As I posted recently, the continuned growth of mastodon.social is putting the #Fediverse in danger (here's why: https://fedi.tips/its-a-really-bad-idea-to-join-a-big-server/).

The quickest, easiest and most effective way to solve this would be if the official apps stopped promoting mastodon.social, and instead promoted a rotating selection from a pool of reliable servers with solid track records.

If you're comfortable using Github, please give thumbs up to both these issues 🙏

- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android/issues/568
- https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios/issues/1023

@FediTips Wait, I just read this blog post:

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/05/a-new-onboarding-experience-on-mastodon/

And I gotta admit, that is a cowardly response. Their excuse literally just is, "Because it's easier!" You know what else is easier? Centralized platforms. Does that mean they're better? No. We pay for convenience with our freedom.

This line is especially stupid, "This gives us a far better chance of showcasing what decentralized social networks have to offer instead of having that person bounce and never hearing from them again." How does growing an instance to 30+% of the userbase "showcase what decentralized social networks have to offer"??? Doesn't that literally do the opposite? And then they buried their heads in the sand and haven't addressed it since. That's pathetic.

@FediTips
I don't know anything technical about this sort of thing... So please feel free to mock and scoff and ridicule and ignore what I'm thinking... 😊

Why not agree as a fediverse to place an upper limit on server size? Once a server reaches the limit they no longer accept new registrations. Wouldn't everyone agree if it will save the fediverse?!

p.s. To avoid repetition of replies:

-If people forget name of server they signed up on, it's written on the email they received when they signed up.

-Mastodon.social is in no way more reliable or easier than other servers with similar or better track records.

-If Mastodon gGmbH does not trust anyone else to run a server properly, why should anyone else trust Mastodon gGmbH to run a server properly? "Trust me, but I won't trust you" is a terrible argument in a collaborative project.

@FediTips

It is too big to moderate well. Just 2 days ago, I warned someone not to go there.

@FediTips I feel like when people ask for randomly assigned servers, there's a strange forgetfulness about which specific problem the default server was meant to solve.

Among people who signed up in 2022, the biggest reason (by far!) why people involuntarily left – that is, wanted to keep using Mastodon but failed to – was that they changed phones or browsers or just wanted to sign in on another device, and couldn't because they didn't know what server they were on.

@FediTips We can't be telling people “don't worry too much about all that server stuff for now” and also “oh you don't know if your account was on mstdn.social or mas.to, then you're just outta luck sorry”.

We also know that asking fedi newcomers to pick their own server does not work. Your suggestion addresses this point.

My conclusion is that having a default server for all newbies (not invited by a friend) is the best practical approach. Somewhere people can get their bearings.

@FediTips And yes, I understand the cons.

IMHO the path forward is to improve the scope & simplicity of the account moving process, and then encouraging people on m.s to use it after some time. Not to abolish the default server.

I've been holding my tongue on this since @andypiper said Mastodon may reply to this with a blog post. But I hope we can acknowledge that a “rotating servers” suggestion is incomplete without an idea to (unobtrusively but reliably) teach people about their own server.

@julian @FediTips I have heard this so often!

@julian

1. There is nothing about mastodon.social that makes it more friendly for newbies. It is technically identical to signing up on any Mastodon server.

2. People learn how to do stuff. I have spent most of my free time for the past five years dealing with new people on here and they are not as brainless or incurious as you are making out.

3. Saying most people cannot remember the name of their server while also expecting most of them to move their account is contradictory.

@FediTips

1. Right. The point is that it is the same server for everyone. So people can do logins and password resets without knowing what server they were assigned.

2. I'm sorry, but this was widespread. I had multiple people in my circles who bounced off of Mastodon because they couldn't remember their server. I believe @evan verified this as well.

3. I would expect them to move after learning what servers mean and which ones could fit them. How long this takes will differ per person.

@julian

You're basically suggesting killing the Fediverse for the sake of making it easier.

