"The Failed Migration of Academic Twitter"
https://arxiv.org/html/2406.04005v1
Academic Twitter was great, & it breaks my heart that the community I found there has done so little to rebuild on Mastodon, even tho Mast is far better. I loved learning abt new research & pubs (& occasionally posting abt my own). A fair # of people migrated to Mast but most didn't stay, at least in my field of literary studies.
What can academics do to build & rebuild academic exchange on Mastodon?
#Academia @LitStudies
@RobertDaleParker Thanks for sharing. In my field (law) Bluesky seems to have won out among the people who left Twitter. I still believe in the fedi but it didn't "take" for many of my colleagues
@design_law @RobertDaleParker same here, I’ve reluctantly created bluesky account now
@wlukewindsor @RobertDaleParker So, I actually don't hate it, in terms of current usability and experience. I do have concerns about its long-term viability.
@design_law @RobertDaleParker Similar experience so far, and concerns, and most of the people there I am interacting with so far are current work colleagues (who aren’t on Mastodon but I can talk to at work)
@wlukewindsor @design_law @RobertDaleParker Are you all using Bridgy to make your Fediverse posts visible on Bluesky, & encouraging Bluesky people to use it so that we can read them on Fedi? It's really easy & works well. Please post about it when you've bridged!
#bridgy https://fed.brid.gy/
@ClaireFromClare @design_law @RobertDaleParker I haven’t got that far yet and so far I’m not persuaded that I am the same person on Bluesky and Mastodon ;-)
@ClaireFromClare @wlukewindsor @RobertDaleParker No. I sometimes manually cross-post but honestly I've started doing different kinds of posts for the different audiences.
@design_law @wlukewindsor I understand different post-types / personalities / topics, some people maintain several Fedi accounts for the purpose - but in the context of concerns about community fragmentation, why would you not want each post to be read on both platforms? @RobertDaleParker
@ClaireFromClare @wlukewindsor @RobertDaleParker Is this a rhetorical question or a real one? I assume the former because I just explained my actual reason.
And how do you find Bluesky compared to Mastodon?
@RobertDaleParker @wlukewindsor I still prefer the fedi but Bluesky is where the law profs are. So I find myself spending more time over there lately. Network effects are real.
@RobertDaleParker @design_law too early to tell!
Which leaves open questions such as should Mastodon have "taken," & could it have taken, & why do people in your field prefer Bluesky? (Do they like being the product?) Do they even know about Mastodon? In my (limited) experience, many people do not even know about Mastodon. When one of my classes started talking about social media, none of my students knew about Mastodon. (I realize these questions don't necessarily have ready answers.)
@RobertDaleParker I work in the School of Public Health. Much of our funding is from the NIH, and the NIH is on Twitter. If the NIH moves, we’ll follow. But until then, we’re kind of obligated to “meet them where they are”. Which is a damn shame, IMHO :-(
@7sleepersmusic
A shame indeed: democratic government agencies supporting an app that undermines democracy and mutual respect.
This could be attributed to steep learning curve compared to twitter as well as competition from more user-friendly platforms like Bluesky and Threads.
@RobertDaleParker @antoinechambertloir I think one problem is the fragmentation that followed, different communities (and sometimes some of their parts) just scattered across various socials. People I was following, for example are now partly on Twitter, Bluesky, LinkedIn, here or simply shut down their socials altogether. I don’t see an easy way to change this.
Another part of the problem is that it is harder to grow a community on mastodon (or Bluesky) compare to old Twitter. Not just because one starts almost from scratch; the suggestion algorithms on Twitter were doing a good job in helping to reach out to new people.
The reluctance of some institutions to move is also not helping to increase the credibility and use of some of the other socials.
I hope I am wrong and that the current behaviour from Musk will push again for a change, but I don’t see it happening, at least in my small garden.
I very much agree... The exchange on Twitter evolved over a long time, maybe nudged people into it that otherwise weren't highly interested in Social Media at all (but joined as they felt everyone else is doing it), and then after Twitter-activity went down just were not keen to go somewhere else...
So, big concerted 'migrations' are rare, communities rather need to develop with time... on the platform that then most active members agree to be active on.
