Here’s a report
<https://www.zdnet.com/article/i-tried-replacing-twitter-with-bluesky-threads-and-mastodon-heres-what-i-found/>
from someone who has tried alternative social-media networks to see if
any of them can be an acceptable substitute for X-formerly-Twitter.

It’s clear that Xwitter has become a cesspit, and is likely in a death
spiral. But it still isn’t quite a complete writeoff--yet.

Bluesky seems to be the most welcoming, at least to the writer.
Threads, from the same parent company as Facebook, is obviously much
bigger, but it didn’t seem to offer quite the same quality of
engagement; the non-customizable Home feed seems like a definite
downside.

Then there’s Mastodon, based on Open Source and the concept of the
“Fediverse”. It’s not quite as slick as the others, but perhaps its
geeky flavour, and the decentralization at its core, will appeal to
the type who like to hang out here on Usenet?

On 22.11.2024 06:47 Uhr Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> Then there’s Mastodon, based on Open Source and the concept of the
> “Fediverse”. It’s not quite as slick as the others, but perhaps its
> geeky flavour, and the decentralization at its core, will appeal to
> the type who like to hang out here on Usenet?

I didn't like Twitter in the past. Not the concept nor most people
there.
Most of the content was just BS.

I've tried fediverse, but I still don't like the concept of the short
messages, especially when people post long text on multiple posts.

Even when there are technical experts, there are also people that only
post their political BS (many of the left Twitter/X). I don't want to
waste my time with that.

I enjoy Usenet and I enjoy that it is text-only and not full of
pictures and memes.

--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to 1732254464muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

FWIW, I don't want/have a smart phone to use any of these "social media"
platforms. Why don't X/Twitter and the other platforms ever consider
supporting those of us that are willing to connect via a web interface to use
to their services without a phone?

David LaRue <huey.dll@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> FWIW, I don't want/have a smart phone to use any of these "social media"
> platforms. Why don't X/Twitter and the other platforms ever consider
> supporting those of us that are willing to connect via a web interface to use
> to their services without a phone?

Because a 'phone app' gives them inside access to a whole lot more data
useful to advertisers (interpret as: can be sold to advertisers for
money) than a webapp.

That's why *every* tom dick and harry company out there is so desperate
to get one to install their pet "phone app" for everything. The profit
from selling your info that an 'app' can see is significantly higher
than what a 'web browser' coughs up from the same device.

On Fri, 22 Nov 2024 17:22:56 -0000 (UTC), David LaRue wrote:

> Why don't X/Twitter and the other platforms ever consider
> supporting those of us that are willing to connect via a web interface
> to use to their services without a phone?

Twitter was, at least at one point, usable via a Web interface. Mastodon
and the rest of the Fediverse are, I think, primarily accessible that way.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

> On Fri, 22 Nov 2024 17:22:56 -0000 (UTC), David LaRue wrote:
>
>> Why don't X/Twitter and the other platforms ever consider
>> supporting those of us that are willing to connect via a web interface
>> to use to their services without a phone?
>
> Twitter was, at least at one point, usable via a Web interface. Mastodon
> and the rest of the Fediverse are, I think, primarily accessible that way.

Posts to various blogs and mailing lists I see frequently cite URLs to
Xitter sites -- x.com, twitter.com, t.co. I've never been able to
access them using my chosen browser (Seamonkey), even when js is
turned on. No helpful diagnostic from the site, just "something went
wrong, try again".

I finally got a cell phone because neither of us is able any longer to
walk home from just anywhere -- old, y'know? And opted for a smart
phone because it seemed stupid to pay through the nose for the service
and not have the advanced features available should I ever come to
want one of them. I hate the touch-screen GUI, inaccessibility of the
system, inability to write scripts that modify network interactions,
opacity of nearly everything etc. etc.

In any case, I'm not reading blogs or mail on the phone, just on a
Linux desktop and all those Xitter references are effectively null.

Ho hum.

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
>
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>
>> On Fri, 22 Nov 2024 17:22:56 -0000 (UTC), David LaRue wrote:
>>
>>> Why don't X/Twitter and the other platforms ever consider
>>> supporting those of us that are willing to connect via a web
>>> interface to use to their services without a phone?
>>
>> Twitter was, at least at one point, usable via a Web interface.
>> Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse are, I think, primarily
>> accessible that way.
>
> Posts to various blogs and mailing lists I see frequently cite URLs
> to Xitter sites -- x.com, twitter.com, t.co. I've never been able to
> access them using my chosen browser (Seamonkey), even when js is
> turned on. No helpful diagnostic from the site, just "something went
> wrong, try again".

Sometime after the sale to Musk, twitter changed to a "you must be
logged in to view this" mode -- however their error messages were never
updated to tell anyone that fact.

FWIW, for most "tweets" if you replace "twitter" in the URL with
"xcancel" (i.e. "twitter.com" -> "xcancel.com") then after some
"anti-robot" JS juggling, the 'tweet' will usually appear.

Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> wrote:

> I've tried fediverse, but I still don't like the concept of the short
> messages, especially when people post long text on multiple posts.

The nodes in the Fediverse are very diverse:

+ Message lengths range from 500 chars to unlimited.

+ Some nodes have no ways to format stuff, others can use simple text,
MarkDown and HTML to spice up things. "Simple text" unfortunately
isn't fit for code snippets. So they even got plain text wrong by
reflowing it and butchering indentation.

+ Some nodes can use hashtags, some cannot.
(Or has that changed meanwhile?)

And can you imagine sitting in an instance without usable markup and
limited to 500 chars and then huge beautifully formatted posts from
other instances fly by?

I think this feature inequality will doom the Fediverse in the long run.

