Fwd: [projectvrm] Mastodon

["Groves, Steven" < >]

Joined as stevengroves@mastedon.cloud

Trying to get my brain wrapped around this. 

"Mastodon is a free, open-source social network. A decentralized alternative to commercial platforms, it avoids the risks of a single company monopolizing your communication. Pick a server that you trust — whichever you choose, you can interact with everyone else. Anyone can run their own Mastodon instance and participate in the social network seamlessly."

Thoughts - 

• The price is right - what's the monetization? Is there one stated yet?
• How would we come to understand the trustability of the provider, unless a current provider we DO trust opens an instance, then it's YASS (Yet Another Social Site) I can ignore.
  
• Anyone can run their own instance. Is security somehow baked in with uncrackable technology? 
  
• How is my data any more secure with Mastedon.Cloud vs. Mastedon.Social?
  
• It's not seamless (yet - give them some more time). I had / have problems following someone on another server it seems.
  
• I noticed the 'Federated' stream includes a lot of foreign characters - not trying to suggest there should not be, but how do I find my homeys? Engagement goes way up when a user can read the conversation.
  

Off to see if I can find any answers to share back...

On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 9:27 AM, Steve Olshansky < " target="_blank"> > wrote:

There was a typo in my mail, sorry, it is mastodon.cloud with an “o” not an “a.”

I am finding it challenging to find answers to simple questions by searching, so trial and error so far.

• These don’t seem to be routable e-mail addresses, at least upon my testing so far, which does not surprise me. Have any of you found otherwise? Thus I find it unfortunate that the handles look like e-mail addresses. So I wonder if steveo@mastadon is sufficient to share with others?

• When I login to mastodon.cloud and do a search on any of your handles they turn up due to the federated aspect, and so far I am gathering that handles are unique across all instances - so I am and will be the only @steveo. Is this right?

Looking at a few instances at random and viewing “about this instance” I see some things I find not optimal:
- federation whitelists vary by instance
- each instance has its own policies as to what they deem acceptable, thus if I register with an instance they may at any time censor or delete my account at their whim, apparently. Also I see some that claim that although they are providing the service free and covering hosting costs, they reserve the right to come back later and try to raise $. I wonder if this could extend to deciding later to charge for accounts, leaving account-holders in a bad position.

I know these are very early days and I am approaching this as an experiment.

Thanks-
Steve

--
Steve Olshansky
Internet Technology Program Manager
Internet Society
www.internetsociety.org

On 13 Apr 2017, at 17:44, John Philpin wrote:

thought i would update where i have got to ...

I am

jgphilpin@mastodon.network

i have successfully followed

windley@mastodon.cloud
" target="_blank">

i have tried and not had success with

steveo@mastadon.cloud

/J

On Apr 13, 2017, at 2:06 PM, Iain Henderson " target="_blank"> wrote:

I think I am " target="_blank"> " target="_blank">

On 13 Apr 2017, at 16:55, Doc Searls < " target="_blank"> <mailto: " target="_blank"> >> wrote:

" target="_blank"> " target="_blank">

--

--

Socially Yours, 

Steven Groves

ProRelevant Marketing Solutions

602.903.1010 - Charlotte

" target="_blank">

ProRelevant Online -   

--

Socially Yours, 

Steven Groves

" target="_blank">

602.903.1010