[BUG] App onboarding is directing new users to join mastodon.social by default

[FediVideos]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Current Behavior

With the current setup, the app strongly implies users should just join mastodon.social, with a harder-to-read button below it saying "pick your own server".

Most new users will not bother clicking "pick your own server", they probably won't even understand what it means or think about it at all. (Also, from the way it's phrased in English, if they do read the button they may think it only applies to people who own their own servers.)

New users are already likely to join through the app, and the current onboarding will probably make them join mastodon.social. In a future signup wave, on current numbers mastodon.social's further growth could well give it a majority of members, which is a threat to the federated network as a whole.

Expected Behavior

The app should prompt people to choose a server without favouring one specific server.

If people have difficulty with the concept of choosing a server, there should be better handholding, wizards etc. Introducing them to the concept of choice is really important and fundamental for the survival of the federated network.

Part of the point of this app is to get people introduced to how decentralisation works! It's not supposed to be about growth at any cost, it's supposed to be about sustainable responsible growth through decentralisation.

If you absolutely have to have a single signup button, a much better alternative would be to rotate which server is promoted, with servers promoted that have a proven track record (maybe 1+ year in existence?) and adherence to the Mastodon Covenant, and of course only with the consent of the server's owner.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Install the official app
2. Look at the signup screen from the POV of a user who knows nothing

Environment

- Device: iPhone
- OS: Any
- Version: Current

Anything else?

Please don't close this as "not a bug"!

This isn't a feature request either. The new onboarding is a danger to the network's existence, not at the code level but at the systemic level.

Having the most popular method for joining the Fediverse direct people to a single server that is already the biggest by far will lead to many people bypassing federation altogether and just going for centralisation. If that happens, the developers of Mastodon are likely to prioritise internal features rather than federated ones. Even worse, the owner of mastodon.social is likely to get takeover bids which will increase in size as it grows.

I am assuming this is not what the developers of Mastodon want? As the entire point of Mastodon is to be decentralised?

Yes, tellilng people to join mastodon.social will probably lead to more growth, but it will be the wrong kind of growth. It will be the growth of a centralised social network rather than a decentralised network.

Mastodon.social just passed 1 million registered users, out of a Mastodon network total of 7-11 million (depending which counting method you trust). A new wave of similar size or bigger could send millions of new users to mastodon.social without sending them to other servers. This could quickly give mastodon.social a majority of Mastodon and the Fediverse.

Any server with a majority of users will inevitably receive takeover offers from commercial companies and VCs. The more it grows, the larger those offers will become. If mastodon.social is taken over by a for-profit, they will probably hate the idea of federation as it just helps what they see as competitors on other servers. A commercial takeover of a majority server would probably take that server's members out of the federated network, because federation would no longer be in the interests of that server's new for-profit owners.

Don't promote one server like this. It will ruin all the years of hard work people have put in to supporting Mastodon and help it grow.

[nclm]

This seem to be where that was introduced: #1005

[expertmanofficial]

Supporting this, if that continues, that will suck.

[gunchleoc]

If you absolutely have to have a single signup button, a much better alternative would be to rotate which server is promoted, with servers promoted that have a proven track record (maybe 1+ year in existence?) and adherence to the Mastodon Covenant, and of course only with the consent of the server's owner.

How about a picking a server at random from a list of curated general-purpose servers instead? This should also spread the load around when we get another big sign-up wave.

[edwardp3]

I use the Android app and am in full agreement. Please offer a scrolling list, instead. Thank you.

[crispinb]

How about a picking a server at random from a list of curated general-purpose servers instead? This should also spread the load around when we get another big sign-up wave.

There could be two buttons. The most prominent one would be "Pick a Mastodon server/instance" ("my own" is not helpful wording - it implies that the user needs to set up their own server). A smaller button below could say "Choose a server for me", which would select a random one from among a curated pool.

But there's surely an opportunity here for some creative UX thinking amongst the Mastodon community. Not my forte, but there must be a legion of possibilities beyond just presenting a default fait accompli.

[fcampaigne]

This concept of a single site monopoly may be a problem. A server monopoly must never be able to exist in a free distributed environment. Binary sources should limit the number of users to a finite maximum value (say 10^6). If not then the potential for a size dominated control may exist. It will give those with deep pockets a target.

[buzhangjiuzhou]

If they agreed that there is no first citizen, then mastodon.social is not either!

