Convener: narF (@narF@mstdn.ca)

Participants who chose to record their names here:

• @anca@mastodon.xyz
• @johannab@cosocial.ca, @johannab@pxlfd.ca (among others mostly @johannab" somewhere, she/her)
• Kathleen Chu (https://mastodon.social/@ke5arinh)
• @dcwalk@post.lurk.org, @dawn@cosocial.ca)
• Gilles Dutilh (@DePemig@social.coop)
• Jayne Samuel-Walker (@tcmuffin@toot.wales)
• Kyle R. Conway (@K_REY_C@social.coop)
• Elmine Wijnia (@elmine@deepthought.infullflow.net)
• Chris (@sturmsucht@mastodon.social)

Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1157457318886060

Notes

• What attracted you to this topic/room?

  • Johanna: over a long tech career, it has become clear to me that everything we wish to accomplish has to meet a need of humans, gathered in communities. Tech has struggled to develop while keeping humans centred in the work and the tools. Looking for more thoughts and insights on building people-first and community-first opportunities.

  • Anca: I am trying to do this w/ individuals and organizations and am looking for materials to use to get people moved over

  • Dawn: Recent workshop with artists and presentation to non-profits, want to learn what others are doing and maybe think about next steps.

    • Presentation for non-profits: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1SRTKRW-S3lC2TSMULyVtDTZ8buM5NU-VGW9267vPZ_k/edit?usp=sharing
    • Narrative form of that: https://blog.cosocial.ca/blog/why-its-time-to-move-your-organization-off-meta-and-x/
    • Workshop: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GDy5wTxksB8aeBIZinl5zNu5KNHp_bPX96EoONaSvjk/edit?tab=t.0

  • Kathleen: Learn more about ways to talk about Fediverse

Start just with a new account, don’t quit (Facebook/Twitter) yet. No need to rush. Especially when their friends are still on the platform

How narF does it:

• the participants of the workshop were already aware of toxicitiy of the big platforms

• at the beginning of the workshop asked: “why do you want to quit?”

  • some say they don’t want to quit, others already had quit, or tried mastodon and stopped using it because it was empty and weird

• question: “why do you think it is toxic?”

• turning point in the workshop was when it got emotional. Someone explained experiencing harassment on big social medias. That turned to be a key thing: talking about the emotions attached to the use of social media

• we were not talking about the differences between servers. We just said: pick one (this one serves us, probably serves you), unless they had a specific need.

• we asked them which network they wanted to leave. What do you use on that platform? And then we advised them on the alternative that is available to them that looks like what they want to quit

• arguments: no ads, no shareholders, friendly community, no nazis(!), less “commercial”, less “brands”,

  • Kyle: “surprisingly, there still are nice people on the internet!”

• Suggestions from Johanna: Ask them: “What do you use [facebook/twitter] for?”

  • We need to provide them with an alternative that fits their need.

• also: lowering expectiations, reminding them of the learning curve of a new software

• another important skill: handling and taking agency with the notifications (not getting sucked into draining interactions or falling in the addictive notifications trap)

  cosocial.ca a mastodon instance, gouverned as a co-op by it’s members self-funded and support itselfs non-profit incorporated legally, which means some paperwork

sfba.local is another self-supported, self-governed instance in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Jayne’s approach: signing up for 4 mastodon servers and get a sense for the atmosphere before deciding where to stay

Folks who are promoting “fediverse” to newcomers should look at Fediwall.social. It’s a free, and configurable on-the-fly, “window” into the public timelines on some of the bigger platforms

Why not turn to question towards what do you want, or what do you need?

Something that will be very important to expansion and engagement is when we achieve a federated identity, independent of server/service. I’d much rather be one @johannab than 8 different @johannabs @ some_server. That’s a big barrier for people’s understanding and adoption

Other ways of thinking about changing relationship with big tech: https://phiffer.org/starting-to-leave-meta/ https://buttondown.com/practicaltips/archive/how-to-grey-rock-meta/

A bonus of Tumblr: no-one can see how many followers you have. A big plus of MAstodon is that you can turn of the number of followers

Jayne: As I raised in a previous chat… “I think that a big issue with Mastodon gaining traction vs traditional SM is via businesses, public sector, and educational establishments, as well as individual users.

Business, public sector organisations, and academic audiences are still mostly broadcasting in trad SM because that’s where their audiences engage with them. What are everyone’s thoughts on encouraging businesses, etc. to establish a presence on Mastodon as well as traditional SM and to eventually disengage with traditional SM?”