Here's an idea I'm playing with: a semi-customizable fediverse invitation page.
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@stefan
The page looks beautiful.But it seems to cater to a very narrow slice of people. That’s the number 1 problem with the Fediverse, in my opinion. The appeal is very narrow. And that means the friction is too high for “normies” to widely adopt it.
@rob Thank you!
Ah, my goal is to appeal to "normies", actually, so it sounds like I'm still way off.
My thinking is: how can I simplify the onboarding? Well, whoever wants to share this page will pick a server for their audience, that's the major hurdle in joining.
Then maybe highlight 2-3 apps. (4 in this demo looks visually the best, but maybe that's already too much?)
And then just a few links to help find people to follow.
How do you think I can improve this?
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@rob Thank you!
Ah, my goal is to appeal to "normies", actually, so it sounds like I'm still way off.
My thinking is: how can I simplify the onboarding? Well, whoever wants to share this page will pick a server for their audience, that's the major hurdle in joining.
Then maybe highlight 2-3 apps. (4 in this demo looks visually the best, but maybe that's already too much?)
And then just a few links to help find people to follow.
How do you think I can improve this?
@rob Or is that a more general problem with the fediverse, and not something that can be addressed during onboarding?
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@rob Or is that a more general problem with the fediverse, and not something that can be addressed during onboarding?
The first thing that jumps out is that you explain The Fediverse. No other platform describes itself that way. You don’t go to Meta or Google and read about the benefits of the underpinning technology. Both of these companies have multiple stacks that talk to each other.
People don’t use platforms because of the underlying technology. For normies, focus on one platform at a time (Mastodon, Pixelfed, Loops). Why even bring up The Fediverse if your page focus is on Mastodon?
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The first thing that jumps out is that you explain The Fediverse. No other platform describes itself that way. You don’t go to Meta or Google and read about the benefits of the underpinning technology. Both of these companies have multiple stacks that talk to each other.
People don’t use platforms because of the underlying technology. For normies, focus on one platform at a time (Mastodon, Pixelfed, Loops). Why even bring up The Fediverse if your page focus is on Mastodon?
@stefan
The Fediverse is already confusing enough.I host my own instance (as do you), so I have some technical chops. I still remember on day zero trying to follow someone. It took me weeks for it to be natural. But I still found myself Googling how to follow someone a few weeks in.
So don’t confuse people further with talk of other platforms. That’s something they can learn later.
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@stefan
The Fediverse is already confusing enough.I host my own instance (as do you), so I have some technical chops. I still remember on day zero trying to follow someone. It took me weeks for it to be natural. But I still found myself Googling how to follow someone a few weeks in.
So don’t confuse people further with talk of other platforms. That’s something they can learn later.
@stefan
The majority of people are neither BLM nor LBGTQ+ and therefore will not feel welcomed by this message.I’m not trying to throw shade on any group, but you have chosen a specific slice of humanity here.
Maybe that is intentional, but it won’t appeal to grandma in Wisconsin.
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@stefan
The majority of people are neither BLM nor LBGTQ+ and therefore will not feel welcomed by this message.I’m not trying to throw shade on any group, but you have chosen a specific slice of humanity here.
Maybe that is intentional, but it won’t appeal to grandma in Wisconsin.
@stefan
Believe it or not, a majority of people will not be comforted nor welcomed by this message. -
@stefan
The majority of people are neither BLM nor LBGTQ+ and therefore will not feel welcomed by this message.I’m not trying to throw shade on any group, but you have chosen a specific slice of humanity here.
Maybe that is intentional, but it won’t appeal to grandma in Wisconsin.
@rob Yes, I picked Hachyderm for the demo, but you can swap in any server based on who you're sharing the page with, eg.:
https://invite.jointhefediverse.net/?server=theforkiverse.com
And it defaults to mastodon.social:
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Here's an idea I'm playing with: a semi-customizable fediverse invitation page.