Do you know what percentage will "bounce" if it no longer has any advantages over much bigger alternatives?

What, exactly, is the point of a Fediverse that operates on one server? Where is the advantage over Bluesky or Twitter/X for that matter?

There would be nothing left of it, it would be just another centralised network owned by a single company that eventually enshittifies.

@julian

When I posted warning about this in 2023 I had no end of people telling me "Oh you are worrying too much, mastodon.social is just for new people, they'll move on to other servers".

Back then mastodon.social was about 10-15% of active Fedi.

Now Mastodon.social is almost 30% of active Fedi.

Are we going to have the same conversation in another couple of years when mastodon.social is over 50% of the Fedi?

Why would anyone join Mastodon if it's mostly on one server? What is the point?

@FediTips @julian I'd like to point out that small, sustained growth over time while sticking to founding principles is infinitely more beneficial to users of the network, as compared to viral success at the cost of abandoning those principles.

I wanna see Mastodon take off big as much as everyone else, but not if that just means another tech monopoly that has a cool open protocol for a while before they finally extinguish when some billionaire buys it and decides to lock everyone in and start enshittifying.

That's basically how I see this tradeoff. Some users are gonna take longer to get on, but hey, at least that way, the thing they're getting on is a decentralized network, not a single platform that is only open in theory.

@riverpunk @FediTips I agree with this. 💚

@julian @riverpunk

Hey, look, I'm sorry I was getting heated in my other replies to you. I am not being polite or fair, I shouldn't be being so direct. I know we are on the same side.

I know you disagree with me on this specific issue but you're laying out your arguments carefully and sincerely and I should be respect that more.

Apologies. I will try to take a calmer approach to replies in future.

@julian

"I would expect them to move after learning what servers mean and which ones could fit them. How long this takes will differ per person."

It has been two years since this was suggested and it just has not happened, the percentage on mastodon.social has gone from 15ish to 30ish.

The process of moving could be simplified but it will ALWAYS be more complex than the process of remembering whether you signed up on mastodon.social or mas.to. It is not realistic to rely on this path.

@FediTips Moving accounts will always be a nontrivial process, but after some weeks or months on fedi, people will be more equipped to pick a server they can identify with than they are to remember a random server during initial signup.

And I'm not saying to cross our fingers and hope they'll move on their own. We could do in-app reminders for m.s users, server recommendations like yours, maybe even gradual throttling of overly long-lived m.s accounts. There is room for more ideas.

@julian

Telling people to sign up on mastodon.social and then punishing them for signing up on mastodon.social is (with all due respect) not a good idea. It will make people feel gaslighted by Mastodon and put them off the network completely.

Encouraging people to choose a different server to begin with and helping them to do this is innately the most effective way to spread growth out. We know this because it worked when they did this.

@FediTips @julian any fedi app have any kind of wizard for picking an instance?
sorry for crashing the middle of your debate but that's how I'd handle it: with the client-side database. and then immediately export settings, maybe with a file including the name of the instance.

@travisfw @FediTips I've seen several attempts at this over the years. It can work but it's not as easy as one might think.

I remember one server recommender that asked people whether they're comfortable with 18+ content being allowed. It makes sense from a perspective of, what are visible differences between servers that people might care about. But many found it super offputting to be asked that during sign-up, which is understandable too.

Definitely worth continued experimentation though.

@FediTips It isn't a punishment if m.s can be conceptualized as a transitionary tutorial server. Kind of a “Great Plateau” of Mastodon, if you've played Zelda BOTW.

I think there can be a design where it feels natural to have an area that people are expected to leave once they get their training wheels off, especially if the migration process is improved to include posts, update conversation threads, contain fewer UI steps, etc.

@FediTips You're preaching to the choir here. I agree that this is a big problem, and would not object to the statement that Mastodon has been dragging their feet addressing it. That's beside the point of my argument.

