Having long been on both Diaspora* (since 2011) and Mastodon (2016), some observations:
- Both are useful. They serve different use-cases. There are elements of each I like and ... am frustrated by.
- Mastodon is mostly short-form content analagous to Twitter, and strongly favours media (images, video). Other thread participants are not notified of new replies unless specifically tagged within it.
- Diaspora* supports longer-form, formatted (Markdown) posts, with a single time-ordered discussion below which can be moderated by the post's author. Participants are notified of additional comments within a thread, and can return to it, even after years.
- Those two distinct formats already strongly shape the type and nature of discussions found on each.
- Mastodon has seen vastly more development, including addressing several issues I've long had both specific to Mastodon (CW behaviour is ... improving, though I've still got concerns) and both platforms (Mastodon now supports edits to existing toots, Diaspora* ... does not). By comparison, Diaspora*'s development is all but moribund.
- Mastodon's developers have been far more responsive, and empathetic, than Diaspora*'s. How much of this is just green-behind-the-ears freshness I'm not sure.
- Mastodon presents non-members with useful information. Visit an instance and you can actually see activity and discussion on that instance. Hit up a Diaspora* instance and ... you're given a big Fuck You with a registration sign-up.
- Neither platform is especially search-friendly, either on-platform (both support only Hashtag search) nor through third-party general Web search. Diaspora* seems all but entirely opaque on that point, Mastodon ... at least surfaces some content.
- Diaspora*'s original, oldest, and largest instance went titsup.com earlier this year, after years and years of all-but-absent management and oversight. Even the contact emails and forms were offline for years before the instance died. Another large instance, created by and for refugees from Google+, ceased active operations after its administrator died unexpectedly (also after a long period of radio silence). Mind I've had a couple of Mastodon instances fold under me and/or show sketchy management as well. Bus factor and continuity planning are major issues on both platforms, and seem almost entirely unconsidered.
- Diaspora*'s total MAU is a small fraction of Mastodon's. There are a number of people I appreciate greatly on Diaspora*, but it's ludicrous to suggest that there's a substantial community of any sort.
- Diaspora*'s abuse tools are if anything even more rudimentary than Mastodon's. One of the principle mechanisms are private lists of abusive / spamming profiles maintained and privately posted by individuals within their own groups. Admins can do some instance blocking, but ordinary members cannot. An "ignored" profile still sees content posted by the ignoring party, and the ignored's comments on third-party posts are still visible to the ignoring party. (There may be reasons and arguments in favour of this, but the functionality is unexpected and confusing to many.)
Comments
Having long been on both Diaspora* (since 2011) and Mastodon (2016), some observations:
- Both are useful. They serve different use-cases. There are elements of each I like and ... am frustrated by.
- Mastodon is mostly short-form content analagous to Twitter, and strongly favours media (images, video). Other thread participants are not notified of new replies unless specifically tagged within it.
- Diaspora* supports longer-form, formatted (Markdown) posts, with a single time-ordered discussion below which can be moderated by the post's author. Participants are notified of additional comments within a thread, and can return to it, even after years.
- Those two distinct formats already strongly shape the type and nature of discussions found on each.
- Mastodon has seen vastly more development, including addressing several issues I've long had both specific to Mastodon (CW behaviour is ... improving, though I've still got concerns) and both platforms (Mastodon now supports edits to existing toots, Diaspora* ... does not). By comparison, Diaspora*'s development is all but moribund.
- Mastodon's developers have been far more responsive, and empathetic, than Diaspora*'s. How much of this is just green-behind-the-ears freshness I'm not sure.
- Mastodon presents non-members with useful information. Visit an instance and you can actually see activity and discussion on that instance. Hit up a Diaspora* instance and ... you're given a big Fuck You with a registration sign-up.
- Neither platform is especially search-friendly, either on-platform (both support only Hashtag search) nor through third-party general Web search. Diaspora* seems all but entirely opaque on that point, Mastodon ... at least surfaces some content.
- Diaspora*'s original, oldest, and largest instance went titsup.com earlier this year, after years and years of all-but-absent management and oversight. Even the contact emails and forms were offline for years before the instance died. Another large instance, created by and for refugees from Google+, ceased active operations after its administrator died unexpectedly (also after a long period of radio silence). Mind I've had a couple of Mastodon instances fold under me and/or show sketchy management as well. Bus factor and continuity planning are major issues on both platforms, and seem almost entirely unconsidered.
- Diaspora*'s total MAU is a small fraction of Mastodon's. There are a number of people I appreciate greatly on Diaspora*, but it's ludicrous to suggest that there's a substantial community of any sort.
- Diaspora*'s abuse tools are if anything even more rudimentary than Mastodon's. One of the principle mechanisms are private lists of abusive / spamming profiles maintained and privately posted by individuals within their own groups. Admins can do some instance blocking, but ordinary members cannot. An "ignored" profile still sees content posted by the ignoring party, and the ignored's comments on third-party posts are still visible to the ignoring party. (There may be reasons and arguments in favour of this, but the functionality is unexpected and confusing to many.)