Example: https://invite.jointhefediverse.net/?server=hachyderm.io&apps=1,2,3,5
More about the project: http://stefanbohacek.com/project/fediverse-invitation
@stefan what APIs does a server need to implement to be compatible with this? I love the idea, but looks like it's focused on Mastodon and Mastodon likes. :D
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@stefan
The Fediverse is already confusing enough.I host my own instance (as do you), so I have some technical chops. I still remember on day zero trying to follow someone. It took me weeks for it to be natural. But I still found myself Googling how to follow someone a few weeks in.
So don’t confuse people further with talk of other platforms. That’s something they can learn later.
@rob So one confusion that still does come up regularly is people thinking that they need to sign up for each individual server.
I agree that getting into the details of how the fediverse works is not needed at the start, but this one thing definitely needs to be addressed.
Still, maybe the intro text can be further simplified, let me give that some more thought!
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@stefan
Believe it or not, a majority of people will not be comforted nor welcomed by this message.@stefan
This is beyond your control, but the pure number of apps that can be used to access Mastodon makes the situation confusing. I cannot speak to Android, but the app situation on iOS is dire.The Mastodon app on iOS is just a heap of stinking garbage. Now a person is going to download Mastodon and sign into Hachyderm? And then what? Follow the confusing, multistep process of accessing other servers to follow other people? On the other services you mentioned?
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@stefan what APIs does a server need to implement to be compatible with this? I love the idea, but looks like it's focused on Mastodon and Mastodon likes. :D
@mariusor The node-info endpoint should be sufficient!
And the page really is meant to be platform agnostic.
Eg. https://invite.jointhefediverse.net/?server=stereophonic.space&apps=6,8
(Not too sure if those apps are actually compatible with Pleroma, consider this a possible example.)
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@rob So one confusion that still does come up regularly is people thinking that they need to sign up for each individual server.
I agree that getting into the details of how the fediverse works is not needed at the start, but this one thing definitely needs to be addressed.
Still, maybe the intro text can be further simplified, let me give that some more thought!
@stefan
Why do I use software? I use it to interact with people like you. If a user has to think about the underlying tech, the friction becomes to great.Let me explain the dimensions a user has to think about when joining the Fediverse: platform, server/community, people to follow. Mastodon makes it *way worse* because much content is delivered by hashtag, but the implementation is half-assed.
Anyway, keep it simple: 1 server, 1 platform. Make discovery easier as you become a better user.
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@stefan
This is beyond your control, but the pure number of apps that can be used to access Mastodon makes the situation confusing. I cannot speak to Android, but the app situation on iOS is dire.The Mastodon app on iOS is just a heap of stinking garbage. Now a person is going to download Mastodon and sign into Hachyderm? And then what? Follow the confusing, multistep process of accessing other servers to follow other people? On the other services you mentioned?
@rob Well the idea is that whoever uses this page can curate which apps are shown, eg: https://invite.jointhefediverse.net/?apps=1,2 will only show the two official Mastodon ones.
But you are right about how sending someone to https://most-followed-mastodon-accounts.stefanhayden.com won't be very useful without explaining they will need to copy the handles and search for them on their server.
But this gave me an idea!
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@rob Well the idea is that whoever uses this page can curate which apps are shown, eg: https://invite.jointhefediverse.net/?apps=1,2 will only show the two official Mastodon ones.
But you are right about how sending someone to https://most-followed-mastodon-accounts.stefanhayden.com won't be very useful without explaining they will need to copy the handles and search for them on their server.
But this gave me an idea!
Hey @stefan@gardenstate.social, what do you think about passing a server parameter to your Mastodon Most Followed page, eg.: https://most-followed-mastodon-accounts.stefanhayden.com/?server=mastodon.social, and then updating the links so that they open on that server, making it easier to follow people?
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@stefan
Why do I use software? I use it to interact with people like you. If a user has to think about the underlying tech, the friction becomes to great.Let me explain the dimensions a user has to think about when joining the Fediverse: platform, server/community, people to follow. Mastodon makes it *way worse* because much content is delivered by hashtag, but the implementation is half-assed.