@julian

It's not a big problem, it's an existential problem. There is no reason for the Fediverse to exist if most of it is on one server.

When I posted about this in 2023 on FediTips, mastodon.social's only response was to ban me from their trends.

When I posted about this in 2025 on my personal account, mastodon.social's only response was to ban that account from their trends as well.

This is not a sign of an organisation dragging its feet, it is burying its head or worse.

@travisfw

I run a website at https://fedi.garden to help people discover good well-run servers. All of them are human-curated and comply with seven points listed at https://fedi.garden/about-this-site/

There are also wizard sites but I wouldn't recommend them as AFAIK none of them curate the servers they list, so they may be directing people to unreliable or unsafe servers.

@julian @FediTips much of this could be solved if the “default server” for sign ups rotated….

@UlrikeHahn @julian

Exactly. The solution is obvious, there are many servers with similarly reliable track records, promote one of those.

This is something I continue to think about a lot. I thought changing the default was a bad decision at the time and haven't changed my mind! It's not just the centralization aspects of it; it's also that (based on retention rates) most people don't have a good experience on .social -- so they wind up leaving fedi.

Rotating the default doesn't seem to me like it would address the :"good experience" aspect of the problem. For most people who are looking for a Twitter-like experience, .social's as good an approximation as anywhere else in fedi -- not great, but other instances aren't any better. And for people who are looking for a local community that aligns with their interests or geography, they're not going to find it on other largeish open-registration instances (and it doesn't make sense to have anything but a largesish open-registration instance as the default).

@julian
@FediTips @UlrikeHahn

@UlrikeHahn @FediTips My central point is about how rotating the default server solves none of this. 😞 Except the difficulty of deciding on a server.

I mean, what do we expect to happen when people forget their server name? Should the password reset process ask people whether they signed up during October or November?

@julian @FediTips I guess I feel like the main difficulty *is* the difficulty of deciding on a server when one cannot yet have any idea of the consequences of that decision…
beyond that, people understand that email can come from different providers, as can their sim card, as can their broadband as can they cable tv. I don’t see anything anything fundamentally more complicated in “remembering one’s server” beyond that that couldn’t be solved with appropriate explanation (“your server is your access provider, you will need to hold on to these details…”), but I could be missing something here…

@UlrikeHahn @FediTips I think difficulty choosing a server was the biggest reason that stopped people from signing up at all in 2022. But people who managed to pick a server and then forgot it were also a surprisingly large group.

The whole “it's kinda like email” cliché originated in part in the desire to convey the ways in which your server matters. But Mastodon newcomers mostly thought “making a Mastodon account” ≈ “making a Twitter account”, i.e. that your username and password are enough.

@UlrikeHahn @FediTips For the most part, they either had no understanding of servers at all or thought Mastodon servers were kinda like Discord servers. Both notions have different pitfalls, but share the problem of underselling that if you don't remember your Mastodon server, you're locked out.

Your suggestion is a solid start, but two UX truisms are that people don't read things and people don't remember things. A working design to teach server identity would likely have more parts.

@julian @FediTips @andypiper Suppose we created a shortlist of servers. (Maybe something like 8 or 10?) We give each server a simple little icon. You know, like, "house" "bird" "cup" "mail". Each user then just remembers this little associated ID, acting basically as a shortname or a checksum for the full server name. Then they just remember "I'm johnsmith with the little bird icon".

Maybe we don't like the icons, we use something else. Some other piece of memorized data that's a hell of a lot easier to keep in your head then some domain name that looks just like all the other domain names. As servers come and go, we add new icons (or whatever thing we pick) to the list to represent new servers on the shortlist of possible servers.

Just an idea is all.

@riverpunk @FediTips @andypiper Maybe something along those lines, yeah. I was also thinking that the way to go could be some visual thing (be it meaningful or abstract) that's shown during app startup so people see it all the time, and that differs per server, and that you can ask people to recognize for a password reset / “where is my account” process.

