Hey everyone, I've had a few people ask and I'm not having problems with the moderation work-load, but thanks for checking!
You're generally very easy on me as a mod
The bigger reason why I closed sign-ups here is that building community just isn't something that can be done at scale
It takes relationship-building, getting to know people, connecting with them, vulnerability, consistency and investment in each other
And no it won't be the same as academic Twitter
But
Have you seen Twitter?
Also (and this is my last thought on this I promise)
Thinking in terms of the health of the Fediverse
Masto instances shouldn't let themselves get too big
No instance should be "too big to block"
@bgcarlisle this is the one silver lining I see with shitty single-user instances. Oh hey, we lose literally nothing of value by suspending your instance, thanks for the convenience!
@bgcarlisle I'm new and really enjoy reading your thoughts on these topics. ❤️
Would you prefer this instance stay at 5-10k accounts rather than grow to 10-20 mods and 50-100k accounts? What happens when you are sick or retire (for whatever reason, not necessarily age)?
Until posts can move from instance to instance (not just followers and a "tombstone") it would be frustrating to leave thousands of posts behind. So long-term instance survivability and, possibly, size could be important?
@wait_sasha I'd much rather a smaller instance
It isn't just the mod to user ratio
It's also the culture that can't be scaled and the heath of the network as a whole
As for whenever I "retire," hoping that I'll pass the torch to someone
@bgcarlisle normalize fediblock posts where the reason given is "> xyz active users"
All that to say,
If you want to get to know some cool kids on Scholar, welcome, pull up a seat, the coffee machine is in the kitchenette over there
But if you want to maximize user engagement with your brand, I'll kinda be actively putting up roadblocks to that kind of behaviour here and you'll eventually get frustrated and leave