Mastodon

[Dakota Tebaldi]

I figure this might be a useful thread because of what's going on with Twitter, and the fact that people will be looking for alternatives because of that. Mastodon is one alternative I've found and it seems to be the most popular one, but there are others.

I make this post at the risk of sounding like a platform evangelist, but bear in mind I just found this thing yesterday and am not on expert about it.

Mastodon posts, called "toots", CAN be shared here just like tweets. However, they are truncated, so you may have to click the message to see all of it if it's long enough, like the two below:

Tayo 🇺🇦 (@Tay0@fosstodon.org)

So you just arrived here from twitter and it's quiet. Real quiet. That's because there's no algorithm here designed to drive engagement(which equals profit). Here, you are the algorithm. It's up to you to find and follow people that are interesting to you. You can also see who they follow and...

fosstodon.org

FediTips has moved! (@feditips@mstdn.social)

New people, welcome to Mastodon and the Fediverse! Here's how to get started: 1. Find some people to follow over on @FediFollows@mastodon.online, and through Trunk (https://communitywiki.org/trunk) 2. Find out your Mastodon/Fediverse address so you can share it with friends...

mstdn.social

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

On a Mastodon account you always have access to three different timelines: Home, Local, and Federated. The Home timeline is made up only of posts by people you follow, the Local timeline is made up of everyone on your server, and the Federated timeline is made up of people on other servers that someone from your server has followed and individual posts on other servers that someone on your server has "boosted" (retweeted).

 

[Essence Lumin]

Mastodon posts, called "toots", CAN be shared here just like tweets. However, they are truncated, so you may have to click the message to see all of it if it's long enough, like the two below:

AFAIK, messages have a hard 500 character limit regardless of what you initially see though.

 

[Khamon]

Do I understand correctly that the fully qualified username is "foo.whatever.server.domain.created.the.account" ? So khamon.is.stuck.with.a.formal.name.reflecting.the.first.server.he.joined? Is that correct?

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Do I understand correctly that the fully qualified username is "foo.whatever.server.domain.created.the.account" ? So khamon.is.stuck.with.a.formal.name.reflecting.the.first.server.he.joined? Is that correct?

No it seems to be whatever your current server is.

So the full username is like

username@current.server

And if you migrated your account to a different server it would be

username@new.server

....is my understanding.

 

[Spirits Rising]

I simply went and joined two different servers.

 

[bubblesort]

I checked, looks like I signed up for mastadon in 2017, but didn't really use it until 2018. Back then, it looked more like tweet deck, with multiple vertical timelines sitting right next to each other. It looks much nicer now... kind of like facebook, but less annoying.

I'm Michael Daniel (@michaeldaniel@mastodon.xyz)

Feel free to shoot me a friend request or follow or... whatever we do on mastadon. Do we federate? Are we talking about starting a VVO group or something? I don't totally understand federating or local or instances, but if somebody starts a group I'll join.

Another service that was supposed to be similar to mastadon was diaspora. My account there goes back to at least 2011, but I haven't dug out my old account info for it yet.

 

[bubblesort]

Also, if you want to see a conversation from 2018 about mastadon netiquette, here it is:

The research fairy (@bgcarlisle@scholar.social)

Content warning: Masto meta; etiquette

scholar.social

This thread was quite controversial at the time, since the idea back then was we don't need no stinkin rules. I think a lot of the proposed netiquitte from back then still holds, though. Putting a CW on politics? IDK if people still do that (CW is Content Warning), but things like using url shorteners is frowned upon in many corners of the internet.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

I simply went and joined two different servers.

I've seen that you can link accounts across servers. By which I mean - I think - that you can set your accounts up so that one of the accounts is a "main" and you can set your profile on the not-main server to direct people to your main server profile. But I haven't read too much about the process or what all happens when you do that.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

One feature that Mastodon DOESN'T have, which people should be aware of, is private messaging.

It has a "DM" function which is a filter that keeps your post from showing up in anyone else's feed except the target's Home feed, but that's it.

The devs say they're working on a future E2EE feature but at present they say if anyone wants to exchange really private information they should be doing it on an E2E encrypted messaging app, not via Mastodon (or any other social media service).

 

[Khamon]

I am, hang on, let me check, oh yes, Khamon on linux.pizza

 

[Khamon]

When I use the search box, does it search the Fediverse, or only the server I'm logged into (is that the proper concept) at the time?

 

[Khamon]

There are apparently many thousand more instances than are dreamt of in my philosophy but I can't find a list of them.

 

[bubblesort]

When I use the search box, does it search the Fediverse, or only the server I'm logged into (is that the proper concept) at the time?

I think it searches the known fediverse... but there are independent federations your search can't see, but you can probably find anybody who wants to be found.

I'm on mastadon.xyz, so if you search for @michaeldaniel@mastodon.xyz, it will take you to my profile.

You are actually on social.linux.pizza, rather than linux.pizza, so to find you I had to search for Khamon@social.linux.pizza. I just followed you, and belled you, by the way. The friend option popped up for a moment then went away quick when the page finished loading, I think. Maybe you can only friend people on your own server? I don't know. I just tooted a DM at you, too.

Is anybody else's federation page scrolling like mad? I can barely read mine. It's scrolling like a busy IRC chat room.

edit: disregard the stupid hyperlinks VVO keeps adding to my post.

 

[Essence Lumin]

I think it searches the known fediverse... but there are independent federations your search can't see

Truth Social (cough)

 

[Khamon]

Yes the federation page is scrolling at triple warp scan speed sir! The welcome message says that signups have increased dramatically that past few days. It's an unscheduled stress test.

 

[Isabeau]

You can slow the automatic scrolling to manual in preferences.

 

[Khamon]

I've seen that you can link accounts across servers. By which I mean - I think - that you can set your accounts up so that one of the accounts is a "main" and you can set your profile on the not-main server to direct people to your main server profile. But I haven't read too much about the process or what all happens when you do that.

Yes I’m gonna do this with an account on a more nondescript server than social.linux.pizza because damn. The verbiage says that follows et al will “migrate” with me. This is more confusing than a farcasting network.

 

[Lexxi]

Okay, I've joined. I followed the people I could find, then told Isabeau that I have two plants. I do not know why I mentioned the plants.

Confirmation email took three seconds. Same picture I have here is on there. Same banner picture on Twitter is on Mastodon. I don't know how to link myself. lexxikitty (@lexxikitty@mastodon.lol)

My profile page says I have two posts. Below that are the words "No posts here!". I have no idea how to find these two posts I posted.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Yes I’m gonna do this with an account on a more nondescript server than social.linux.pizza because damn. The verbiage says that follows et al will “migrate” with me. This is more confusing than a farcasting network.

Yeah I'd either ask someone for help or try to look up a video or something about how to do it.