Anyway, keep it simple: 1 server, 1 platform. Make discovery easier as you become a better user.
@stefan
One of the biggest own goals of the Fediverse is to make people aware of servers. To me, your handle is just a user name. Why do I care if my server talks to your server? How is that different than DMing someone on another platform?Answer: It is different but users don’t care or want to know.
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Hey @stefan@gardenstate.social, what do you think about passing a server parameter to your Mastodon Most Followed page, eg.: https://most-followed-mastodon-accounts.stefanhayden.com/?server=mastodon.social, and then updating the links so that they open on that server, making it easier to follow people?
@stefan@stefanbohacek.online @rob I think it might work if you just pass the server hostname to the search query param. I can check when I'm at my desk
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@stefan@stefanbohacek.online @rob I think it might work if you just pass the server hostname to the search query param. I can check when I'm at my desk
@stefan@gardenstate.social Sorry, let me rephrase. Rather than trying to find popular accounts from my server, I would like to be able to open each profile as viewed from my server, so that I don't have to copy/paste the handle and search for it.
So, instead of linking to https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica
I could visit https://most-followed-mastodon-accounts.stefanhayden.com/?server=gardenstate.social
And the link on the page would be: https://gardenstate.social/@arstechnica@mastodon.social
Does that make sense?
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@stefan@gardenstate.social Sorry, let me rephrase. Rather than trying to find popular accounts from my server, I would like to be able to open each profile as viewed from my server, so that I don't have to copy/paste the handle and search for it.
So, instead of linking to https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica
I could visit https://most-followed-mastodon-accounts.stefanhayden.com/?server=gardenstate.social
And the link on the page would be: https://gardenstate.social/@arstechnica@mastodon.social
Does that make sense?
@stefan@gardenstate.social Not sure if this is too Mastodon-centric though. But it might be a good start!
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@stefan@gardenstate.social Sorry, let me rephrase. Rather than trying to find popular accounts from my server, I would like to be able to open each profile as viewed from my server, so that I don't have to copy/paste the handle and search for it.
So, instead of linking to https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica
I could visit https://most-followed-mastodon-accounts.stefanhayden.com/?server=gardenstate.social
And the link on the page would be: https://gardenstate.social/@arstechnica@mastodon.social
Does that make sense?
@stefan@stefanbohacek.online oh yeah I can.do that
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@stefan@stefanbohacek.online oh yeah I can.do that
@stefan@gardenstate.social Awesome, this will be super useful! Thank you!
It might be also worth exploring how this can be exposed to people visiting the page, eg, I've been thinking about adding a "put your server here" field on https://bots.stefanbohacek.com, for the same purpose.
I could reuse the sharing form that's already there, but that might be a bit confusing. Still trying to figure out what would make sense.
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@stefan thanks Stefan and great job again!
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@_elena I will also look into the badge colors, nice idea!
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@_elena Thank you so much for checking this out!
Really good points. I went ahead and updated Phanpy's description.
And also added iPhanpy, thank you for reminding me!
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Tomorrow, members of our team will be in Montreal, Canada for FediMTL! 🇨🇦
@saskia will be giving a talk on the Newsmast Foundation's work to grow the Social Web and provide digital space for communities and organisations. Especially our friends in Quebec, who we've partnered with to bring a dedicated @qlub app!
If you're in the area, we'd love to see you there 🧡
Learn more about FediMTL here: https://fedimtl.ca/
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@joel @mastoblaster I think I fixed it. Both notification relay side and app side. I'll publish an updated beta (with other fixes, too) later today.
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@robert @joel @FiLiS @mastoblaster Great, thanks! There are still some issues with some markdown contents, but it's almost there.
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@joel@tumfatig.net @FiLiS@mastodon.social @stefano@bsd.cafe @mastoblaster@mastoblaster.app I can confirm that #mastoblaster markdown rendering seems to be working. (Of course, more examples would be needed.)
