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I’d be more interested in why than how
Everything is moving so quickly these days, and the exodus from other failing sites along with the expectations of those transitioning from them is creating a crescendo that is just unrealistic.
So many people have been working very hard to keep up with all of these new and increasing demands (and they ought to be credited for that), but what is lacking is patience for those working behind the scenes.
They’re doing a great job, but, for God’s sake, give them some slack!
The interface is more customizable, and there are more features (quote posts, for instance)
mastodon didn’t have quote posts because:
it inevitably adds toxicity to people’s behaviours. You are tempted to quote when you should be replying, and so you speak at your audience instead of with the person you are talking to. It becomes performative. Even when doing it for “good” like ridiculing awful comments, you are giving awful comments more eyeballs that way
Some mastodon apps do support quotes though, by loading any linked toots in the posts themselves
That just sounds like them deciding how I can communicate. Quoting is not inherently toxic, they’re just used to how Twitter users utilize it. I’ve also seen plenty of people use quoting of posts for boosting someone’s post without copying it, since copying it breaks the link back to the original post. I used to quote-tweet Patreon, GoFundMe, or donation link posts sometimes.
It does everything Mastodon does but more, honestly. I use both, and definitely prefer Firefish. But I’m a developer so a lot of things about Mastodon really bothered me. The core difference is Firefish fka Calckey is being developed much faster and with a more modern stack. The click to play MFM feature was developed in a few days when the community was concerned about potential seizures due to unasked for auto playing or animated text.
A few key features: QT & Full text search (search I don’t use except for specific posts so can’t speak to that) MFM & cat mode (these are just fun, Misskey flavored markdown has things like tada and sparkle and rainbow. People make art with it)
Probably more important are features such as channels and pages which are more like Facebook or MySpace. People have compared it to Tumblr because you can completely customize the interface. I hope it intros some more people to programming
I’m with you. If we keep migrating to something else we’ll never actually settle to create a real community. I’m sticking with Mastadon. It’s grown into something pretty stable and decent at this point.
You are not really migrating anywhere, as Mastodon is compatible with Firefish.
Why stick to the worse one, though?
The point of federation is that you can create community with people all over it, no matter what software the server they joined is running.
Mastodon being too big to the point that 90% of it users things it's the whole fediverse is not positive nor contributes to create an stable community. Many people coming from twitter run from the fediverse, because they're told there's nothing other than mastodon, which they find hard to use, lacking and extremely toxic.
Misskey, Firefish, Akkoma, GoToSocial, Microblogpub, etc give people other options that may fit their need for/usage of a microblogging platform better than mastodon does, as each (including Mastodon and each of its forks) has it's own "profile"
Why stick to the worse one, though?
Why is mastodon the worse one?
Many people coming from twitter run from the fediverse, because they’re told there’s nothing other than mastodon, which they find hard to use, lacking and extremely toxic.
Why is everyone so adamant that Mastodon should accommodate to users leaving Twitter by being a Twitter clone? It was meant to be federated, privacy friendly, self-hosted, less toxic twitter alternative for small communities , not a clone of Twitter. People act like everyone becomes seasoned to using Twitter or other mainstream social media websites by default and it's mastodon's fault they leave because its not exactly like Twitter. It's pretty straightforward to forget all about the fediverse and rant all day, just like Twitter.
It's one thing to improve UX for users and another thing entirely to specifically chaperone users leaving Twitter, which is not Mastodon's goals.
Why is mastodon the worse one?
Lack of essential features and the toxicity within it servers.
It was meant to be federated, privacy friendly, self-hosted, less toxic twitter alternative for small communities
1- I didn't say it had to be a twitter clone. What I said is that some people coming from Twitter that weren't convinced by Mastodon, may be could have find other microblogging more adequate for their needs and usage. Each microblogging platform has its personality and usability, and Mastodon wasn't for them.
The problem is when people are told that there's nothing beyond Mastodon (regarding microblogging) on the fediverse, so they end up running away from the fediverse, after not finding a home on Mastodon.
2- It failed at being less toxic.
Witch hunts over petty arguments, negative reaction to newcomers not knowing how things work, racism that gets minimalised as "not as bad" by big part of the user base.
The fact that it doesn't have quote posting because it "allows for toxic behaviour", when other platforms have it and say toxicity is almost non-existant in using that feature, it's in itself a red flag.