@julian @UlrikeHahn

"I mean, what do we expect to happen when people forget their server name?"

Speaking as someone who has actually provided tech support for this over the past 5 years, people can find the name of their server on the email they received when they signed up.

People cannot sign up without an email, and *they always receive an email with the name of their server on it*

This is not the massive barrier you are making it out to be. They can just check their email if they forget.

@FediTips @UlrikeHahn The one time someone asked me how to figure out which Mastodon server they used to sign up, and then actually stuck with the conversation, I asked them to look up the email, and they told me they don't keep emails going back far enough. 😄 But yeah, it can work in principle.

Approaches that might work better involve integrating a good instance picker into the signup process, or an onboarding flow that treats the initial instance as a "starter instance", a base for exploring that makes it easy to move to another instance. Realistically though it's not clearly how likely it is that Mastodon gGmbH will prioritize the work that's needed to support either of these -- which isn't an argument against pushing for them, just that we should be looking for other alternatives as well.

In general it seems to me that might be better to focus our efforts in terms of making it easier to join communities in fedi as a whole, not just Mastodon. For many people something other than a Mastodon-based instance may well be a better choice. Of course that still leaves the problem of people who search for "mastodon", or have read an article about Mastodon and followed the links to either the Mastodon app or joinmastodon ... but I don't know how to address those without Mastodon gGmbH's cooperation,

@julian @FediTips @UlrikeHahn

@FediTips I appreciate that! No hard feelings. 🙂 Feel free to let me know if I overstepped anywhere.

I think the passion to find a solution is appreciated, and few people here have put more personal energy into it than you.

@riverpunk

@riverpunk @julian @andypiper

People learn stuff when they find it useful. My granny knew dozens of phone numbers off by heart because she used them regularly. How many people today know a single phone number off by heart?

If people get used to servers, they will remember them.

If you never ever expose people to servers, they will never even have a chance to learn.

@FediTips @julian @andypiper That's very true. I mostly think I lean towards your approach. I only really mention the "easier for the user" approach because it might be useful to find a way to compromise if we want to get Mastodon devs on board with it.

I really feel like we could just add some basic infoboxes and warning labels letting people know that they need to pay attention to the server they're signed up through.

And maybe after that, some info on how to server hop if they would prefer to be somewhere else. That would handle the same problem from a different angle, getting a bunch of existing mastodon.social users to go to a smaller instance.

I made sure to upvote the issue pages though, I think that would be for the best of the network.

@julian @FediTips @UlrikeHahn
The notion of "server "is unknown for a random new user. How could they remember its name ?

@FediTips I feel like this exchange is unfolding less constructively than I had hoped. Did I come in too combative? I was hoping for more “what do we do about this together” than “your thoughts are worthless”.

I sure would love if I had any quant research to point to about the forgotten server issue, but I don't know if anyone did any.

I remain convinced that there are more fruitful paths to shrink m.s than to rotate the default server. It could be worth doing anyway, I'm not sure.

@FediTips @riverpunk @julian @andypiper I still remember my best friend's phone number. and I could dial it faster than my own. I got it in about half a second once. It was a wild day.

But I agree that remembering your server isn't too much to ask like remembering your email domain. Also it's only nature now that we have password managers. They're plentiful. They're easy to use. You can manage them manually or cloud based. Password managers are perfect for things like putting in your server

@AlexLloyd

I don't know if there are any easy technical ways to enforce an upper limit, but it would be very easy to have an upper limit on listings on websites/apps that recommend servers to join. That way the bigger servers wouldn't get as much publicity, while the smaller servers would get more publicity.

I've tried to do that on my server guide at https://fedi.garden where I only list servers below a certain size and then unlist them when they've grown larger than the limit.

@FediTips you do, I know, and you are awesome, and I haven't checked it in a while but thank you.

are any client apps funneling people to your site?

@FediTips also Mastodon could implement a service to try and discover your server address if you forgot it like Pixelfed has.

