Mastodon is apparently quite popular in France. I'm guessing this is because you get 500 characters instead of 140, and French isn't a very succinct language?
@Xowap "No, French is succinct enough", or "no, that's not the reason?"
@nyubis kind of both :)
@nyubis I'm trying to get my head around this.
@futuretro Basically how French has longer words/expressions than other languages for the same concepts, so you'd have to fight the character limit more often.
Then again I'm basing that on my impressions of textbook French — everyday French with a bit of slang is probably a lot shorter.
@nyubis Interesting... although i was trying to get my head around why Mastodon is popular amongst the French-speakers, heh
@nyubis let's just say today quite mainstream media talked about it, so here we are!
500 characters is so much. Almost feels like cheating. This must be what twitter is like for Japanese users.
@nyubis that, and 3 more-or-lest famous blogs/websites wrote about it during the past days, apparently
@nyubis nah just because French librists (and random internet people) are usually very actrive and willing to try new stuff
@nyubis it’s probably more a network effect: some popular french people talked about Mastodon, and made a migration wave
@nyubis Twitter's character limit is the main reason I'm avoiding it. Posting several consecutive posts, using weird abbreviations or posting pictures of the text? No, thanks.
@nyubis Sure, it's easier to tweet in English than in French for grammatical reasons, but the French are on Mastodon for fashion's sake, not for the 500 char limit
Oui :joy:
@nyubis also because "pouet" (the French for toot) is an amazing word :)
@nyubis That IS a serious relief! xD
But also, we have some small-but-active free software, queer and anarchist communities, and articles & talks about Mastodon circulated through those circles these past two days.
@nyubis We made the same joke with the Germans ^__^
@nyubis Or because French like to complain and argue a lot, and complaining or arguing requires a lot of characters. By the way, why is the limit fixed to 500 characters? Why not 600? It's an arbitrary restriction of letting myself express a full and free imprint of my will and as such I officially request a debate over this number and its implications on the terseness that limit impose on the expression of thoughts and it's implicit constrain on the way people's minds wo
@nyubis also because we have a nice and active open source/Libre software community. So when a project like Mastodon arises we're interested.
@nyubis argh, sorry about the cross-post here, my finger slipped too quickly.
@nyubis or maybe because Twitter trying to shove random ads in my throat sucks :)
@nyubis or because #1 French people are by nature jealous of any american success #2 their government has been trying to moderate Twitter for years ?
@nyubis We like to bitch&whine a lot, yes.
@nyubis we're just traitors who love changing habits like wife and job
@nyubis did I say that out loud ? :grinning:
@nyubis it's because a very famous french youtuber promoted this website 2 days ago :)
@nyubis Or becauyse french famous youtubers migrated here ;)
@nyubis and maybe it's also because a lot of french peoples likes to think they are rebels :wink:
@nyubis Could be quite a reason, yes :)
@nyubis I'd say it's because we collectively like to rise against concentration of power, and that we have a high amount of crypto-anarchist around, but hey maybe you're right ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@nyubis Maybe because we're more talkative?
@nyubis : your message longer than 140 characters...
@nyubis I'm going to try and put this in a nuanced way: no