> I enjoy Usenet and I enjoy that it is text-only

Plain text that does not get butchered on the fly is more useful than
even MarkDown in the Fediverse and I have never had a post rejected
because of its size.[0]

I clearly prefer Email and NNTP[1] over the new global noise. Hashtags
not being able to mimic newsgroups even when they are supported leaves
you with only some separated typically very noisy timelines. On small
instances the purely server local TL is kind of bearable like a small
forum, but big instances' local TLs aren't much different from the
global TL which imo is just noise. Even assuming hashtags would work on
all instances, hashtag hygiene is near to impossible to reach in large
crowds. So groups, rooms or however you may want to call them need
"solid walls" and I see no way ti get those there..

> and not full of pictures and memes.

I definitely have no problem with HTML and images in posts gated from
RSS or mailing lists to NNTP. Those origins have their own rules and
having all this side by side with Usenet in the same reader definitely
is nicer than needing to get used to an extra program, UI, keystrokes,
.... for each type of those.

____________

0: I've even disabled "beautifying" *b*, /i/, _ul_ in my newsreader to
not disturb tables and ASCII art and I expect every serious Usenet
user to use a monospaced font as default or to know how to toggle
their reader's rendering on the fly. This might be kept for an other
rant in some long winter night.

1: IMO: SMTP + NNTP = the original Fediverse

--
Sent from an EmacsOS app named GNUS.

On 22 Nov 2024 17:42:47 -0400, Mike Spencer wrote:

> Posts to various blogs and mailing lists I see frequently cite URLs to
> Xitter sites -- x.com, twitter.com, t.co. I've never been able to
> access them using my chosen browser (Seamonkey), even when js is turned
> on.

Yes, I come across those links, too. Sometimes they work, other times the
site wants me to sign in to see them.

> I finally got a cell phone because neither of us is able any longer to
> walk home from just anywhere -- old, y'know? And opted for a smart
> phone because it seemed stupid to pay through the nose for the service
> and not have the advanced features available should I ever come to want
> one of them. I hate the touch-screen GUI, inaccessibility of the
> system, inability to write scripts that modify network interactions,
> opacity of nearly everything etc. etc.

With Android you have alternative builds from source that give you more
control over your device. Though of course you lose the proprietary Google
services. (Which you might consider a feature, not a bug...)

On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 01:26:02 +0042, yeti wrote:

> I think this feature inequality will doom the Fediverse in the long run.

Or maybe the competition will spur the inferior sites to sharpen up their
act, or go extinct as users see what’s available from the alternatives.

> 1: IMO: SMTP + NNTP = the original Fediverse

Certainly the term “federation” applies to Usenet more so than to any of
the proprietary web-based services ...

David LaRue wrote:

>FWIW, I don't want/have a smart phone to use any of these "social media"
>platforms. Why don't X/Twitter and the other platforms ever consider
>supporting those of us that are willing to connect via a web interface to use
>to their services without a phone?

I have not had any issues on my PC, using Windows 10 and Firefox,
with Twitter or Facebook.

OTOH, Fitbit now barely has any functions still accessible on the
PC.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK
chris@cdixon.me.uk @ChrisJDixon1

Plant amazing Acers.

On Fri, 22 Nov 2024, Mike Spencer wrote:

>
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>
>> On Fri, 22 Nov 2024 17:22:56 -0000 (UTC), David LaRue wrote:
>>
>>> Why don't X/Twitter and the other platforms ever consider
>>> supporting those of us that are willing to connect via a web interface
>>> to use to their services without a phone?
>>
>> Twitter was, at least at one point, usable via a Web interface. Mastodon
>> and the rest of the Fediverse are, I think, primarily accessible that way.
>
> Posts to various blogs and mailing lists I see frequently cite URLs to
> Xitter sites -- x.com, twitter.com, t.co. I've never been able to
> access them using my chosen browser (Seamonkey), even when js is
> turned on. No helpful diagnostic from the site, just "something went
> wrong, try again".
>
> I finally got a cell phone because neither of us is able any longer to
> walk home from just anywhere -- old, y'know? And opted for a smart
> phone because it seemed stupid to pay through the nose for the service
> and not have the advanced features available should I ever come to
> want one of them. I hate the touch-screen GUI, inaccessibility of the
> system, inability to write scripts that modify network interactions,
> opacity of nearly everything etc. etc.
>
> In any case, I'm not reading blogs or mail on the phone, just on a
> Linux desktop and all those Xitter references are effectively null.
>
> Ho hum.

This is the truth! Whenever someone gives me a link to one of those sites
that does not work with firefox, I do not read it. It is sad that
businesslife forces me to have a chrome spy program installed on my
computer for work.

Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote at 23:24 this Friday (GMT):
> Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
>>
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>>
>>> On Fri, 22 Nov 2024 17:22:56 -0000 (UTC), David LaRue wrote:
>>>
>>>> Why don't X/Twitter and the other platforms ever consider
>>>> supporting those of us that are willing to connect via a web
>>>> interface to use to their services without a phone?
>>>
>>> Twitter was, at least at one point, usable via a Web interface.
>>> Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse are, I think, primarily
>>> accessible that way.
>>
>> Posts to various blogs and mailing lists I see frequently cite URLs
>> to Xitter sites -- x.com, twitter.com, t.co. I've never been able to
>> access them using my chosen browser (Seamonkey), even when js is
>> turned on. No helpful diagnostic from the site, just "something went
>> wrong, try again".
>
> Sometime after the sale to Musk, twitter changed to a "you must be
> logged in to view this" mode -- however their error messages were never
> updated to tell anyone that fact.
>
> FWIW, for most "tweets" if you replace "twitter" in the URL with
> "xcancel" (i.e. "twitter.com" -> "xcancel.com") then after some
> "anti-robot" JS juggling, the 'tweet' will usually appear.

Mirrors still exist I believe.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom