Talk:Mastodon (social network)

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Tooter was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 1 January 2021 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Mastodon (social network). The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

On 28 November 2022, it was proposed that this article be moved from Mastodon (software) to Mastodon (social network). The result of the discussion was moved.

Approach Content Moderation Section

The section on content moderation feels like it presents a narrow view of what Mastodon's approach to content moderation looks like. There is no Global policy on Content Moderation like there is for Twitter. Each instance sets its own policy. It feels like having a single instance's policy as the only example gives the wrong impression.(Lucas(CA2) (talk) 04:13, 26 February 2023 (UTC))[reply]

Sure, the article uses mastodon.social as an example, but I would not add too many examples. Pointing that content policy is decided by server admins is enough imho. – K4rolB (talk) 10:19, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense. Because Mastodon is decentralized, I think that using only a single example of how one instance sets policy is a bad way to illustrate the decentralized nature of policy on Mastodon. I think either two distinctive examples or no examples would be more clear than giving only one instance. Lucas(CA2) (talk) 19:16, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Security Section

I added WP:ONESOURCE for the Security section because it is mainly a rewrite of one Ars Technica article. Maybe it could be expanded, even with recently published cites. P37307 (talk) 22:08, 13 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Comparison to Twitter" section to rewrite

The whole section should be scrapped or greately expanded. As it stands it only gives a very narrowed view of the differences while at the same time gatekeeping in a minor section some of the main design goals of Mastodon, which I am adding on the summary. Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 21:30, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would propose that further expansion of "comparison to Twitter" should derive from reliable sources that back up the presence of comparisons of Twitter to Mastodon. I also added a rewrite tag. I'll try to find some additional reliable sources for Mastodon to back up the topic, however it is also quite a contentious topic to dive into Mastodon information due to being a subject of contention, specifically of controversies of Elon Musk's aquisition of Twitter. I could contribute to the talk page to provide some ideas, maybe some sandboxing in my userspace to draft up the Mastodon article. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 02:48, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Title needs to be changed to "Mastodon (software)"

The title of this article needs to be changed to "Mastodon (software)". Mastodon is not a social network. It is a piece of software people can used to run their own server as part of a decentralised social network commonly known as "the fediverse", made up of thousands of servers running Mastodon and other ActivityPub software.

It might be relevant in this article to mention that newbies to the fediverse often refer to the social network as "Mastodon", despite the facts mentioned above. But having "social network" in the article title is misleading. Danylstrype (talk) 02:51, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is technically true, but :

It would not help navigation because, as you mention, people *think* of it as a social network.
It is clearly explained in the article, so there is no problem with leading people astray.
The nomenclature is not as clear as you suggest. The Fediverse article suggests that the Fediverse is an "is an ensemble of social networks" (of which Mastodon is one.) IMO, This usage seems pretty common.
The majority of sources describe it as a "social media platform"
It would go against previous consensus.

ApLundell (talk) 06:42, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ApLundell wouldn't renaming the page to Mastodon (social network platform) make the most sense then? RatherQueerDebator (talk) 09:14, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(as an alternative solution, one could add the "This page is about software, don't confuse with the Fediverse" template) RatherQueerDebator (talk) 09:21, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is indeed a rather fine solution. I suggest replacing the current about template with (plus minus) the following:

This doesn't strip Mastodon of its status as a standalone platform it evidently has, prevents the confusion, and shows the actual relationship between Mastodon and fedi - the former is a component of the latter. RatherQueerDebator (talk) 09:32, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ApLundell Then the fediverse article (which has been regularly mangled since I started it) also needs to be modified, because this too is a misleading description. The fediverse is a unified social network, made up of servers running compatible software packages (of which Mastodon is one). The fediverse is sometimes mis-described by newbies as "Mastodon", but once they learn they can use their Mastodon account to follow accounts on servers running FireFish, PixelFed, PeerTube etc they replace ""Mastodon" with "fediverse". My objection to the misnaming of this article stands. Danylstrype (talk) 21:56, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is approaching trying to right great wrongs. (Like "GNU/LINUX".)

Mastodon is almost invariably described by sources as a "network" or a "platform". Not entirely without justification.

If two "networks" or "platforms" overlap or connect, do we have to be reductionist and call them "software"?

I'm not sure that's 100% correct even if we chose to embrace pedantry over common-name rules, but it's certainly not the common convention.

