So following on from that research into why people aren't signing up to the fedi, yesterday I tried a little experiment to remove some of the biggest barriers and help people make the jump.
People complain the process of signing up to mastodon is complicated, and it's hard to find the Good Posts.
So I shared with people who wanted to join two things:
1. An invite link to the server I'm on, to stop them having to choose.
2. My follow list in csv format, to populate the tl with good posts.
I think the principle of this approach was sound, but I would probably want to refine the execution. I helped about 35 people to join the fedi, and hopefully they'll be more likely to stick around after a bit of lurking, seeing that it *is* fun here, and having a place to go which isn't a howling void whenever the next twitter collapse happens.
But definitely need to improve execution; some of my follows were baffled or annoyed by suddenly getting a ton of new accounts from one server following
@stavvers @evilstevie Soz, gonna persist in calling them Stavverites
@rooftopaxx @stavvers @evilstevie so long as they're not the stavvicles...!
@MintSpies @stavvers @evilstevie instantly converted! 🥚 🥚
@evilstevie the correct term is stav-lets.