bcj

I'm realizing that I haven't actually heard people use the term much to describe people here even though I do see replies regularly from new people I haven't interacted with before¹. Most of the interactions I've had with people I don't know have been fine-to-good but that's honestly true of other sites too².

I guess a lot of this comes down to the fact that basically everyone here is new to this site and is still in the process of trying to make new friends here (even if you were here early, the site was tiny then³). The only real way of making friends online (other than introductions from other friends) is shoot your shot and be some person in the replies of people who seem cool. So far, people have been polite (and often welcoming) about my replies and I've tried to be the same. Not being able to just fave some reply in recognition means that sometimes you don't get any response back but when you do it's often a more meaningful one.

Cohost kind of fell into⁴ recreating an enforced lurking period before you can post that I remember from forums. I wonder if the wait helps people get to know the culture here a bit before they can reply. It also might make posting privileges seem more valuable so that people don't want to be annoying in the replies

1. The thing that brought me to this thought was using the phrase "randos (non-derogatory)" to refer to seeing more people I didn't know in my replies than I do elsewhere (because I don't post federated much on Mastodon and my Twitter followers have been pretty steady for years)

2. I get this one isn't a universal experience of other sites, especially if you are a big account, or are a visible minority or a member of an underprivileged group

3. Also, if you were here early, you are at most a few degrees away from someone on @staff so you probably have more reason to want this site in particular to be sustainable

4. I don't have a good feel for how much @staff views the activation period as good in its own right vs. a consequence of other decisions. When the queue emptied they switched to activating people "the next day" so my guess is more the latter than the former but not completely so.