Author Topic: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?  (Read 6744 times)

Offline Robotbeat

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Look, I know we all love Elon and all, but… (and let’s just not discuss that here)… is there a NASASpaceflight Mastodon server?

We have a web forum, a Discord, a YouTube Channel, and several member twitter accounts. But is there a NASASpaceflight Mastodon server?

Twitter is too easy to get sucked into.
« Last Edit: 11/07/2022 09:05 pm by Robotbeat »
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline Phil Stooke

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #1 on: 11/07/2022 09:12 pm »
I can't answer your question, sorry.  But this does point out a problem many of us will be facing in the next year or more.  How to find news when sources become more fragmented.  I have made use of Twitter as a source for news from many agencies and companies, as well as checking useful hashtags.  But what are we facing now?  Will sources be all over the place, easily overlooked or never found?

One of the important roles NSF already plays (as well as complementary sites like UnmannedSpaceFlight.com) is to gather sources like this.  I am always grateful for the links people post to tweets from a mission, agency or company, often things I would find eventually but the tweet reduces the time spent searching.  If some of those sources stay on Twitter while others move to other places, the role of NSF and similar sites will be even more useful.  Please keep posting!

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #2 on: 11/07/2022 09:29 pm »
I don’t think Twitter is gonna disappear (might even get Twitter Blue at some point). If news folks spend less time on Twitter, though, that’d be good for everyone… it has long been a toxic place! I much prefer the moderated web forum model anyway, which Mastodon kind of is.

And the leadership of NASASpaceflight has proven they’re really good and fair at moderation.

@PhotonEmpress, who works in the space industry and has long been in the space enthusiast community, has set up a space enthusiast Mastodon server: https://spacey.space/
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline rliebman

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #3 on: 11/07/2022 09:37 pm »
Maybe this is an opportunity to expand NSF. 
Current members can opt-in for a few $ more
Base membership can be set for dual/multiple levels
and the MODS can get paid $ for cleaning up things and "moderating"
Just a thought

Offline freda

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #4 on: 11/07/2022 09:41 pm »
Not fully thought out yet, but here goes…

As any business (eg: NSF) considers which services to expend effort on, you can imagine there are always trade-offs.

The NSF footprint is already rather diluted; meaning, there are already numerous (almost too many) places to go; NSF itself, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.  Add onto that, the gigantic (sometimes unwieldy) NSF forum.  Each service requires its own amount of human effort to sustain as a meaningful/viable part of the NSF business.  There is a proven history of businesses confusing their customers or even failing by trying to do too many things; or things outside of their core business.

Instead of jumping into something new (and risk further confusing a percentage of the NSF user-base), it could be suggested that NSF probably needs to focus on what NSF has historically proven to do best; that is, deliver quality reporting and quality content (period).  In any business, there is always a case to be said for simplification and refinement of existing services before considering jumping into something new (something that NSF possibly does not have the expertise to sustain or fully leverage).

Adding a service that is redundant to, or which duplicates or overlaps a service that is already proven successful for NSF should probably be discouraged.  There is already a NSF place for social messaging, for videos, for images, for discussions, for news, for a calendar, etc.

My advice to any business is; rather than expend effort to further dilute yourself in the eyes of your customers (users) you should instead expend strategic effort to Focus, Simplify and Refine.

Offline ulm_atms

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #5 on: 11/07/2022 10:05 pm »
snip 1

And the leadership of NASASpaceflight has proven they’re really good and fair at moderation.

snip2
So um.......wonder if Chris B and crew can convince Elon to let them run Twitter?  ;D

Offline su27k

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #6 on: 11/08/2022 12:38 am »
I much prefer the moderated web forum model anyway, which Mastodon kind of is.

What's the point of having another moderated webforum when we already have one right here?

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #7 on: 11/08/2022 12:56 am »
snip 1

And the leadership of NASASpaceflight has proven they’re really good and fair at moderation.

snip2
So um.......wonder if Chris B and crew can convince Elon to let them run Twitter?  ;D
The problem with doing a good job at something difficult is that people ask you to do more of it... LOL
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline eeergo

Re: Twitter dependency: NSF Mastodon server/support?
« Reply #8 on: 11/18/2022 10:51 am »
This forum has grown to heavily rely on Twitter to link to content - in some ways it has become a tweet repository. Thankfully, when a tweet no longer exists, its text version has been stored by the forum itself, so the information is not lost. Some tweet-relaying posters are also very good at locally saving eventual embedded images on a tweet, so that they're independently available.


https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1593414512274653186


With what appears to be an imminent Twitter demise (or at least, high probability for extended downtimes/degraded service...) looming in the horizon ahead, and the mass exodus of many relevant Twitter users into other platforms -now including official accounts too-, especially Mastodon, what is plan B (or C, or Z) for the forum? Will it just ride it out until the last moment, and live with thousands of plain-text phantoms of disappeared tweets? Is it even supported to link to Mastodon messages in a similar way as tweets?

