Scientists move to Bluesky, transitioning away from X and Meta platforms
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But we did leave...
...about a decade too late.
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- No "starter kits" which are just positive-feedback loops for popular accounts
- No "algorithm" which promotes popularity or engagement over quality or relevance
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For a long time now, the entry point to mastodon (joinmastodon.org) has had the default option as being "join mastodon.social", with an option to choose a different server delegated to a secondary button. This compares to bsky, which shows you a dropdown of servers to choose from, defaulting to "bluesky social".
It's a tiny difference in UI; both have a default and offer an alternative. Why do people say it's difficult on mastodon, while bluesky users are apparently not confused by the same option? Even if the option on bsky is basically a joke so far.
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This isn't good, though. The whole point of the Fediverse is to be a decentralized network. If we push everyone to a single server, we're centralizing the network!
This comes with added expenses for the maintainers, for one, and increases privacy and data-protection concerns as well.
Also, Mastodon actually already funnels people towards .social, though they don't push it too hard. Check out joinmastodon.org and see for yourself.
IMO, the solution needs to be something like a server auto-selector, where the location of the user is taken into account, weighted by the number of active users on the server, and using some sort of vetting system to try to avoid sending people to unmaintained servers (like only selecting servers with a certain degree of uptime and uptime stability).
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They might do the Twitter. Jack Dorsey has already left the board saying exactly that.
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They gotta get their news out to the masses, at least they choose something besides twitter.
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Why is it a problem? If a tool is good now, I'll use it now.
I don't stop myself from buying a new axe just because it'll break eventually, you know what I mean?
Although obviously if there was an axe that never would break, I'd buy that! But maybe there are trade-offs. Maybe the never-breaking axe has a complicated handle or something. I don't know, I'm trying my best with the axe analogy to describe Bluesky vs Mastodon.
Hopefully it's clear enough! -
I feel like scientists should move towards open source solutions ... I feel like most scientists are smart enough to launch a mastodon server, but well.
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It does have keyword blocking.
Not sure what nuclear block means but I can't think of any way a blocked person could be seen again. It even has above nuclear blocking where you block their entire server.
It has custom feeds but the implementation with lists is very fiddly and I wish it would be improved.
There is a trending posts section but I think you want a personalised discover feed? Which will never happen of course.
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This one is so important. After a year my mastodon feed is perfectly tailored for me. When I open it I enjoy my time there and the posts I see. I can leave whenever I want, and without a feel of rage or anxiety. But the most important part is that I don't feel the compulsive need to open it every other second. It's to liberating in contrast with the algorithm led manipulation.
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Bluesky also has the option of doing this, or not.
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I think there's a fairly serious problem for large accounts on mastodon but I will never have one so I can't quite understand it myself.
Something like dealing with replies / scolds without spending all day blocking is too hard.
It doesn't help that "no algorithm" means "show first reply at the top" so quick replies can dominate comments.The but I don't understand is why this is fine on blue sky. Is it just different users? I can't quite believe that but I can't see why blue sky would be less annoying.
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We can avoid it ever becoming shit when a wannabe dictator buys it if we make it impossible to sell: like mastodon and other federated options.
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Most scientists aren't allowed to do stuff like that, or purely just don't have the time.
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Never meet your heroes. If a scientist is human, they're as fallible as any other.
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There's no excuse for using Xittter in 2025.
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Look at Linux's popularity over the years. It is absolutely climbing. FOSS hasn't even peaked yet lol
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See you can be a really good scientist and not smart at the same time. Move to mastodon.
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Thanks for the update. Yes the recommended feed is personalized. It's optional. The main feed has no algorithm,, just who you follow.
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Cause the name is hard to remember.. I was trying to yesterday and the closest I could get is megatron
