{"id":5934,"date":"2022-11-24T15:47:56","date_gmt":"2022-11-24T20:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=5934"},"modified":"2022-11-24T15:47:58","modified_gmt":"2022-11-24T20:47:58","slug":"mastodon-almost-but-not-quite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2022\/11\/24\/mastodon-almost-but-not-quite\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastodon – Almost, but Not Quite"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I really wanted to like Mastodon – but unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be using it, and I’ll tell you why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re not familiar, here’s the quick version of “what is Mastodon?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mastodon is a decentralized social network, built upon the ActivityPub protocol and the idea of a “Fediverse.” Instead of there being one single, centralized social media platform, you have a whole bunch of individual ones that are all interconnected with one another – much like how the web & Internet work, actually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of the interconnection, Mastodon can work somewhat like a single social media platform (where you see everyone’s posts and activity), or you can use it more like a private server, where you only see activity & posts from users on the same instance as you. Or you can go anywhere in between. And each instance of Mastodon is free to run the service however they like – if they want to run a child-friendly site, they can do that, or if they want to only allow discussion on a single specific topic, they can do that too. If they want to interconnect with every other instance, they can, or they can choose to only connect with a few other select instances. If they want to have posts last for years, they can do that, or they can have posts get deleted after just a few days. Total freedom of choice!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sounds great, right? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, as with most things, it is only great in theory<\/em>. In practice, it leads to confusion over what instance to join and terrible fragmentation as some instances connect (or “federate”) with others – or don’t – at the whims of whoever runs that instance. And, of course, unless your instance is backed by someone trustworthy with the resources needed to run it long term, it might end up suddenly going away – taking all your posts with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This last scenario is exactly what happened to me the first time I tried to use Mastodon. I joined a particular instance which was a bit on the small side, and one day it just up and disappeared, with no warning. It was just gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Needless to say this left a bad taste in my mouth for the service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But beyond even that, the concept of decentralized instances all run with their own rules and such and no central authority makes Mastodon somewhat like the Articles of Confederation<\/a> of social media – and I predict it will work out about as well as they did (which is to say, not at all).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, this is just my opinion, and I could be totally wrong and Mastodon could go on to be the Next Big Thing. And I’m not totally against it or anything – I just don’t have confidence in its long term ability to last. But I guess we’ll see! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really wanted to like Mastodon – but unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be using it, and I’ll tell you why. If you’re not familiar, here’s the quick version of “what is Mastodon?” Mastodon is a decentralized social network, built upon the ActivityPub protocol and the idea of a “Fediverse.” Instead of there being one… Continue reading Mastodon – Almost, but Not Quite<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[203,199],"tags":[504,100,473],"class_list":["post-5934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet-technology","category-my-opinion","tag-mastodon","tag-opinion","tag-social-media","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-1xI","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6199,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2026\/01\/30\/self-hosting-a-mastodon-instance\/","url_meta":{"origin":5934,"position":0},"title":"Self-Hosting a Mastodon Instance","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 30, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"My experience thus far with running a single-user Mastodon instance under my own domain name.","rel":"","context":"In "Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Internet","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/internet-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"StarKeith social","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2025\/01\/starkeith-social.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2025\/01\/starkeith-social.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2025\/01\/starkeith-social.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2025\/01\/starkeith-social.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2025\/01\/starkeith-social.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2025\/01\/starkeith-social.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5972,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2022\/12\/14\/problems-remain-with-mastodon\/","url_meta":{"origin":5934,"position":1},"title":"Problems remain with Mastodon","author":"Keith Survell","date":"December 14, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, I'm talking about Mastodon again. After the last installment of my Mastodon Saga - where I found that it wasn't just a database issue that erased my account, but rather a RAID failure - I held out hope that my account and prior posts (and most importantly, follower lists)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Internet","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/internet-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6207,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/01\/22\/centralized-social-media-is-unsustainable\/","url_meta":{"origin":5934,"position":2},"title":"Centralized Social Media is Unsustainable","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 22, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Wherein I unironically use the phrase \"back in my day\" to talk about social media.","rel":"","context":"In "Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Internet","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/internet-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5955,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2022\/12\/08\/burned-by-mastodon-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":5934,"position":3},"title":"Burned by Mastodon, AGAIN","author":"Keith Survell","date":"December 8, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Following on the heels of my last post about Mastodon, unfortunately it seems I've been burned again. Much like how when I first tried Mastodon a few years ago and the instance I joined just up and vanished without warning, today I tried to log on and found that my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Internet","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/internet-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2022\/12\/mastodon-not-found.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2022\/12\/mastodon-not-found.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2022\/12\/mastodon-not-found.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2022\/12\/mastodon-not-found.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2022\/12\/mastodon-not-found.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2022\/12\/mastodon-not-found.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6013,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2023\/01\/04\/keiths-belated-guide-to-mastodon-for-twitter-exiles\/","url_meta":{"origin":5934,"position":4},"title":"Keith’s Belated Guide to Mastodon (for Twitter Exiles)","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 4, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"There are a ton of \"what is Mastodon\" or \"getting started with Mastodon\" or \"what is this Mastodon thing, really?\" articles out there already, but this is my blog and I wanted to write my own guide, so here we are. Let's go! What isn't Mastodon Mastodon isn't Twitter. Let's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Internet","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/internet-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5963,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2022\/12\/10\/the-mastodon-saga-continues\/","url_meta":{"origin":5934,"position":5},"title":"The Mastodon Saga Continues","author":"Keith Survell","date":"December 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Following up on my last post about being burned by Mastodon (again), I ended up re-creating my account with the same name on that server. As more details became known, it seems there was a RAID failure - so my account going missing was at least somewhat understandable. This is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Internet","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/internet-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5934"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5936,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5934\/revisions\/5936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}