit confusing at first, which does take some time to get used to. Just not being the other guys is the first of many necessary steps to being better.

And yes, scientists can't be entirely insulated from the wider public. Ideas that only stay in academia don't make the same impact that they need to in the wider world. Similarly, academics need to hear from the wider world to learn what problems are important and how their work can impact people. There need to be forums for interacting with large public audiences.

[sshine]

> federation is a nice idea but the pragmatic benefits are a lot less clear

> it's not obvious that federated social networking can reliably deliver

I love the idea of federations / federalism.

I also look at Mastodon and neither want to run my own instance or carry the mental ability to remember what instance I signed up on. Defending the idea of federalism but acknowledging that Mastodon isn't a perfect replacement for Twitter, I'd like to modify your statement:

Federation is a nice idea, but federations are only as strong as their members.

The Mastodon federation, combined, is smaller than Twitter.

So Twitter, while not being a federation, still has a better network effect.

[glenstein]

One of the things I noticed and immediately liked about Mastodon was that I quickly found curious academic types who are interesting to chat with. And the whole vibe on Mastodon was different because you'll find quirky and idiosyncratic people who pay a lot of attention to a very specific type of intellectually curious conversation, and your more likely to discover that on Mastodon in my experience, so I think it is an excellent fit for academics.

[sshine]

I joined Twitter some years ago with the only interest of growing my network of functional programmers. I specifically only followed people who do Haskell, Scala, or some kind of abstract algebra. I eventually quit because I don't subscribe to platforms that promote cancel culture. I did try Mastodon, but didn't discover as many interesting people before I lost interest.

[jimkleiber]

I haven't used Mastodon and so the impression I get is that it doesn't have an easy way to look up other accounts or discovery of accounts on other instances.

How does user account discovery work? How do you think it could be made better?

[paranoidrobot]

I found DeviantOllam's introduction on Mastodon/Fediverse[1] to be quite interesting and useful.

He covers contact discovery/migration from Twitter, and also mentions a fediverse contact search, although I forget what it was.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-jYZLs2j1Q

[anigbrowl]

Seconding this

[failrate]

Two ways: find instances relevant to your interests a la Usenet If you already know the person's name, use the search field.

[Edit] this is not how to improve it. This is how discoverability in Mastodon currently works.