Dear Fedi friends,

[Gast]

@_elena oh very very good luck to you! you will ace this. I've seen you present and you're so clear and confident. they are lucky to have you.

(in my terrible French my testimony is that aux autres résaux sociaux je lis, je vois des choses, de temps en temps j'écrit. c'est bon mais ce ne change rien dans ma vie. chez mastodon j'APPRENDS. quand je le ferme j'ai appris des novelles choses et vu des liens nouveaux entre les choses que j'ai su.)

[Gast]

@_elena @shanselman once written "Own your words!", so I'm owning mine, have my space for social contacts not governed by people doing it for profit at all. That feels great! We have a very nice #Czech community around and that's all I need for now.

[Gast]

@_elena I have grown up on the countryside and always felt very isolated. I thought there is nobody else like me out there. Until I have found the Fediverse where I instantly felt home. Finally, I was able to share my interests and felt understood. The Fediverse has helped me to become the person, I am today.

[Gast]

@_elena
I like that, on Fedi, I generally don’t have to worry about being attacked; and I can freely use words like “albeit,” or “clusterfuck.”

[Gast]

@_elena Being in the Fediverse has really brought the “social” part of social media back for me. I’m not being gamed for engagement by a corporate company that wants to feed off my emotions, I can just interact with people online again, like how it used to be… like how it should be!

[_elena@mastodon.social]

@mariafarrell thank you Maria, it means so much coming from you ️ and I completely agree with you re: learning here.

I once replied to someone (toot gone bc of autodelete sadly): "14 years on Big Tech platforms and I learned nothing. 4 years on the Fediverse and I feel like MacGyver"

[_elena@mastodon.social]

@jan thank you for the beautiful words Jan @shanselman

[_elena@mastodon.social]

@Lioh

[_elena@mastodon.social]

@RobeeShepherd aw I LOVE this

[Gast]

@_elena Good luck with your presentation, you are going to smash it!!

[Gast]

@_elena ha! that is a fantastic quote! you go girl. x

[Gast]

@_elena Je suis européenne, et je n'ai aucune intention de créer du contenu ni de contribuer à remplir les poches d'oligarques étrangers qui veulent détruire notre Union. Je suis très reconnaissante envers toutes les personnes qui consacrent souvent du temps, des efforts et de l'argent à titre bénévole pour coder et modérer un réseau social européen. Cela ne devrait pas être un fardeau qu'elles portent seules.

[Gast]

@_elena Fediverse is a place where the only one barier is you. Nobody tells you how to live here, and what to watch. Choice is in your hand

[wurzelmann@mastodon.wurzelmann.at]

@_elena the Fediverse is special, because it feels like "our" network, "our" social media. I run my own Mastodon instance and I love it. There are no algorithms, it is just a whole different experience to Twitter (where I was active for many years before) and other platforms.

As an advocate for open source software and operating systems, Mastodon/the Fediverse is the logical next step for communication and socialisation for me.

[Gast]

@_elena For me the Fediverse is hope. When everything else seems to be crumbling, I see in the Fediverse hope that the internet can be a good place. Without all the ads and algorithms and influencers, people can be good to one another, and we can work together to build a better future. We all need more hope right now.

[Gast]

@_elena

https://mastodon.au/@SuperMoosie/116365551527059474

[Gast]

@_elena
J'aime le fédiverse pour sa nature intrinsèquement anticapitaliste : pas de société centrale, pas de serveurs centraux, pas de logiciels centraux, des communautés souvent hébergées par des volontaires ou des associations, pas d'algorithmes de recommandation visant à maximiser le temps d'usage, la possibilité de migrer librement d'un serveur à un autre, des politiques de modération variées. Juste des gens et des relations sociales. Et finalement, c'est ce qu'on veut d'un réseau *social*.

[Gast]

@_elena Nell'attuale modello sociale, gli spazi comuni, gli spazi liberi, vanno riducendosi sempre di più, a tutto vantaggio dei luoghi "a pedaggio", luoghi in cui per stare seduto, per fare sport, per giocare, devi pagare in denaro o in natura. Così come gli architetti urbanisti cercano di trovare soluzioni per fare in modo che la cittadinanza riconquisti il diritto agli spazi liberi e gratuiti, allo stesso modo gli "urbanisti digitali" del Fediverso hanno realizzato un'infrastruttura che consenta ai cittadini digitali di riappropriarsi dei propri spazi senza svendere le proprie relazioni e i propri pensieri alla profilazione dei data broker e alla manipolazione algoritmica a fini di lucro; questo è il Fediverso: uno spazio comune, pubblico e intimo allo stesso tempo.

en français

Dans le modèle social actuel, les espaces communs, les espaces de liberté, se raréfient au profit des espaces payants – des lieux où il faut payer, en espèces ou en nature, pour s'asseoir, faire du sport ou se divertir. De même que les urbanistes cherchent des solutions pour garantir aux citoyens le droit à des espaces libres et ouverts, les « urbanistes numériques » du Fediverse ont créé une infrastructure permettant aux citoyens numériques de se réapproprier leurs espaces sans que leurs relations et leurs pensées ne soient instrumentalisées par des courtiers en données pour le profilage et la manipulation algorithmique à des fins lucratives. C'est le Fediverse : un espace commun, à la fois public et intime.

[Gast]

@_elena pour moi le Fediverse c’est:
- une expérience bien supérieure aux autres reseaux: pas de pub, flux chronologique, accès facile aux news ; un réseau plus petit mais convivial avec des échanges intéressants; un concept honnête et clair qui me conduit à participer aux frais de serveurs de la communauté php; pas de défauts majeurs. J’espère juste que tu vas faire du bon boulot et que plein de gens vont arriver ici

[Gast]

@_elena
I love how much agency I have in the Fediverse. My feed contains only what I have chosen and not what an algorithm spits out.

Also I feel like the sense of community is stronger here. People are here because they want to be; there seems to be a general appreciation for real personal interaction and not just what will occupy the most minutes of human attention.