Thread by @d_brueckner

There's been lots of talk on moving #ScienceTwitter to another platform

As scientists, we should make informed decisions & not accept status quo - so what are the options? I checked out open-source non-profit @joinmastodon

How it works, why it's great & how to get started!🧵

First, why change? As twitter now belongs to the world's richest person, we have a moment to ask ourselves if this is the right place for us.

From our experience with software and journals, we all agree that open-source community-based solutions are the way forward

2/12

Twitter is a profit-oriented company whose attention-economy algorithm maximizes time spent on the site - to run ads.

Should this be how we run our science/academia digital townsquare?

#ScienceTwitter has become a super useful community tool - but it could be much better

3/12

Tech peeps concerned with these aspects flock to @joinmastodon - check the followers of the account "muesli" on #Mastdon - can you spot when Musk bought Twitter?

At first look Mastodon may look unintuitive - so is it what we need for #ScienceTwitter and how to get started?

4/12

Pros of @joinmastodon:
- open-source
- decentralized: run on a federation of servers
- no ads!
- no attention-algorithm: the timeline is chronological!
- 500 instead of 140 characters in each "toot"
- key features that we need conserved: mentions, hashtags, retweets, likes

5/12

Some were concerned the server structure would mean #ScienceMastodon would mean less interaction with public / prospective students

But not to worry: follows can be across servers, most are public, and there is no immediate need for a separate #ScienceMastodon server

6/12

Cons? I found one so far: you currently cannot post videos. I love videos of cells doing crazy things - but I could live with communicating with cool images instead

Also - one can be active on both platforms and use them for different things - perhaps for the better?

7/12

A new platform could give us an opportunity to start new conversations and rethink our community digital townsquare:

Conversations about actual science (with 500 characters!), how to fix publishing & other problems of academia

So - what do you think?

You want to give it a chance? Here's how to get started!

1. Make an account 💻

I recommend starting on mas.to, a generic server. If there is a #ScienceMastodon server one day, accounts are movable

9/12

2. Set up your profile 📸📰

Easy peasy, but a cool additional option we don't have on twitter: up to 4 "metadata" pieces like institution, research interests that you can configure yourself!

10/12

3. Verification ✅ (optional)

The verification system on Twitter is very opaque and has rarely verified scientists

Since #Mastodon is decentralized there is no central verification - but you can include this html code on your lab website and you'll be verified with the website!

Enjoyed this🧵?
Please RT the first tweet below.

For more discussion on this, follow me @d_brueckner and mas.to/@DavidBrueckner

I will go with both #ScienceTwitter and #ScienceMastodon for now 😉

https://twitter.com/d_brueckner/status/1586720947704299520?s=20&t=PpWT1IwOAoBtcxbs2BzCxQ

That would be amazing! 👇

If you make the move, post your #Mastodon link in the comments below and get some followers!😊

https://twitter.com/Tat1anaMoiseeva/status/1586770071510286340?s=20&t=1jBOUk1mFf4LatS8zNwlwg

And check out my first #ScienceMastodon toot where you can drop a line that you're there!

mas.to/web/@DavidBrue…