Finally realized what Mastodon makes me think off. Remember in all those cheesy 80's/90''s books and Shadowrun novels how the hackers had their own secret online hangouts normal people couldn't get to?
@akr I will agree to disagree. It's got the whole delocalized aspect, but it is so much more responsive than FidoNet (I used to run a WWIV FidoNet node). Trying to do my part to bring the quirk while still saying something meaningful.
@Samizdata I'll grant you that — the federation taking place more than just daily ZMH helps a lot with conversation flow!
I had thought that the FTN vibe was a product of the delay: extra time spent reading and crafting replies to echoes and netmails, penpal style, because of the latency in batch delivery. Redrafting.
It is pleasing to see that I might've been wrong about the lack of immediacy being a strong factor.
@Samizdata Funny. I always thought those were called "manpages".
@dredmorbius Not really. People actually read THOSE. (I mean the books, not the manpages).
@Samizdata manpages == secret geek hideouts.
@Samizdata Twitter felt like that too, for the first year-ish.
@ardgedee I guess I never felt that the way I do here.
@Samizdata For Twitter's first year I mean. I only got an account in early 2007. Communities were relatively small clusters based on existing social groups from other communites like LJ, so self-policing rather than moderation seemed acceptable. There were no media-famous people to speak of, Being a Twitter celeb meant saying interesting and useful things. The Failwhale was an in-joke because Twitter didn't know how to scale.
And then the money came. Because Twitter didn't know how to scale.
@Samizdata It's the opposite of those, but it has a little of that old FidoNet vibe.
Perhaps slightly less quirky than previously. We should bring the quirky back.