A new onboarding experience on Mastodon
blog.joinmastodon.org
Today we’re making signing up on Mastodon easier than ever before. We understand that deciding which Mastodon service provider to kick off your experience with can be confusing. We know this is a completely new concept for many people, since traditionally the platform and the service provider are one and the same. This choice is what makes Mastodon different from existing social networks, but it also presents a unique onboarding challenge. To make this step easier, we now have a default sign-up option that works with a server we operate. If you wish to leave or join a different server, you can do so at any time.

I’ve seen lots of discussion on reddit of users trying to get others to join Lemmy and the prevailing reply is that it is too difficult to navigate and comprehend. Having to answer multiple questions and wait for manual verification is combersome and is limiting growth at a time when nothing should be standing in Lemmy’s way. Combine this with server/instance selection analysis paralysis, and you get my point.

The linked mastodon blog post sums up my thoughts, but the TLDR is essentially this:

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Don’t let dreams of decentralization interfere with the greater goal of achieving the network effect.

We should all be telling people to go to lemmy.ml and sign up. The devs should be too, and they should rethink/remove the questions and waiting period. Hell, just put a captcha. Discussions about servers and analogies to email as an example of federated service we all already use is a waste of breath. We shouldn’t have barriers to entry.

Thoughts?

EDIT: I’ve just found kbin.social and find it has superior signup options. It’s just: make an account (email/password), or sign up with Google or Apple. No server talk. Upside is the layout is nice and it acts as a Lemmy instance (threads) as well as a mastodon instance (microblogging). Only downside currently is that their android/iOS app is in development and isn’t ready yet, so desktop only.

https://github.com/ernestwisniewski/kbin

https://kbin.social/

I think this might be the better recommendation for newbies at the moment.

  • WhoRoger@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    3 years ago

    You can’t have a default server unless someone is ready to pay for it. (Idk how Mastodon does it.)

    What I’d do is:

    1. have every instance list its most prevalent topics/communities/interests (technology, games, communism, memes…)

    2. when the user is signing up, have them select their interests

    3. try to find the ideal match. Let the user override if they want to, perhaps let them know if the community is tiny, requires approval etc, but other than that just show a “suggested instance: example.org, change link”

  • moved accounts@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    3 years ago

    i like mastodon’s approach - its clean, simple, and easy to understand.

    i think the fediverse is just a very hard concept for people to wrap their heads around if they aren’t internet savvy or already knowledgable on these things. i think in general there needs to be an easier way to fully explain what it is and get it across to people.

    lemmy should def adopt something similar here to mastodon. i think having a default server is smart and probably the right move (with the “Pick your own server” option or something similar right below, just like what Mastodon is doing, so users easily have the option), HOWEVER i think before that happens, lemmy does need to allow migrating and moving servers, and ik lemmy.ml is being overloaded really badly rn in general, so those issues probably need to be sorted too.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
      0·
      3 years ago

      I think they need an easy wizard, some way to guide users to an instance they could use to sign in. Ask a couple questions and then bam here you are. The biggest issue then is "Well you don’t go here to sign in now you use this url. " lemmy could add some sort of redirect though for known people?

  • Fabriek@beehaw.orgEnglish
    0·
    3 years ago

    I think the way Mastodon is handling new users is pretty problematic. Not only did this lead to huge amounts of spam on the network because Eugen’s instance couldn’t handle the amount of new users, but also this goes against the very idea of federation.

    Unpopular opinion: if finding an instance is too hard for you, maybe the federated internet just isn’t for you. I see people on reddit still complaining about how difficult Mastodon is, and I’m sorry but if that’s too complicated for you, just stay on reddit. Considering the level of discourse of both sites, I think it’s a feature, not a bug.