
Mastodon 2.7: Highlights from the changelog - Kye
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2019/01/mastodon-2.7/
======
sandov
One thing I didn't like when I tried Mastodon (and I'm talking about the web
client implementation here, not the underlying protocol) was that the feed
element was too thin and there was no way to increase its width without
resorting to _inspect element_ or grease-monkey scripts.

Mastodon thread:
[https://mastodon.social/@dsandoval/100137860645975194](https://mastodon.social/@dsandoval/100137860645975194)

Good part is that people actually replied to me, instead of the 0 interaction
I would have gotten on twitter.

~~~
kabacha
Mastodon has alternative front-ends, a lot of instances have:

* pleroma front/back-end alternative, e.g. [https://soteria.mastodon.host/](https://soteria.mastodon.host/)

* pinafore front-end, e.g. [https://pinafore.mastodon.host/](https://pinafore.mastodon.host/)

------
Kye
This is also the release that adds the foundation of support for follower
migration.

[https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/pull/9629](https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/pull/9629)

~~~
fermuch
This is such a great idea!

After reading the PR, there is one thing that is not clear to me: how can you
ensure an swarm of bad servers are not trying to DDOS a remote server? If a
bunch of servers create fake users, and some fake super users who everyone
follows, then the act of moving those super accounts is O(3) jobs for every
follower the super user has (as it says in the PR)

Wouldn't this attack be easily exploitable? Are there any other tools to
prevent these kinds of attacks? (apart from baning server domains)

~~~
yorwba
Although the receiving server needs to run (2n+m) jobs to migrate a super
account with n users on m servers (m <= n), which is 3n in the worst case, the
originating server also needs to run (n+m) jobs, for a maximum amplification
factor of 2 (when m=1). If servers really want to DDoS each other, they can
probably find a better method.

------
AsyncAwait
I really can't recommend Mastodon highly enough.

The interactions on there are just so much more organic than on Twitter. You
get to actually have discussions with people, instead of aiming for as much
snark as possible.

~~~
bdz
>You get to actually have discussions with people

Ofc. Mastodon by nature is an echo chamber. Choose your own enclosure and find
people who agree with you. The only difference that Mastodon is the first
where that's the main selling point

~~~
_red
The trope of "X is an echo-chamber" needs to die out. You say it like high-
trust communities are a bad thing.

All productive interest groups are that way by their nature (HN is that way
too). The opposite simply devolves into lowest common denominator
garbage...instagram models posing with their breakfast, twitter outrage-porn,
etc.

~~~
sp332
And in the bad old days of the internet, people wouldn't just pick one group
to be part of. You could have different personas on different sites and decide
how much to participate with different groups. This is harder to do with
Twitter and Facebook because they only run one instance. E.g. there's no
"fringe science" echo-chamber Twitter, but that means the fringe science
people just get thrown in with the rest of Twitter.

------
simplecomplex
Has identity been dealt with?

I have a domain, and I want my identity to be tied to my domain, regardless of
which mastadon server I’m using. I don’t want someone else in control of my
identity. I don’t want to lose my followers.

It’d be ideal if Mastadon supported something like IndieAuth. That way I could
control my identity while also using the same identity across mastodon
servers.

~~~
riffic
Self-host or use a managed host like [https://masto.host](https://masto.host)

~~~
simplecomplex
That shouldn't be necessary. I don't have to host my own email servers to use
my own domain. I've changed email providers 4 times and kept the same email
address. I've changed web hosts dozens of times, and kept the same address.

For me it's a non-starter.

~~~
riffic
You have completely overlooked the part of the statement advising you to use a
managed host.

What do you think your email and web providers are doing on your behalf?

~~~
detritus
My understanding is/was that if you decide to change managed host you then
still lose your formed identity - is this no longer the case?

~~~
daveid
If you decide to change your managed host, you take your domain name and
database with you, so outwardly, nothing changes and you lose nothing.

------
JCSato
Honestly, without a way to search content and not just people/hashtags, there
isn't an organic way for me to discover people talking about what I'm
interested in, so Mastodon just isn't useful out of the gate. It relies on
finding a niche community you're interested in out of the gate, and if I
wanted to go that route I'd just use Reddit.

~~~
Kye
I've never found anything like snouts.online on Reddit. Even /r/furry doesn't
come close. It's the Anthrocon or MFF of subreddits. Furry may be a niche, but
it's a _big_ niche. Mastodon has several furry-focused instances with their
own unique communities.

There are a lot of good subreddits, but the nature of the experience is
different from a Mastodon instance. And a Pleroma instance will also be
different because the choice of Pleroma over Mastodon is conscious.

Mastodon doesn't yet have communities centered around hashtags (like
#amwriting or #mbmbam, for example) like on Twitter, but it's getting there.

------
jeena
Interestingly, my first time updating to a new version (I just joined last
weekend) didn't go well:
[https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/9882](https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/9882)

I rolled back for now but I hope I'll be able to find out what causes this
syntax error somewhere deep in one of the modules which node uses to serve the
streaming API or something.

~~~
AsyncAwait
Are you deploying directly? I found the update experience much nicer when
using the Docker option.

~~~
jeena
I had it in docker first, but because I just have the smallest server on
Digital Ocean with 500 MB RAM and already running redis and Postgres, using
Docker made it obviously start complete new instances which would fill the RAM
and swap and make the load go up to 20. After reusing the already running
services and removing docker I could easily fit everything in the existing
RAM+swap and the load would go down to 0.15, that is why I decided not to use
docker, even if it is much nicer for deployment.

The smallest offering at Digital Ocean is $5/month, if I want to go up with
RAM it's additional $5 per GB of RAM, to get it running nicely in docker it
seems I'd need to pay 3 times the monthly fee of what I'm paying now.

------
gerdesj
"This repository has been archived by the owner. It is now read-only."
([https://github.com/tootsuite/documentation/blob/master/Runni...](https://github.com/tootsuite/documentation/blob/master/Running-
Mastodon/Production-guide.md))

So where is it?

~~~
daveid
[https://docs.joinmastodon.org/](https://docs.joinmastodon.org/)

Linked from the README in the repository you linked.

------
pard68
I want to try Mastadon, but after giving up all social media (besides some
private slack/irc/discord servers, hn, and reddit) I don't know if I want to
go back to it again.

But Mastadon does intrigue me.

~~~
gerdesj
You and me both (however I still have a FB account for some reason). I keep on
hearing about Mastadon but haven't dabbled.

I have access to quite a lot of hardware and internets ... right ... deploy VM
and let's have a play.

[https://github.com/tootsuite/documentation#running-
mastodon](https://github.com/tootsuite/documentation#running-mastodon)

~~~
AsyncAwait
I found the Docker option to be the best route, especially as far as updating
is concerned.

------
robin_reala
Can anyone recommend a high quality Mastodon client for iOS? I’d like to use
it a bit more, but always end up falling back to Twitter.

~~~
gilrain
Toot! is the one you want. It’s fully-featured and can compete with other
social network clients. It costs money, but it’s definitely a case of getting
what you pay for.