Yes, fragmentation has accelerated, not altogether a bad thing, but unfortunately it reduces shared platforms & discussion. Probably not reversible, but getting the word out abt Mastodon cd help.
And yes, people don't want to start all over & it is harder to find people on Mastodon. But people posted lists of academics on Mastodon in specific fields, & Mastodon is now more searchable.
Cdn't agree more that institutions need to change & that people shd desert Musk!
Post the kind of posts you want to see. Tell your colleagues. Email links to good posts to colleagues. Mention your handle in Mastodon in conference talks as a way to reach you.
All of that was done to promote Twitter, unwittingly. Now we can do it purposefully, until it becomes self-sustaining.
@RobertDaleParker I came here in an early academic migration and took two or three turns to settle myself. The academic I followed in 2016 didn’t stay, the academic who nudged me back in 2018 (@lauraritchie) is still here, the university-working community I’ve found are broader than discipline academic, including more university professional staff and especially library experts and education designers. I think as cross-posting has got easier some migratory academics will sit somewhere and post everywhere.
Being here has made me think hard and carefully about holding down a job in a university. Hello!
@RobertDaleParker
My field (philosophy) was one of the slowest to move from Twitter to begin with and has now basically disappeared from Mastodon altogether. I even wrote a bot (@icymi_philosophy) to facilitate discovery, but nothing helped.
I personally see Mastodon's failure to provide basic tools (like quote boosts) and discovery algorithms as the main issue, so I'm not sure what we as an academic community can do. I put some hope into the fedi-bs bridge to at least increase the #s a bit.
@philippsteinkrueger @icymi_philosophy
Thanks. It's tough to sort out the advantages and disadvantages of those features. I can do without the algorithms, but maybe there are ways to build more modest algorithms than the hyper ones we grew used to at Twitter.
@RobertDaleParker I wasn't on Twitter very much and I never liked the hyper atmosphere. But Mastodon, bizarrely, disincentivizes interaction: first non-existent then only castrated search, no discovery algorithms, no quote post, etc. There's a point where it just becomes frustrating for a lot of people...
Ok, thanks, but speaking for myself, I find the frustrations of algorithms deciding what I should see far more bothersome (and sometimes worse than bothersome). The more that people join #Mastodon AND learn how to use it, the better it works.
@RobertDaleParker More people joining was the hope but the opposite has been happening unfortunately, at least in my discipline and some others. I see hardly any new joins and even the most hardcore people post less and less (not to speak of the overwhelming majority of dead accounts).
I also don’t want the Twitter hype, but if Mastodon continues to see interaction primarily as a danger, it will not become the place for academic networks. Just look what happened to BridgyFed…
@philippsteinkrueger What happened to BridgyFed? (It's working well for me.) @RobertDaleParker
@ClaireFromClare Well, it “works”, but it’s so cumbersome its use is limited. Originally, the developer wanted to bridge everything and offer opt-out. Now it’s opt-in and so there’s the discovery problem: posts by accounts that didn’t opt-in are not bridged, so it’s very hard to find accounts to follow. I put a lot of hope in the bridge request opt-in that was rolled out recently but so far no one has activated the bridge following my requests, so…
@philippsteinkrueger So there's nothing wrong with Bridgy, it's just that network effects are relevant and we need more people in both camps to use it.
Why not encourage uptake by explaining how easy it is to activate (follow the #Bridgy account), rather than discouraging! @RobertDaleParker
@ClaireFromClare @philippsteinkrueger
This makes sense to me, though I still have to look into Bridgy more to decide about it. I see the pros and will be interested to learn about the cons. Thanks for the discussion.
@ClaireFromClare @RobertDaleParker
I think the history of the failed migration shows that telling people to use the Fedi and teach them how to do x or y is not sufficient. As I said I think what is needed is a change of attitude towards interaction, but I don’t see that coming. Anyway, yes, thanks for the discussion.
@RobertDaleParker The experience in my field, #GeoInformatics, is diverse but thanks for sharing in any case.
I opened my account in 2018. Since then there have been various migration waves, not everyone stays around, but the few key folks that endure make it well worth it. May I suggest you hang on a while longer?