Although my early days in the federation is on it, and I appreciate it a lot.

[Wuzzy2]

As someone who semi-regularily posts on the fosstodon.org Mastodon instance, I fully agree with this issue. Recommending one specific server goes against the idea of federation.

It’s not even clear why mastodon.social was chosen, of all instances. Why this instance, and not some other instance? Is this instance superior to all the other instances? Are all the other instances inferior to it? By putting this extra button, you are kinda implying this instance is the "default" or the "best" instance which I find quite irritating (even if it wasn't meant with bad intentions). But there is no default instance, just like there is no default mail server, or a default web site.

I like the fact there are multiple instances, as this allows for multiple communities to grow with their own rules, or to be a home for special-interest communities. This is why I signed up in the first place, and this is why I never ever had a Twitter account (because Twitter is centralized and proprietary).
My special interest is free software, so I'm on fosstodon.org. There is also a notable number of explicitly LGBTQIAP+-positive instances where marginalized people feel more "at home" and where bigotry is less tolerated than on other instances. This really fills a need. Why should we deprive LGBTQIAP+ people of knowing about these instances?

I think teaching people about instances is a good thing, actually. I am completely fine with normalizing the idea of choosing an instance. While I think it's OK to recommend mastodon.social on your private personal website/blog/video/whatever, pushing an instance in this app is a very different story.

I think the app should be completely neutral regarding instances and not recommend any instance over another.

I really hope this change was just a mistake and the developers will reconsider.

[elln2]

The joinmastodon site already has the concept of curating a list of servers. Perhaps this could be extended to the app.

I don't think it's exactly in the spirit of the fediverse to be either promoting one server as a default, nor selecting a server at random for new users - what are the policies of the server that was selected? Who did I just sign up with to hold my password and data? What sort of community does the server promote and does it align with my worldview and goals of joining the fediverse?

[Tealk]

Why not introduce a guided tour with a few questions about what the user wants? Language and area of interest is already stored at joinmastodon?

[crispinb]

, nor selecting a server at random for new users

On the one hand I think you're basically right. OTOH it may just be my weird sample, but everyone (quite literally) I've directed to joinmastodon has given up and signed up with post.news instead. It's just too much to choose amongst for most folk without preconceptions. Large selections work for shopping, because people go to an online store already knowing something about how they want to start the filtering process. That's often not the case here.

The suggestion above was that a random server could be selected if the user opted for it. Probably still too random/unprincipled, but it could be a start for the design process.

How about: the 'select a server for me option' has a very (very) small form with a few filtering options (region, language, legals, etc). Then it just picks randomly, or presents a shortlist.

Or it could offer purely on a regional basis, the shortlist excluding all the interest-focused instances (but pointing out that they exist if the user wants to explore further).

Again, it would be great for a UX focussed person to chime in.

[edit - yes, @Tealk , related thoughts]

[mattcoxonline]

Again, it would be great for a UX focussed person to chime in.

Hello! 👋 UX focussed person here. (20+ years experience, Senior Designer at Microsoft, Mastodon instance owner)

One of the things we hear time and time again with Mastodon is that its 'very confusing' with all these different servers and we can tell people "Oh, but its just like email - you are just picking a provider" and both of these statements are very true. But apparently a lot of people perceive it harder to pick a Mastodon server than an email address.

Why not introduce a guided tour with a few questions about what the user wants? Language and area of interest is already stored at joinmastodon?

Unfortunately, solutions like @Tealk's idea are going to have massive drop-off rates. And so I fully understand why the app would want to point people to mastodon.social as default - and I'm going to presume that there's no evil intention to overload Eugen's servers with people and then sell them to the highest bidder.

But I wonder if the problem here is messaging and how we communicate about this.

Both Google and Outlook have gone through phases where they had to give people the choice of what email domain to use. At somepoint you could pick @hotmail.com or @live.com or @outlook.com and if you were in a particular region, you also got options of hotmail.co.uk and live.co.uk. Google went from googlemail.com to gmail.com and there was a period you could pick.

I have always wondered whether the better approach is what do you want your username to be?

Any mention of the word "server" instantly starts to sound a bit technical. Asking someone to pick a server implies a heavier weight and implication than simply deciding what you want the last part of your username to be.

I like the idea that in step 2 of this flow, where I have used mastodon.social as the example server, that it would show a random server from the General servers that have committed to the Mastodon Server Covenant. Ideally, we would base this on the language of the device being used too, so Japanese users see Japanese servers, etc.