@FediTips i wonder how we balance this with the "average user" (yes, i'm looking at you, tech-illiterate aunt sally) not knowing what a server is, how to find one, or what choosing one entails.

i only bring this up as mastodon (the software) wishes to become a more widespread social platform/solution versus the competition, so this type of first-experience UX should be considered carefully

to be clear, i don't think we should push users towards mastodon.social – but how is that done elegantly?

@FediTips
It looks like you've been championing this issue for years now, but I didn't see any of the main people working on Mastodon address it. Is there a way you could get a direct response from them on why Mastodon.social (the instance they own) is the "default" instance on the app?

@Eeveecraft the reason they give for defaulting to dot social in the app is they claim it’s easier to guarantee a “good” mastodon experience for new users if they control the server they’re recommending they sign up for. They don’t want to take the time to vet what other servers are reliable to recommend. While I get their logic, I don’t agree with it. I know a lot of people have a hard time picking a reliable server on their own (it’s easier if you have friends already on an instance and you join them), and I’ve even moved servers a couple times because of reliability issues (I started this account on dot social before it was the default, transferred to a couple other masto servers before I moved to Firefish, which the flagship instance went down in flames, and I’m on my second misskey variant instance since). It takes time and effort to vet which servers are reliable with good moderation teams, and the mastodon team doesn’t want to put their resources there, regardless of if they’re right or wrong.
@FediTips

@deathkitten @FediTips

Paradoxically, by letting the instance they own balloon in size, they have to pour more and more resources into maintaining it.

So regardless, they have to spend more resources, and they chose to spend resources that's leading to the Fediverse being more centralized.

@Eeveecraft @deathkitten

Yup, it is concerning if some of the donations and grants given to Mastodon gGmbH are spent on centralising the Fediverse by funding mastodon.social.

@Eeveecraft

I am not one of the people who attacks Eugen personally, he's done more than anyone to popularise the Fediverse, we owe him. I don't agree with people who attack him.

But he doesn't really respond to criticism, and for some reason none of the others at Mastodon gGmbH respond about this issue either.

The only action Masto gGmbH has taken in response to my posts about this is banning me from trending on mastodon.social (that's why FediTips posts don't ever trend there any more).

@FediTips @Eeveecraft Well, damn. Blocking (or whatever it's called) you from Trending on Mastodon.social because you have a point of view that "there's more to Fediverse life than Mastondon.social" is petty. Especially since the point of the Fediverse is decentralization.

@FediTips @Eeveecraft To be clear, I'm not recommending, condoning, nor would I support, dogpiling on the moderators or instance admin(s) of Mastodon.social. That is not called for, nor acceptable.

@Still_Nimmy @FediTips @Eeveecraft I've been considering moving from mastodon.social for awhile, I just never could figure out out which server to switch to. I guess I should start looking more seriously now.

@ansonkennedy

If you just want one suggestion a very similar and equally reliable alternative large alternative would be mas.to

If you want a selection of good medium-sized servers to choose from, you can find some at https://fedi.garden all of which are human-curated and have to be compatible with certain requirements listed at https://fedi.garden/about-this-site/

@FediTips @ansonkennedy

What's your opinion of .world? I picked this cause someone I was interested in was here, but didn't give it any thought. It's absolutely default, and reliable. The "default" is bad cause it's only 500 character toot limit, but otherwise, it works well.

@lxskllr

I don't know much about it, but it is up to date on the latest version, it has a detailed published code of conduct, it has multiple staff, its admin has posted recently and it has been operating since 2022 so those are good signs.

Its about page is at https://mastodon.world/about

@Still_Nimmy @Eeveecraft

Oh yeah, neither would I, and I don't think it's the fault of moderators on mastodon.social.

I think this problem is due to the leadership at Mastodon gGmbH, and they are the only ones who need to respond about this.