* "Pixelfed is a free and open-source image sharing social network service.[3][4] "

* "PeerTube is a free and open-source, decentralized, ActivityPub federated video platform ..."

* "Diaspora (stylized as diaspora*) is a nonprofit, user-owned, distributed social network. ..."

* "Friendica (formerly Friendika, originally Mistpark) is a free and open-source software[5] distributed social network. It forms one part of the Fediverse, ..."

Beyond that, it's very deceptive to imply that the Fediverse is a single amorphous social network that just has different clients that connect to it. It is the platforms built on top of the Fediverse like Pixelfed, Peertube, and Mastodon, that give the fediverse meaning and structure.

Everything in tech is built on top of some other thing. I mean, ultimately, everything is built on top of IP, but it wouldn't be useful to insist that the WWW is "just software" and the only "network" is the Internet itself, although you could certainly look at it that way. ApLundell (talk) 16:39, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ApLundell the difference between GNU/Linux and Fedi/Mastodon is that the former is language purists, meanwhile the latter is a common mistake made by newbies. The former is controversial, the latter is simply a misunderstanding. RatherQueerDebator (talk) 20:49, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Stallman says the GNU/Linux debate is caused by ignorance, and I've certainly seen other people repeat the (false) assertion that people only prefer "Linux" because they don't understand the relationship between the kernel and the rest of the supporting software that makes up an operating system, so I think the comparison might be more apt than you think. But I don't insist on the comparison.

Anyway, I promise you: I do understand how the Fediverse works.

ApLundell (talk) 22:39, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Haven't said you don't - at least, didn't intend to. I'll clarify: what I meant by GNU/Linux being just language purists, is that there's no practical difference between Linux and GNU Linux to the end-user; But there's a difference between the Fediverse and Mastodon, as there there no mainstream non-GNU linux OSes, but there are mainstream non-Mastodon Fediverse platforms. RatherQueerDebator (talk) 09:21, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ApLundell"Beyond that, it's very deceptive to imply that the Fediverse is a single amorphous social network that just has different clients that connect to it."

I guess this depends what you mean by the phrase "social network". What you say is quite right where it's a medium, like the micro-posting medium of Mastodon, or the image-blogging feeds of PixelFed, or the video channels of PeerTube, or the forums of Lemmy/KBin. In this sense, the fediverse is made up of many subsidiary "social networks" and Mastodon is one.

But if Bob asks Alice "are you on this social network?", he's asking if he can find and interact with Alice there, even if they use different software. In this sense, everyone connecting to a server that speaks ActivityPub is part of one social network; commonly known as "the fediverse".

Can I suggest a compromise? Having two articles; one for Mastodon (software) and one for Mastodon (social network). The first one to cover the software, its history, the organisation that maintains it, and so on. The second to cover the informal usage of "Mastodon" for the social network made up of Mastodon servers, as a subset of the larger social network of AP servers, generally known as "the fediverse".

FWIW Using the term "fediverse" more expansively, to include social software using all federation protocols - older ones like XMPP, Matrix and IndieWeb and newer ones like ATProto (BlueSky) and Nostr - can only confuse people asking Bob's question above. Unless and until these are all bridged to each other and the AP network. But I acknowledge that some people are now using the term that way, for better or worse. Danylstrype (talk) 10:02, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that's a fine solution. It also solves another problem, that Mastodon isn't actually ActivityPub-compliant, which creates a Massive ridge in the Fediverse - ActivityPub purists "vs" Mastodon and Threads. RatherQueerDebator (talk) 13:15, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW Eugen Rochko, the founder of Mastodon, has said quite clearly on Mastodon's own blog; "The social network that is Mastodon isn’t really Mastodon. It’s bigger. It’s any piece of software that implements ActivityPub." @ApLundell "It would not help navigation because, as you mention, people *think* of it as a social network." This could be solved very easily by renaming the page "Mastodon (software)" to make it accurate, and then redirecting "Mastodon (social network)" to it.Danylstrype (talk) 15:46, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Change to Social networking service

As Distributed Social Network is no longer maintained I suggest to group it under Social networking service

Theking2 (talk) 20:26, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It shouldn't be unlinked from the distributed social network article just because it isn't updated anymore. If you feel as though it needs to be maintained again, you could try to update it yourself. LemurianPatriot (talk) 02:34, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]