You can then pick from and switch between any of the servers that have committed to the Mastodon Server Covenant - or just overtype the selection on screen 2 and enter your own server details. On picking the server you are then able to see the server preview - allowing you to change your decision if the summary doesn't sound appropriate for you.

I don't think it's exactly in the spirit of the fediverse to be either promoting one server as a default, nor selecting a server at random for new users - what are the policies of the server that was selected? Who did I just sign up with to hold my password and data? What sort of community does the server promote and does it align with my worldview and goals of joining the fediverse?

Whilst I think @elln2 has some very valid questions here, the Mastodon Server Covenant was set up to ensure there is a standard of quality when it comes to some of these things. And so restricting the list to just these pre-approved servers and randomising the selection is maybe not ideal but maybe the best solution we have right now.

In the sign-up flow, you are presented with a server summary and then have to accept the rules and terms anyway. Quite often these following screens outline a lot of the community views and worldviews, so you can always jump back in the signup process and pick a different server.

Finally, I'm not suggesting any of this as the perfect solution. This is just some thoughts from the top of my head. Its a hard problem to solve but I think a lot of us all agree that pointing people to mastodon.social as default is not what's needed here.

[Tealk]

I like the idea that in step 2 of this flow, where I have used mastodon.social as the example server, that it would show a random server from the General servers that have committed to the Mastodon Server Covenant. Ideally, we would base this on the language of the device being used too, so Japanese users see Japanese servers, etc.

That's kind of what I said :P
That would definitely be an approach that I would like and that would also reflect the Fediverse.

[smiba]

The joinmastodon site already has the concept of curating a list of servers. Perhaps this could be extended to the app.

joinmastodon hasn't been updated in months, emails are left unanswered and the list is only shrinking (due to instances closing down registration, but no fresh instances being added).

I unfortunately think this is the path mastodon gGmbH is going to take, federation seems to be less of a concern to them with every change made.

---

@mattcoxonline I totally agree with your input

[crispinb]

I'm not suggesting any of this as the perfect solution. This is just some thoughts from the top of my head. Its a hard problem to solve

Thanks, a very promising start from my inexpert pov. The username focus is sharp. I wonder if there's a non-confusing compact way to present the different dimensions on which instances vary (roughly I think: interest/affiliation - region - legal status - maybe size?) for step 3 (or a filter before it).

Anyway I'm so far out of my lane with this stuff I'm going to hit oncoming traffic any moment, but fwiw this looks like a good direction to go in.

[BentiGorlich]

I think it would be ok to have the seperate button for creating an account on mastodon.social, but only if the button is clearly the secondary one. What I mean by that is, that the button "Pick my own server" should be colored instead of the other one, to indicate that the thing you are supposed to do is pick a server, but if you are too lazy to do so you can just join mastodon.social

[nehemiagurl]

even if for some reason we want to keep the option of just quickly signing up to mastosoc, this is also just so easy to fix. just reword it to [join mastodon.social] and [pick my own server (recommend)] or even just flipping the colours around. that way you still allow for the easy "just put me in the largest server" option, while at the same time encouraging a large and diverse federation.

[deutrino]

People spending their time & energy to breathlessly contribute potential solutions should educate themselves about the history of Mastodon development before investing too much more work.

mastodon/mastodon#4870

Edit 2023-05-01: I told you so :)

[Rudi9719]

Glad to know people have been opposed to it in waves, sad to see the devs went through with it. Hopefully enough of the community can speak out and get this change regressed to a sane state, if not there's always just the PWA on your local instance.

[mattcoxonline]

The joinmastodon site already has the concept of curating a list of servers. Perhaps this could be extended to the app.

joinmastodon hasn't been updated in months, emails are left unanswered and the list is only shrinking (due to instances closing down registration, but no fresh instances being added).

I agree with this @smiba. I have proposed a solution to this and it would be interesting to get some opinions flowing there too:

This is a proposal to ensure that the list of servers in the Mastodon Server Covenant receives regular updates in a fair and timely way. The decision making would be appointed to an elected group of volunteers overseen by Mastodon gGmbH.