@FediTips We need a separation of Mastodon the software from Mastodon the service provider, it's an awful confict of interest.
They have the resource no other instance has, so there is no pressure to add better moderation controls that appreciate and respect the federated nature of moderating non-flagship instances.

@doug

Yeah, there's too much power in one place:
-Main devs of most popular server software
-By far largest donations of any Fedi project
-Owners of by far largest server
-Owners of by far most used apps
-Owners of trademarks that let them control use of word "Mastodon" on social networks

...if they get majority of Fediverse users too, that would make a heck of a package for a takeover.

@Eeveecraft

Yeah, they should have transitioned it to promoting one rotating server from a pool of servers, and then it would have been just as easy for beginners but would have spread the growth out to stop it centralising.

They can still do this now, and I'm hopeful they see sense on this 🙂

@julian @FediTips @andypiper

One key might be to stop encouraging people to join barely-memorable servers with which they have no real-world affinity, and instead encourage people to launch their own servers for a group which they have a real connection to, like their employer, university, city, family, church, club, or similar.

I don't forget my work email address because I know where I work.

It's a lot harder but long-term retention will be better.

And actually I'd go farther and say it might be better to focus on community-led alternatives to commercial social networks in general -- not just fedi. For people looking for a US-focused, Black-centric microblogging experience, Blacksky might well be the best option today (and as Northsky becomes more real, that's likely to be a good option for a North American-focused 2SLGBTQIA+-centric microblogging experience). For people looking for a Palestinian-friendly photo/video-sharing app, Upscrolled might be a good option even though it's not decentralized.

@julian @FediTips @UlrikeHahn

@julian @FediTips
Is the sign-up email for a single software such as Mastodon predictable/regular enough that 80% of those cases could be solved by advising people to search for some text in their email?

Like if the default sign-up email contained "Mastodon" and when server admins customized it, there would naturally be a low chance they'd edit it radically enough to remove that word.

Or similarly, if a convention was established to include the word "fediverse", would that help?

/shrug/

@julian @FediTips @andypiper it may be easier if you can connect an instance to existing user databases, like Google Workspace, Slack, or Discord.

@julian @FediTips
Hmmm... This is encouraging... My journey in a simple email search:

@noisytoot @FediTips People remember their email server because they have a connection to it, either because they picked it or because it's related to their employment etc.

This thread is about the suggestion to randomly assign people a server. Imagine when you signed up for your email, you got assigned some random pun-based domain out of a grab bag of dozens, and if you ever forget which one you're on then you can't log in anymore.

@thenexusofprivacy @FediTips @UlrikeHahn Yes, exactly on point. The best case scenario for the Fediverse is a rough alignment of servers with cohesive communities, because if the community matches the infrastructure, that's good for moderation, long-term stability, and the day-to-day experience of each individual. A default server can't provide that.

Ideally, everyone would join fedi by being invited to a well-moderated small-to-medium server by a friend.

@thenexusofprivacy @FediTips @UlrikeHahn I'm personally also quite intrigued by the idea of treating the default as a “tutorial server”. Video games manage to design sandbox areas that anyone can use to try out new toys, but that naturally get boring after a while unless you leave them and explore. I think trying to translate that concept to fedi servers could be fruitful, albeit difficult.

@virtuous_sloth @FediTips Yeah, I have a reply about this somewhere downthread. Searching up the email is a (high-friction but workable) individual solution if someone has forgotten their server and is willing to put a few minutes of effort into regaining access, it's not a good solution to the overall problem of people not remebering their server. At the very least it's a hassle each time.

@evan @FediTips @andypiper 100% for setting up small servers. The Fediverse is almost certainly best off with lots of fairly small and fairly socially cohesive servers.

There is, however, a mismatch between the suggestion to set up a server and the audience of people who have heard about Mastodon somewhere and are willing to download an app to give it a shot. We're veering close to the “the Fediverse is built for tech-savvy people” kind of elitism that I'm personally hoping we can grow out of.

@UlrikeHahn' has also brought up the idea of something similar to a "tutorial server" with limited functionality ... it's intriguing. one challenge is how to get enough interesting stuff there for people to decide it's worth exploring further. If it's just a tutorial that people have to go through to get to the next stage, then the risk is that unless folks are really really committed they're likely to lose interest.

@julian @FediTips

@thenexusofprivacy @UlrikeHahn @julian

"Rotating the default doesn't seem to me like it would address the :"good experience" aspect of the problem."

It's not about that at all, it's not about UI or UX.

The problem is about what happens to the network if it centralises. There are many important reasons why the Fediverse is decentralised: https://fedi.tips/why-is-the-fediverse-on-so-many-separate-servers/

All these reason get squashed if mastodon.social becomes over 50% of the network. The network would eventually "enshittify".

@julian @evan @andypiper

We need to give options for every kind of person who wants to join.

The option this thread is about is the kind of person who just wants to be told one server to sign up on, which is why the official apps and site currently say "sign up on mastodon.social".

All Masto gGmbH have to do is swap out mastodon.social and insert a server from a pool of reliable servers with equal or better track records.

That would then serve people who just want to be told one server.

@julian @virtuous_sloth

"Like if the default sign-up email contained "Mastodon" and when server admins customized it, there would naturally be a low chance they'd edit it radically enough to remove that word."

If you signed up to a Mastodon server, the email will contain the word "mastodon" even if the server is called something else.

"At the very least it's a hassle each time."

How often will people forget the name of their server?

@prunelier @julian @UlrikeHahn

The new user will learn, the same way they learn the integral features on Twitter or Tiktok or Instagram or whatever. They are always adding new features that people didn't know before, but people get used to them.

Servers are an integral part of why the Fediverse exists. Without them, the Fedi has no reason to exist at all. It's better to explain them instead of trying to centralise the network.

@julian @FediTips @andypiper I agree. I wonder if there's an onboarding flow that's like, "First, find out if you already have a server you can be a part of. Second, set up a server for a group you're in (either by hosting it yourself or getting one from a hosting provider). Lastly, try one of these..."

@noisytoot @julian

All they have to do is search all their email apps for the word "mastodon".

@evan @julian @andypiper

I run a site at https://growyourown.services to help and encourage non-technical people to create their own instances through managed hosting servers (which don't require any tech knowledge nowadays). It would be great if more people did this 🙂

But I'm not sure how this helps prevent centralisation caused by the "sign up with mastodon.social" button?

@julian @thenexusofprivacy @UlrikeHahn

"Ideally, everyone would join fedi by being invited to a well-moderated small-to-medium server by a friend."

That is what I am trying to encourage on https://fedi.garden for example, which are all well-moderated small-to-medium servers.

But the people who visit such sites aren't going to be the ones who click on "Sign up on mastodon.social". It's that button that is causing the problem this thread is about.

@julian @thenexusofprivacy @FediTips very much yes to the tutorial server idea (I think of it in terms of a paddling pool…) and the idea would very much be you get funnelled out if it once you’ve got a basic understanding of what choosing a server actually entails and to what extent it does (and doesn’t) matter.

(but if all we have is a default server then it would still be better they rotated, and default servers should also be exceptionally well moderated to qualify…)

@UlrikeHahn @julian @thenexusofprivacy

Currently they are presented with these two buttons:

"Sign up on mastodon.social"
"Pick another server"

Funnelling people into a tutorial they didn't ask for, and then forcing them to leave the server they asked to sign up on... it doesn't seem like a good idea? Surely it will confuse and annoy people?

If there is a tutorial make it appear on whatever server they choose and make it optional. You don't need everyone on one server to do tutorials.

@FediTips @julian @thenexusofprivacy Here is the reasoning behind a tutorial server/paddling pool. Servers matter, they do matter and they should matter and I think we all, in this discussion, agree that fedi’s strength is the ability to build around communities. So we should, I think, start by telling people that; not by telling them they need to make a choice that doesn’t matter when it does. If you already know what a server is you should of course have that option “Pick your own server”. The other option would be “Get started here and pick one later”.

