Today's the last day of my Mastodon-exclusive testing week. I'm really, really glad I did this, and it felt much longer than seven days.
Reflections:
I didn't miss the birdsite at all, which surprised me. A few times, I opened the app/website out of habit, smiled about the login screen, and went reading my tootlines.
I spent more time on Mastodon than on an average birdsite day, because of all the exploring, experimenting, and discovering.
I feel significantly less informed about what's going on in the world. Birdsite was an excellent (bubble-filtered) news source for me.
On the other hand, I enjoyed the quietness. It was like a gift. I will miss it.
The current userbase feels very different. Everyone I interacted with was absolutely lovely, positive and open-minded, and was quick to offer help and support. I loved being in this diverse environment of atypical people.
On the technical side, everything worked much better than I expected. The web UI took some time getting used to, but eventually felt very usable. Tusky was adequate for browsing on a mobile device.
Things I enjoyed: The CW function, and how many people deploy them. The 500 character limit, creating space for deeper, more detailed thoughts and better conversations.
One of the things I liked best was that the boost/fav numbers are not displayed in the UI prominently. Mastodon feels like it's much more about the content and interactions, and not about earning Internet points.
I have to admit I took these numbers much more serious than I probably should have on the birdsite. The current Mastodon approach removes some of the envy and greed I felt.
It's striking how many good interactions/discussions I had here. Even though my network of follows/followers is smaller, the local and federated timelines lead to random people stumbling over my toots and contributing their thoughts. Brilliant.
It feels wonderful being able to create issues or even PRs for the Mastodon services. Make me more invested in the well-being of the platform as a whole.
I like how one's instance can give a feeling of home and belonging.
@blinry enjoy it before someone finds a way to ruin it :)