Midnight Pub

About Twitter, Mastodon and social media

~ahirusan

Hello guys and girls,

Barman un cup of green tea, please. Thank you.

I see the Twitter situation since several weeks and I ask some questions about it. I didn't post on Twitter since 2016, I only use my account to look other profiles (and since weeks/months, I use Nitter for this) and I keep it mostly in case if I have to reach a brand's after-sales service.

Should I leave Twitter and close my account?

Should I go to Mastodon or other Fediverse application? Which instance? A French instance, an English one, a general one, a specialist one? I don't know...

If I go to the Fediverse, should be active or should still passive like I am on Twitter today?

I am not here to expect really answer, but I want to share my thoughts about it.

Thank you.

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Replies

~pandion wrote:

Twitter Is a toxic place! You should run away and never look back!

Mastodon is much better place because there is no algorithm to keep you engaged.

But I feel it gets boring by people oversharing. I don't understand why people are posting what they are eating or what time they woke, to be seen by strangers.

Not that it bothers me, but there is a mentality that they should be posting even when they have nothing to say.

The main problem though, is that even if the platform is much more relaxed, I doubt that any fruitful discussion about any controversial issue can occur.

I actually am still not sure it can be done anywhere on line.

~inquiry wrote:

Do more of what increases happiness, and less of what doesn't?

I've been enjoying the heck out of Gopher and Gemini spaces the last couple months.

Found "Bombadillo" a fun way to experience both in a somewhat consistent way.

Funny story of frustration down that path, though. I wrote a Lua script that presents a list of Gopher/Gemini servers via "less -X", then prompts for one of them, and launches Bombadillo against the one I select. Love it.

But then the other day I accidentally hit 'q' while reading the post in someone's phlog (or was it gemlog? whatever...), bouncing me out of Bombadillo and back to the list displayed by "less -X"... and I've no idea what server that phlog/gemlog was in... no idea what link-following shit I did to get to it... so, ugh... I was sooooo looking forward to reading more of that author, and now I have to wait until I chance upon their phlog/gemlog again, because Bombadillo has no notion of a saved URL history.... I'll have to see if it has a setting to 'q' leads to an "Are you sure?" dialog instead of just immediate death... (just peeked its manpage... nopers....)

~contrarian wrote:

I have a Twitter account, but it's shadowbanned so I've never used Twitter much other than contacting people when it's one of the only ways to contact them.

Twitter is a lot more important than Instagram, but Bibliogram couldn't stay up so I wouldn't count on Nitter to forever either.

I've no interest in decentralization or the Fediverse so I couldn't tell you. Paul Graham being banned off Twitter for mentioning Mastodon was something that made headlines today.

I imagine the Fediverse is kind of the place where you have to be more active to get much out of it.

~tffb wrote:

hey ~ahirusan! :) Good to see you!

~bartender, perhaps an instant coffee as I wax anti-social-media momentarily

I'd advise, yes. You should close your Twitter account. Everyone can do as they wish in life, but I closed my Twitter in 2019 and it was the best thing I have done in the past several years. 10 years gone with that service, and now it is fading further into memory.

I ranted and then raved and then wrote and then reasoned away the stress and burden that service was. I see where I had gone wrong, I see why it was that way, and I see how I've changed, and adore the changes.

Again, people's choices are their own choices :)

And ~bartender, kudos on the nice pour of the instant brew

stay well!