💡Suggestion to democratise the Server Covenant list

[GBT7]

I just posted in another issue thread but I'm going to post here as well because I see this one is more active:

Many social networks and apps ask for people's interests upon sign-up nowadays, so they can suggest things to follow. It really wouldn't be that big of a deal for the Mastodon app to have a few quick questions about the user's interests before sign-up, and then use that to narrow the instances, and auto-select one of the options for the indecisive. Could be something even simpler than what instances.social has, but with the only servers recommended being those listed on joinmastodon.org (plus an option to select an instance not listed, obviously)

[AndreasDavour]

I see no reason why randomizing what shows up as a server selection couldn't be an option if someone thinks on-boarding is too complicated. Personally I think people are smart enough to do it themselves, but directing all new users to one instance, regardless of which one it is, is a bad idea.

[crispinb]

. Personally I think people are smart enough to do it themselves

Empirically, many can't. Have witnessed first hand. Existence precedes essence.

It's not to do with smartness. It's that choices are guided by existing knowledge and preferences, and many non-techy people just don't have existing preferences regarding things called 'servers' or 'instances', when they only have the vaguest of notions of what they are. I wouldn't have preferences in a haberdashery store, given my lack of haberdashical knowledge (if that's a thing).

[MadMez]

I'm totally agreed 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼

[eobrain]

My suggestion, show a small number of servers (say four) chosen as follows:

Use the same database and selectoin logic as https://joinmastodon.org/servers but filtered as follows:

1. Sign-up process: "Instant"
2. Legal structure: "Public organization"
3. Language: based on user's device settings or location
4. Region: based on user's device settings or location

Pick the top four servers (as measured by active users) that match the above criteris.

Then present it as something like the following, where the order of the four buttons is randomized:

(excuse very rough mock)

Although this might slow down the person momentarily as they consider the fact that they can click any of the buttons, it still has the same number of clicks to get to the sigh-on.

The advantages:

• Prevents one server becoming a de facto centralized instance, thus undoing the decentralization goals of the Fediverse
• Makes it very clear to users that Mastodon is inherently multi-server

[filippodb]

If the point is to have an easier access to mastodon it should suggest only a server managed by admin & moderators that speak the same language.

Having moderators and admins that speak the same language is the best welcome you can have on mastodon.
The app should suggest mastodon.social only for languages that haven't a presence on the mastodon server list.

[Wuzzy2]

Please just revert this change for now. We now have very clear consensus that this one button is bad. This issue now has >300 thumbs up and zero thumbs down.

As for a discussion on how to improve usability of the sign-up process and joining Mastodon: I think it makes more sense to discuss that in a separate issue / feature request. Sure, usability can always improve. However, that doesn't change the fact that this particular anti-feature is NOT well-received. Usability should not be an excuse to destroy the idea of federation.

[Wuzzy2]

@zeitschlag: I believe this issue is for you. :-)

[GBT7]

I reckon I might as well put one more idea here while it's still on my mind

If the app goes the route of randomizing the pre-selected instance, I think it would be good to have it show up with a bit of a "spin the wheel" or "slot machine" animation to emphasize that it is a random selection, and to emphasize that there are other options, while still narrowing it down to just the one to reduce indecisiveness.

[nehemiagurl]

@GBT7 idk about that. the point of selecting an instance for you is to simplify the process and make it less confusing, and such an effect would counter that. something like "join a server" and "pick one for me" would be more than enough to clarify there are others.

[fcampaigne]

Having thought a little more about the server name issue maybe call it your local-community since it will reflect/align with their local feed/timeline.

[ghost]

@fcampaigne I Like the Idea, but I think that might be a different topic.

Guess it might be best to keep this topic about the fact that the Mastodon app and I think, the Mastodon gGmbH, in general, should act neutral and not prefer their own instance over others.

[alisonw]

Making already-big instances even bigger helps no-one. Recommending by geography and/or language will be far more useful to individuals signing up to the federation and to everyone else generally. The last thing we need is a SPOF (or adjacent to).
Although this was initiated by one of the many apps I see it as a general principle that we shouldn't promote one instance over the others, just as there are many possibilities of what software to run instances on.

[PinballsWizard]

Here's an update for those following: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/05/a-new-onboarding-experience-on-mastodon/

[ghost]

Now let's wait for the maintainer who dares to close the report with the comment, "not a bug, works as intended"

[deutrino]

So, like I said, and collected 14 downvotes for last week.

Eugen knows exactly what he is doing, and will do exactly as he pleases, regardless of the attempted input of anyone to the development process.

Glad you all could be present for this learning session, some of us have been watching it for over 5 years.