You can react with cute sticker-like things to a toot and that’s all it took to really convince me. Also I feel like there’s a lot more artists there
Cc @deadsuperhero@firefish.social
Firefish just has a different ✨vibe ✨ going on, although it’s not for everyone, here’s the guide I’d use:
Twitter -> Mastodon Reddit -> Lemmy Tumblr -> Firefish YouTube -> PeerTube
They all work the same, and are (to some extent interoperable), but it’s just what layout you’re used to the most.
Firefish is a Fediverse-compatible social networking software forked from Misskey
Cool things on Firefish/clackey, that Mastodon and most of it forks don’t have:
• Quote notes (Misskey and Akkoma, a fork of Pleroma, also have them)
• Antennas. They allow you to add words, tags and accounts to lists and create parallel timelines that you can see whenever you want, without having to follow this accounts
• You can create personalized timelines for certain accounts to appear in.
• It has a drive section where you can upload files.
• Channels. This are public local group that the members of a server can create, join and interact within.
• Private chat groups. Local only.
• Emoji reactions
• Clips. These are collections of notes (“note” is the name post receive in Misskey and Firefish)
You can create multiple clips and manage them by giving a name and description to each. You can also choose to make your clips public to make them available to other users.
• You can create custom web pages. For now they don’t federate.
• Customisable (by admin) character limit.
Here’s a page with some features https://firefish.social/@youronlyone/pages/calckey-faq
The one-column layout of Firefish is good, it has tons more features than Mastodon
But the multi-column deck layout that I always use, it’s kinda borked thus infuriating to use. Probably needs more time for the deck layout.
I wasn’t a fan last time I tried it out. I’m glad they changed the name though. Calckey sounded more like an excel alternative.
I’ll have to check it out again at some point though.
To the uninitiated, Firefish is to Mastodon what Kbin is to Lemmy
I have a friend who is even less initiated than that. Can you explain for his sake what that means?
Firefish and Mastodon are both microblogging platforms (like Twitter) on the fediverse. Kbin and Lemmy are both forum style platforms (like Reddit).
Where Lemmy and Mastodon are for people who prefer a more basic just the necessities experience, kbin and Firefish provide a more stylish experience with more options and customization.
Maybe I’m blind but I’m not seeing a way to follow tags on Firefish (I joined the main instance because the UI convinced me).
You can’t follow tags (something that should be added), but you can add them to Antennas
ok but how about you tell me why to move from mastodon to firefish?
It has the better feature set and UX. Some things I like:
- Threaded comment replies (though they display differently from Lemmy’s).
- Antennae for discoverability.
- Can use hashtags AND keywords.
- Can filter results by instance.
- Can create multiple timelines to display content in.
- Customizable UI via widgets.
- I think the theming options are better.
- Full-text search.
- Quote posts.
- Cat mode.
Cat mode?
You can put cat ears on your avatar and they wiggle when you hover your mouse over them.
ok but how about you tell me why to move from mastodon to firefish?
I like the UI better (by a lot), I like the “antennas” feature, I like that I can do a traditional blog post if I choose (“pages” they call it), it’s very custom-configurable, and in the 3 days since I’ve joined I’ve already seen bugfixes and improvements deployed.
Why move? If Mastodon is 100% great for you and nothing about the look/feel/functionality of Firefish jumps out at you then there is really no reason.
Been waiting for the main instance to start up! Thanks for this guide.
HOLY SHIT… I just tried firefish.social and there's TONS of right wing anti trans lies in their trending "news."
No fucking thank you.
What are you talking about? Trending isn’t even working right now… sources please.
they posted multiple anti transgender stories. obvious astroturfing. I'm out.
Isn't that a problem with specific instances/federation rather than the software itself? There are some hateful right-wing Lemmy instances too but that doesn't seem to be a problem for you as the instance you use has probably defederated from them.
I mean, to be fair, the person you replied to is using Kbin rather than Lemmy - they're interacting with a Lemmy community though.
they seem to have an issue moderating content.
They're also not on your instance in the first place. You're looking at the Global feed. That isn't content from Firefish.Social, that's content from elsewhere on the Fediverse. Firefish.Social admins can't moderate content on another server.
I went to firefish. I made an account. On fire fish I saw anti transgender astroturfing.
Does this mean firefish is free from all douchebaggery?
No.I'm just saying, that's like buying a window from Lowe's, installing it in your home, and then being mad at Lowe's for having a bad view. They can't control what you see when you use the tool literally designed to look at the outside world.