@UlrikeHahn @julian @thenexusofprivacy

It's fine to have an optional tutorial, that would be a great resource.

“Pick another server”
“Get started here and pick one later”

These would be good options, but so many people say they just want to get started straight away without any picking, that they would demand a "Sign up on (XXXXX)" option too.

So this would give 3 options:

"Sign up on (featured rotating server from reliable pool)"
"Pick another server"
"Tutorial server to help you choose"

@FediTips @julian @thenexusofprivacy the problem with the tutorial being on the server is that it won’t fix the issue of inadvertently choosing a poorly moderated server and having a terrible experience as a result…

We're looking at things differently.

From my perspective, .social's steadily increasing percentage of Mastodon users is only part of the onboarding problem. Any improvements are going to require either a significant change of attitude from Mastodon gGmbH or a completely different way of thinking about onboarding -- or both! So I'm more interested in trying to address the issues more broadly.

You're separating it into different problems, which is also a valid way of looking at it ... but if the problems are interetwined, then there's no guarantee that the effort put into making progress on one problem gets things noticeably closer to an overall solution. My guess is that we have different intuitions about how decomposable the overall problem is.

@FediTips @UlrikeHahn @julian

We've got years of experience showing that people are more likely to have a good experience on smaller well-moderated instances than on large open-registration instances, let alone badly-moderated or unstable open-registration instances. So today's options are really

• sign up on (featured rotating instance from reliable pool), get going immediately, and probably not have a good experience.

• pick another open-registration instance, get going almost as quickly, but probably not have a good experience (and potentially have a very bad expereince). (This was basically the situation before they made .social the default)

• do the work to find a well-moderated smaller instance (recommendation from friend, fedi.garden, etc), wait for your application for registration to be accepted, and have a better chance of having a good experience.

One way to look at a "paddling pool" or "tutiorial server" is that it's a way for people to get going immediately with something on the path to finding the well-moderated smaller. It seems to me that could work if there's a way for it to be interesting enough (and well-moderated enough) that they feel that they're getting value and it's worth exploring more. Otherwise it's likely to be a barrier for most people. But then again, if people who go through it actually wind up getting to an instance that's a good match, it might still result in more people having a good experience. Hard to know!

@FediTips @UlrikeHahn @julian

That's a factor, although I think it starts even earlier. In the late 2022 wave, Mastodon got all the media attention; and, they continue to get all the media attention. So that's why people wind up wanting to "join mastodon" at which point they find either joinmastodon.org or the Mastodon app.

Given those dynamics, yeah, Mastodon gGmbH could rework joinmastodon.org and the Mastdon app so they're more "join the fediverse" . But they are Mastodon so (even though I think they'd be better off going that route) I can certainly see why they haven't done that.

@cmdr_nova @UlrikeHahn @julian @FediTips

p.p.s. Thanks for all the replies, they are interesting and thought-out but many seem to be addressing slightly different topics?

This particular problem of centralisation is being caused by a very specific thing: the "Sign up on mastodon.social" button on the official apps and official site.

If we want to stop this wave of centralisation, we need to focus on changing this button so that it no longer directs people to mastodon.social.

The Fediverse is unique and precious, let's not lose it.

@FediTips the irony: it is on GitHub which shared the demise of getting too big and central for something decentralized

@thenexusofprivacy
[snickering at "fediverse paddle pool"]

@FediTips @UlrikeHahn @julian

@thenexusofprivacy @FediTips @julian yes, the idea with the paddling pool/tutorial server was very much to acknowledge that people want to get going right away, they don’t want to watch some videos first..a learning by doing experience (just without the bad experiences…) that leads to an informed choice of server. Is it possible to build that? I don’t know, but there are lots of smart people here….