[deutrino]

It is really disappointing that there is still no official statement

this is what concerns me the most

Welcome to the Mastodon development process.

It's been this way, and it's going to stay this way.

[nehemiagurl]

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/05/a-new-onboarding-experience-on-mastodon/

Well, this is disappointing.
People raised very good concerns about mastosoc being the default instance in the mobile app, and came up with very good suggestions of what to do instead and how to promote decentralisation while keeping ease of use.
But the response appears to be to double down on the choice to make mastosoc the default, even as it approaches being 20% of the userbase.
I expected better. I'll know not to next time.

[LuNeder]

This is HUGELY prejudicial to decentralization

[SekoiaTree]

In light of the blog post, I'd like to bump the preceding comment: #1023 (comment).

The UI here looks really good imo. Props to Matt!

[ghost]

Guess the discussion is done
They decided to make decisions without our input

[pkreissel]

I like this change and so do a lot of people I know who are not involved in the development because they know little about tech. We tried to recruit more people for the Fediverse and this was number 1 complaint. Please be aware that this is a discussion in a "bubble" of very privileged people who know a lot about tech.

WE have to make the experience so easy that anyone can understand it. If we don't the project will fail. It might continue to exist, but other more centralized projects will be more successful. In a few months Meta might launch their own Activity Pub instance, and then our little squabble here about the largest server having 1 mio users will be meaningless.

If we believe in dezentralized instances we have to improve the process of MOVING to another instance as easy as the click of a button. That is not the case right now by a longshot. If it were, the onboarding would not matter anymore, because most users could move to other instances easily.

I can repeat this a thousand times: The most important part is to improve the UX for the most unprivileged users. Who know nothing about tech. They need a Plattform, they need a voice. This is not about us.

[SekoiaTree]

There is much better UX than just a default instance. See Matt's complete suggestion I linked above. Or it could be "pick among a list". Or random. Or based on tags. A default instance that already has 20% of users on something that's supposed to be decentralized..

[BentiGorlich]

@pkreissel I totally get where you are coming from and I totally agree that a better onboarding experience is needed. I don't get however, that the "pick your server" option is clearly the secondary option. It sounds like "well you should join mastodon.social, but if you're that special I guess picking a server is ok, too". If the buttons were at least of the same priority, it would suck a lot less for me personally.

In a few months Meta might launch their own Activity Pub instance, and then our little squabble here about the largest server having 1 mio users will be meaningless.

I absolutely don't agree with that. A lot of admins will just block them. I myself am not sure what I'll do when that happens, but I don't think that Meta joining the fediverse will be well received inside of the fedi community. I could of course be wrong though.

If we believe in dezentralized instances we have to improve the process of MOVING to another instance as easy as the click of a button. That is not the case right now by a longshot. If it were, the onboarding would not matter anymore, because most users could move to other instances easily.

I 100% agree with that

[andreagrandi]

I agree we should make onboarding easier. I don't think giving a default choice is the right way, but hey.. it's just my opinion and it could be wrong.

"You can always migrate" is partially true: if some people find it difficult to just pick an instance from a list, I can't imagine how they can migrate to a different one. And even if they have the skill to do it, they simply can't migrate posts.

What I really can't cope with is the lack of official response to this issue (if I missed it, please correct me and provide a link, I'm happy to read it).

This is the main reason why I just cancelled my Patreon subscription. If one day they will decide to at least address users concerns and not ignore them, I will reconsider my decision.

Cheers

[LuNeder]

A way of making onboarding easy would be a quick “select some of your interests” form, that would result on a few related instance options.

[nehemiagurl]

What I really can't cope with is the lack of official response to this issue (if I missed it, please correct me and provide a link, I'm happy to read it).

The official response was pretty much to double down: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/05/a-new-onboarding-experience-on-mastodon/

A way of making onboarding easy would be a quick “select some of your interests” form, that would result on a few related instance options.

That, combined with Matt's suggestion, would honestly be perfect in my opinion. Put down two or three interests and a language, which would result in the default in the drop-down menu being a best-fit for you, but you can always switch to a different one. Four pages (home, interests, server drop-down, server terms) is easy to follow and not out-of-place in modern apps.

[vintprox]

This sticking to one instance is basically undermining all the work put into many other servers that closely follow Mastodon Server Covenant and made it to instance picker on official Mastodon website. I don't trust a single server to handle that much users and moderation. We need to account for onboarding to more places.