OTOH, Twitter's downfall may herald a renaissance for the forum, if that communication link is severed and we return to a pre-2010-like world?
« Last Edit: 11/18/2022 11:55 am by eeergo »
-DaviD-

Offline Hamish.Student

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Re: Twitter dependency: NSF Mastodon server/support?
« Reply #9 on: 11/18/2022 12:35 pm »
OTOH, Twitter's downfall may herald a renaissance for the forum, if that communication link is severed and we return to a pre-2010-like world?
 
 
One can hope. I am sick of all the twit posting.

Offline eeergo

OTOH, Twitter's downfall may herald a renaissance for the forum, if that communication link is severed and we return to a pre-2010-like world?
 
 
One can hope. I am sick of all the twit posting.

Yeah, I feel you. Annoying to have to wade through unnecessary content and weird quoting, plus the processing loading when too many tweets are inserted into a thread. OTOH both the leadership of the forum and the majority of the good sources post there. Hard to do away with it.
-DaviD-

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #11 on: 11/18/2022 06:14 pm »
I think Twitter overall has been toxic (in ways that Mastodon can’t be, due to federation), so I won’t cry too much if it does go under (but that’s wishful thinking IMHO… it doesn’t take that much to host a microblogging service, which is precisely why millions of people have been able to migrate to Mastodon which is usually volunteer run).

That’s not what this thread is about, though.

Does NASASpaceflight have a Mastodon presence, if not a server? Might make sense to add a link to people’s Mastodon accounts like we do Twitter accounts in our bios.
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #12 on: 11/18/2022 06:59 pm »
Yes, there is a space Mastodon server: https://Spacey.Space, run by PhotonEmpress (SpaceX's Principal Video Engineer).
Indeed, I linked to it in the third post of this thread:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=57610.msg2427566#msg2427566
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline Bogeyman

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #13 on: 12/17/2022 01:59 pm »
So, I logged in to this  https://spacey.space/ server of mastodon.
Next step, looking for all the cool bloggers I have been following.
Thing is, there seems to be a Chris Bergin account that is, however, marked as a bot. There is also a Nasaspaceflight account, no bot though but with just 15 followers. Somebody imitating them?

So, I feel a bit like SETI looking for aliens, that is, a spaceflight enthusiast looking for my heroes that I've been following on twitter: "Where are they?".
Anybody an idea what the movement is? Will people like Everyday Astronaut, Chris G, Eric Berger & CO  find their way over here?

Offline Bogeyman

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #14 on: 12/17/2022 02:11 pm »
Update: I found Eric Berger. @[email protected]

Enter searchwords like SpaceX or Nasa and search for the hashtags.

Offline Ken the Bin

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #15 on: 12/17/2022 09:21 pm »
Chris G is @[email protected] but hasn't posted anything.

Offline Bogeyman

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #16 on: 12/18/2022 10:00 am »
Yeah, same with Tim Dodd. I guess they have secured them the account for later use.
But it is nice to see that Jeff Foust or Eric Berger are beginning to post there.

Offline Ken the Bin

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #17 on: 12/18/2022 01:44 pm »
Yeah, same with Tim Dodd. I guess they have secured them the account for later use.
But it is nice to see that Jeff Foust or Eric Berger are beginning to post there.

As far as I can see, Jeff just has his tweets interfacing to mastodon.social.  He's only following two accounts, so he doesn't appear to really be using his Mastodon account.

Eric is also interfacing his tweets, but he's also clearly actually using his Mastodon account.

Offline Bogeyman

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Re: Is there an NSF or Space enthusiast Mastodon server?
« Reply #18 on: 12/18/2022 02:19 pm »
Looks to me that many of them already have at least the foot in the door. As soon as more and more people move to mastodon, the activity is going to increase.

Offline thespacecow

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Re: Twitter dependency: NSF Mastodon server/support?
« Reply #19 on: 11/28/2023 02:04 am »
With what appears to be an imminent Twitter demise

LOL, this aged well... /s

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