@RobertDaleParker And related to your field, there is quite a good deal of activity around the application of the #SemanticWeb.
@RobertDaleParker Great questions. I have personally tried a lot to get people to migrate from Twitter to Mastodon. The main problem is not in getting them to come here but keeping them: so many people came and tried but eventually left.
So this points to problems with Mastodon itself: it's just not attractive enough compared to the competition. For example there are several crucial things still missing compared to Twitter: quote posts (essential for scientific discussions), search (same, and current search is still very limited), some kind of algorithm that shows you things that are talked about at the moment, and also public lists.
All of these kind of go against the principles at the origin of Mastodon: anti-fame, anti-harassment and pro-privacy. I think we can implement the features to get the best of both worlds but without these, most people used to Twitter will leave to look for something more like Twitter (currently Bluesky)..
For my part I'll keep trying to make Mastodon the best place to be!
@RobertDaleParker #Billionaires are never the answer. Be patient, continue posting the types of content you hope to see more of on #AcademicMastodon , and be sure to let students know about the #billionaire -free #fediverse.
@ChemicalEyeGuy @RobertDaleParker
Never going back to the world of venture capital and reality-twisting algorithms. Never going to invest myself in a platform where I am the product.
@xankarn @ChemicalEyeGuy Luckily there aren’t any billionaires not reality twisting algorithms on Bluesky
Thanks. You can count on it!
@RobertDaleParker well, if all else fails, they could just connect their Bluesky accounts to the bridge that lets Fedi users interact with them: https://fed.brid.gy/
Thank you. I'll study that (and see if I can catch up on the pros & cons).
I think a lot of people came, found a instance linked to their subjects. But the instances were not very big. They were following only small numbers of people.
Their toots didn't travel far into other instances and they didn't see many toots from other instances. So even following hashtags wasn't very useful.
They didn't have the reach and interaction they built up in Twitter.
They didn't put the effort in to build it up again.
Twitter didn't collapse, so they stayed there posting, desite all its problems.
Even instances that are just one topic were probably quite boring compared to deadbird site, where there was a greater mix.
Thanks. You must be right. I think medium-sized or larger instances work best for most users who want a broader dialog?
@RobertDaleParker Being on a small instance is fine once you follow a lot of people on a range of other instances. Many newcomers fail to do this, & may not understand that they're restricting what they see to a tiny fraction of the posts available and the conversations underway. My impressions are similar to those of @SuperMoosie, but I would not wish to drive people to big servers; many small ones seems better for diversity and resilience.
@RobertDaleParker@mstdn.social @LitStudies@mstdn.social
What can academics do to build & rebuild academic exchange on Mastodon?Not think to be important.
@RobertDaleParker institute accounts should help, eg neuromatch.social crowds are active, biologist.social are active, that helps keeping the people, #UK #circadian research network recently joined too (ccd @bioclocksuk
@RobertDaleParker This should be a whole #Fedforum topic. Are you thinking of going this Thursday, Robert? cc: @fediforum
@tchambers @RobertDaleParker @fediforum ISTR we did discuss something similar last session, during the March #FediForum ...
Ah, there it is:
https://fediforum.org/2024-03/session/6-g/
But yeah, it would be good to go more in depth into the observations the researchers found.
Thanks. That's the first I've heard of it, but I can't do that.
Regardless, thanks for your enthusiasm about the topic. And it applies far beyond academia as well.
@RobertDaleParker After spending most of my 20’s and part of my 30’s attempting to organize academics and grad students, I’ve moved on to other things because the average academic simply isn’t rebellious enough.
@RobertDaleParker
- Lean into field-specific discovery à la "Academics on Mastodon" (I'm trying to work on easier software for this, but I have a lot of projects ongoing)
- Be a role model on here (post about research, about conferences, other academic activities...)
-Be a role model out there (put your Mastodon handle on your presentation slides, invite people you know, organize small fedi meetups in academic contexts)
I just ran a lil fedi meetup at an HCI conference, worked a treat
@RobertDaleParker Stay, tell and avoid Threads and BlueSky.
@RobertDaleParker I would like to see more universities host their own Mastodon instances