It's not a rocket science: make randomizer with a dropdown or pretty banners ("choose your adventure" sign-up UX) of the instances that are known for good moderation and follow Mastodon Server Covenant.

[jazmichaelking]

Hello! 👋 UX focussed person here. (20+ years experience, Senior Designer at Microsoft, Mastodon instance owner)

Assuming we could add some rigour to server metadata like supported (i.e. moderated) languages, some commonality of TOS... what can be done to explore -why- people are trying to sign up?

My thinking is there's a stratification of signups who could self-select for "primary language is most important"; "primary topic or community is most important"; "large general experience is most important" (noting that "no idea get me in" falls into the latter)

Is there a natural or evidence-based method for guiding this self selection?

There's likely no valid way to educate about Local feed or federation at signup, so what would it look like to get some self selection into the process?

"I want my main experience to be [ ] Topic [ ] Locale / Language [ ] General"

If General, offer m.s (and work on adding more "General" servers to the list for randomisation/round robin whatever)
If Locale / Language, drop into joinmastodon picker by "Regional"
If Topic drop into joinmastodon picker for "Topics"

Have a big shiny "Just get me in " button which does exactly the same thing as "General"

(And an "Advanced signup" that allows you to enter in any domain)

We very clearly have tremendous drop off from folks in the "Just get me in" category, does any of the above help the process while preserving the spirit of decentralisation?

[j-f1]

Update: see #1030. (And if you haven’t already, check out the UI that shows up when tapping “Pick another server” — it has a lot of the filtering options people have asked for in the thread).

[ghost]

We discussed and proposed those features.
The actual request was not to define mastodon.social as the default instance.

[nemobis]

Now that was faster than I thought

We're aware of the spam attack hitting mastodon.social right now and our full moderation and DevOps teams are on the case mitigating any way we can (incl. switching to approval-mode registrations)

https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/110310670042459716

[FediVideos]

Let's not overcomplicate this, it is not a difficult bug to fix. We don't need to wait to take action. There are clear options in immediate, medium and long term:

1. Immediate temporary fix: manually replace mastodon.social with a smaller independent server that has a trusted record, such as mas.to or mstdn.social, manually rotate at regular intervals if needed
2. Medium-term fix: have an automated randomly rotated server on the signup button, chosen from a trusted pool. The "choose a server" button would remain alongside this, for people who want it.
3. Long-term fix: have an optional wizard that helps people choose a server if they want to use it

...plus lots of other ideas as seen in this thread.

Why is mastodon.social still on there? It could be replaced right now, and should be. The current situation of making the biggest server even bigger is going against all the effort that lots of people have put into this network.

[ghost]

@FediVideos There is nothing complicated about this.
There are ideas and solutions, there are people who are able to make realize/program it.
Pixelfed, for example, where able to realize a good solution.

But management has decided that this is not what they want and that mastodon.social will become the default instance 😞

[ghost]

This might be interesting for some people.
I'm not sure if there is something about it.

But if this is true, I don't really like that there are closed-door meetings instead of any community discussions or feedbacks at all.

jcrabapple (@[email protected])

@stanford @noxblog they will be adding more instances to the rotation of default instances in the Mastodon app. There are no second class citizens, just a compromise between ease of onboarding and federation.

jcrabapple (@[email protected])

@stanford Nothing is official yet but I know of several server admins who have met with Eugen regarding additional servers being added to the default rotation in the app. The priority was to make it easier for people who want to come here to get on a server and get going. I agree that people need to be spread out, and that is the next priority. After that it needs to be made easier for people to move their entire account including posts. That requires some changes to ActivityPub.

Feel free to check out the whole thread.

[nehemiagurl]

I think PixelFed's new onboarding process is a great example of what a good onboarding process looks like:

first screen - log in and sign up are the same size. already an improvement.

second screen - a short explanation about federation in non-technical terms, with the option to join pixelsoc, but with exploring communities being clearly preferred

third screen - list of servers with their stats and descriptions. perfectly clear, makes it easy to know what you're (literally) signing up for.

easy. non-technical. still informative. a great experience overall.
Mastodon should absolutely just steal this (I'm sure dansup will be humbled).

[nemobis]

In case you're wondering: the recent wave of registrations is extremely concentrated.

[nemobis]

I see that a change has been merged 4b5151b which will allow https://api.joinmastodon.org/default-servers to control the default option presented to the user. It looks like this is designed to handle potential incidents with the default server.