Scratch marks

A friend who just joined Mastodon asked what they can do there that they couldn't on Twitter. Here's what I answered:

You can talk to people in other places that aren't (just) about furries. You can talk to services that aren't like Twitter. You can use any client you want forever, without fear that the platform will start banning them.

You can trust that moderators genuinely care about this place and listen to people. You can support them directly, knowing they'll understand if you lack the means. You can be free of ads, induced rage and other manipulation.

Social media isn't just about features. Corporations want you to think it is, so you'll keep buying the latest shiny nothings they're selling this week. Don't fall into that trap. Why are you here in the first place?

We need very little to be happy. We do, however, need the right things for it. And as of late everyone's trying to sell us the stuff they want to sell, with no concern for... just about anything else.

Push back.

So, after 24h spent here, I have a better idea of how things work, and there's even more to like than it's possible to spot from afar:

• Instead of likes or favorites there are memories, that we're expected to tag and label. That encourages thoughtfulness.
• Cut tags have an end, so they can be in the middle of a post and you can have more than one per post.
• People actually know about cut tags and use them liberally for a change.
• Technically-minded people can pop the hood open and do a lot of advanced stuff if they like.
• The entire website is incredibly lightweight. See below, but still, it matters.

More generally, Dreamwidth dares to be different, and that's awesome. You'll say it's because the ancient codebase solidified before modern conventions. All right then. Let's just say everything old is new again and leave it at that.