this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2024
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People like to pretend Mastodon is confusing
Mastodon is confusing mostly because it doesn't help you in any way, it just sits there and goes "you have no feeds". Well what am I supposed to do about that?
There doesn't seem to be a "discover" feature so you have to just magically know the usernames people already on the platform and then add them.
This is at the top of all of the mastodon servers I have an account on. If someone lacks the curiosity to click the word explore, then that is on them, not on the tech.
The cries of every dev throughout programming history. Why are the users so stupid?
But the thing is, uses are stupid. People get confused if you put "sign in" instead of "log in'. If lots of people think that Mastodon is confusing then Mastodon is confusing. The consensus cannot be wrong. You might disagree with it but it cannot be wrong.
It requires a UX overhaul by someone who actually understands UX and researches it. I used to do UX as my job specialization and trust me everyone thinks it's easy and it isn't.
It isn't a consensus, though. If it were, nobody would be debating it.
Consensus doesn't require everyone in the world to agree it just requires the majority to agree and clearly the majority do otherwise the comment that it's confusing would not have been made.
It's not up for debate, people find it confusing.
An overwhelming majority, yes. Do you a have a survey or study that demonstrates this?
This makes no sense. Anybody can make any comment. Just because I say a thing doesn't mean that the majority agrees with me.
I actually don't disagree much about the Dev/UX parts of your comment. But you should take note that I was replying to the statement:
There is a discover people feature on my app at least.
I also kind of like it not to be bombarded with a useless algorithm just so i can doomscroll more. If you curate your feed with nice people and hashtags you get lots of traffic and if that gets too much you just make lists of topics within them.
I'm pretty sure at least when I started using Twitter that there was a kind of what are you interested in questionnaire. You'd fill that out and it'll give you a list of people you might be interested in you then select the ones you wanted.
Is it's a bit difficult to work out how you're supposed to start
Ah well afaik there is no such thing but i started looking for hashtags of my hobbies and found some nice profiles.
After you follow a few of them you can look into the recommended tab and will see quite a few similar people.
Someone here also told me about LisaMelton. She will throw many cool things into your timeline if you follow her.
Pretend? I'm a computer nerd and I put off signing up for Mastodon for months because of how complicated it is. I completely understand why normies nope the hell off.
What people don't understand is that you're the algorithm on mastodon. You're doing the work.
I'm on it and it's actually my best experience on social media for a long long time. People are nice and discussions aren't toxic like on others. But, it comes with the cost to be the algorithm.
Yeah once you're on it it's pretty great, although still a bit confusing with how the federation works. But learning what you should think about when choosing an instance, benefits of niche and general instances, big and small instances, what to do if you end up regretting your choice, how to find and add your friends and if they're on an instance that federates with yours or not, learning about Mastodon privacy when it comes to posts and "DMs", instance security etc etc etc. It's a lot.
Im an idiotic old man who can barely repair my PC anymore and it was very easy to make an account here and on mastodon. Dunno what people are on about.
It's not creating the account that is the problem. It's learning what you should know about the instance you choose, then choosing an instance, and understanding how the federation of posts work. Etc.
The downvotes on this are just strange. What impetus could there be for continuing to push the narrative that mastodon or lemmy are 'difficult' to sign up for and use? My wife(46) and mother(67), who are both technically impaired, signed up on the same day I did...
The process is so simple: All we did was google 'mastodon canada' and 'lemmy canada,' Then signed up for mstdn.ca and lemmy.ca.
Next steps? Nothing different than any other social site... Fill out the profile (like any other site) start looking for people and tags to follow (like any other site) and then bookmark the main page (like any other site).
This is ridiculous. Please turn in your nerd card.
More like people like to act smug and pretend it isn't.
I found it and Lemmy frustrating to get started tbh. Besides the flagship instances early on finding a server I could actually join was a lot of research and trial and error.