Eternal September is when influx from some other (often shittier and collapsing) platform overwhelms the unique culture that existed before, and in time fully replaces it. Destroying what existed before.

🧠 💭 Figure out strategies & actions in comments below … participate!

For example, I introduced 2 hashtags for awareness:

  • #AvoidEternalSeptember Raise attention to the culture clash.
  • #DonateToFediInstances Help admins and moderators withstand the influx and give them your support.

We want to be gentle, welcoming to newcomers. Show them around. But also keep having the nice chattering and culture we had before, and maybe give those some extra boosts to exemplify and spread the vibes.

Here’s a poll to make newcomers aware that taking Twitter culture with you on the Fediverse is just weird.

Fedizens… Be strategical in how you toot to help avoid that from happening

  • _NoName_
    7·
    2 years ago

    I think the solution is going to be more instances. Keeping the user count low per instance both allows human moderation to remain viable, and provides more niches for subcultures to grow. I think 2000 total users in an instance is safe manageable amount, so long as they are not all using the instance at once.

    This poses new issues for the fediverse as a whole which I do not fully understand yet myself.

    • poVoq@slrpnk.net
      5·
      2 years ago

      2000 is a manageable amount technology wise as that can be easily supported on a cheap VPS, but moderation wise that is already too much for a single person to handle. It might be ok for a while if most of them lurk (internet 1% rule), but something closer to Dunbar’s number is probably more healthy for a single admin instance.

      • _NoName_
        2·
        2 years ago

        2000 concurrent is absolutely unmanageable, but I feel most servers will deal with a 100:10:1 ratio between total users, active users, and concurrent users. That definitely isn’t a perfect rule of thumb but it’s usually what I observe on discord servers and subreddits alot of the time. Based on that, 2000 total users logged on a server would equate to about 200 active users who log in regularly, but only about 20 concurrent users online and posting at any one time.

        EDIT: If we want to put the active users to dunbar’s number, though, we’re looking at 1500 total users per server. I don’t really think a single admin for any social space is really enough, as that means that most servers would go unmoderated the majority of any given day, while still putting alot of strain on that sole admin.

  • comfy
    6·
    2 years ago

    I’m not a Mastodon/etc. users but I can sympathize with some other sites. Even here has its own Ongoing September from redditors.

    I would recommend reaching out to moderation teams and raising awareness, because they probably have far more ability to put global notifications or sign-up messages, and to give warnings to uncomfortable behaviour.

    Make sure to call out twitter carryover, in a constructive way, so that people are aware that Mastodon isn’t ‘twitter but here’.

    • poVoq@slrpnk.net
      51·
      2 years ago

      On Lemmy we have the issue of entire groups of people being kicked off Reddit and causing havoc here, but this Twitter exodus is a bit different with people choosing to switch.

      I don’t think there is much of a general “Twitter culture” taking over like what you have when a mass exodus of a specific banned sub-reddit dumps their shit here, so I am cautiously optimistic regarding this Twitter exodus.

      But the OP is also wrong about the original Eternal September: It wasn’t that people switched platforms, but rather that mainstream culture started to flood what was previously a small niche network. This effect is much more diffuse and can go multiple ways as “mainstream” culture is a very broad definition and has become even more diffuse in recent decades.

      • smallcirclesOP
        4·
        2 years ago

        Indeed, I was less interested in the historical event and, so I generalized the concept.

        Right now, not only is there somewhat of a culture clash, but a vanguard of CEO’s, CTO’s and high profile Silicon Value (laid-off?) workers streaming in.

        Birdsite has a couple’a hundred million users. But the influx is potentially much, much bigger and continues going, as - due to all media attention worldwide - Mastodon and by extension the Fediverse becomes a household name.

        I am not only fretting about an Eternal September to take place, but increasingly more expecting it to happen. And with the inevitable corporate takeover following in its strides.

        • poVoq@slrpnk.net
          3·
          2 years ago

          Yes, I get your concern, but the Fediverse already has large corporate instances (in Japan) and I don’t think that has been much of an issue so far. As long as they don’t start trying to monopolize the network like Google did with Email and XMPP, it is probably good to have some of these.

  • Strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
    3·
    2 years ago

    @humanetech I’m testing Mastodon-to-Lemmy posting so I’ll keep this short. I think we’ve had enough small waves of refugees from datafarming platforms to have prepared us for a much bigger one. Those who want to keep their small country pub experience can mute or block any account or instance that threatens to spoil that for them. There will be growing pains but I think the pros of mainstream use outweigh the cons.

    #Lemmy #fediverse #EternalSeptember