The link is to a GitHub discussion, where gargron shuts down a discussion because he’s made a unilateral decision and then locks the thread to avoid debate.

On its own, it might not seem like much. Someone’s gotta make the decisions, right!? Except that this is a pretty dramatic shift for mastodon (leaning into search more) and the main ask was to provide two options rather than roll multiple things into one, which is pretty reasonable. Plus, why not get user feedback? Mastodon has plenty of users after all? Add to this that the main masto instance intends to federate with meta’s threads and gargron has signed an NDA, and the tin foil hat starts to come out.

Alone, not much of a big deal, but it’s an insight into why people find masto devs difficult (AFAIU).

EDIT: woah … downvotes straight off of the bat … which is fine … but honestly, I’m not sure why the downvoting … this was just an example of something some might find problematic … feel free to discuss.

  • @maegul@lemmy.mlOP
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    1010 months ago

    First … I totally agree.

    Second, firefish and calckey are the same thing (calckey rebranded to firefish).

    Third … it’s not just about software. I think that’s superficial reasoning. There’s a lot of patience, organisation and earned trust required before there’s an instance with admins choosing to run a particular platform with a good number of users on there. The success of mastodon ought not, IMO, be (entirely) attributed to dumb luck.

    There’s been a lot of persistent and committed work from gargron and mastodon, and the truth that many “platform diversity” types (including myself) run into is it’s not the user’s fault … who’s going to maintain, run, promote and support a platform and its early instances with commitments to decent performance, scalability and maintenance into the future? Calckey/firefish, for example, have actually kinda struggled recently, despite really trying and having an attractive platform, because they haven’t been able to provide a stable and performant instance with even minor growth in users, nor a UI that works well on mobile. It’s an uphill battle, and I don’t think you can blame users for wanting some degree of trustworthiness from a platform before they jump in, however much of a chicken-egg problem it is.

    • 0x1C3B00DA
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      610 months ago

      mastodon wasn’t stable or performant in the beginning either. It attracted users because there weren’t other well known alternatives and those users were excited to build a new place where they felt comfortable. Gargron rode that excitement and enthusiasm until it didn’t serve him anymore, then he shut those ppl out

        • 0x1C3B00DA
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          210 months ago

          most of the early contributors from 2017-18. Many of them wrote blog posts about their experiences

          • @maegul@lemmy.mlOP
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            110 months ago

            I think I’ve seen some of those blog posts. Let me know if you’ve got any links as I haven’t read much.