@thegibson mhm

Been going to bsky instead of my big server alt because sure bsky sucks but they also are doing a better job handling features, fixes, and moderation than Mastodon prime (and mastodon dot social)

I still like ActivityPub, but I don't think Mastodon or direct derivatives are my preferred path for that.

@thegibson Stuff that makes Eugen money/ego I assume.

@thegibson so are there any other projects showing promise? Preferably #activitypub based, with not just an eye on features but also moderation and privacy protection for its users. Mastodon (project) has definitely gotten too comfortable.

@thegibson Well. Shit. Now what?

@thegibson what "progress" does there need to be?

@thegibson it's an open source project, right?

@TheGibson I agree. Their stewardship has been very disappointing.

@feoh @TheGibson it's wild watching people get sucked into the exact same toxic patterns in Mastodon development which were present more than half a decade ago (!!) and acting like everything is new under the sun

@deutrino can you help us non-experts of Mastodon understand what your issues are?

@feoh @thegibson

@bobdobberson I guess if I had to pick an issue: putting up all the trappings of open source development and letting people exhaust themselves thinking they're contributing in e.g. github issues, when there's almost never an intention of engaging with any of it.

The Mastodon Network will be, for the most part, developed exactly how its creator intends, save for instances where he pisses off enough people that he can't stand the yelling, and caves on one or another UX issue. @feoh @TheGibson

@deutrino you're saying that if you develop a nice clean patch for Mastodon to respond to some of their issues, the developers that control the GitHub main project will not accept those patches?

Sounds like someone needs to fork it then, and just rebase from their upstream.

@feoh @thegibson

@bobdobberson and to be clear, I'm not necessarily against BDFL project organization.

it's just that Mastodon eats well-meaning people's energy. I suppose I'm saying the community management is not good. I can also see where some may say - if people want to conjecture in github issues til they're blue in the face, that's on them, devs don't owe anybody an audience especially without code.

it's not a great way to run a supposed grassroots social media platform project however. @feoh @TheGibson

@thegibson that's vague and sounds defeatist.

You're alluding to the fact that whatever fork is made of Mastodon, say WulyMmoth or some new hip thing, and the core dev team around that will eventually only work freely with other members of the core dev team, or those that wish to get closer to them?

Yeah, probably. Why is that seen as a bad thing?

@deutrino @feoh

@TheGibson I feel like I keep waking up in Westworld

@bobdobberson @feoh

@thegibson I am interested in seeing where the people who know enough go.

@crash @thegibson

We need to go where the furries are. They will lead us to paradise.

@lordbowlich @crash @thegibson 🤔 . o O ( remembers that a third of the furry community is still on Twitter, and another third is on Bluesky... )

** heavy sigh** why is it that when we get older this meme becomes more and more relevant?

It doesn't have to be Mastodon. The Fediverse has so many other projects to offer that are much more interesting and have more to offer. Including a steep learning curve, which is necessary.

Take a look at

• Friendica
• Misskey
• Hubzilla
• Diaspora
• and many other projects.