A Mastodon Quickstart
There’s not much to it:
- Choose a provider
- Setup your profile
- Follow some accounts or topics
- Write some things
- Boost some things
- Repeat steps 3-6
There seem to be two typical roadbumps:
- Confusion over choosing a provider (step 1)
- Building connections (it’s not automatic) (step 6)
- Focusing here on Mastodon
- Most active platform in fediverse
- Public discourse through short messages
- “Microblogging”
- Other options in the fediverse
- Other proprietary options
- Have you learned nothing?
- You don’t need to run your own server
- Unless you want to… not covered here
- Best bet: just use the same server as your friends
- Doesn’t much matter which server you choose
- Conceptually a big tree of nodes, all connected
- You can communicate with anybody
- You can move your account to a different provider any time
- Designed into the system… only takes a few clicks
- Your existing followers automatically update
Server recommendation help
The official joinmastodon.org page
- Provides a simple and easy interface
- Many people just use that
Here are some other tools for scouting servers:
The suggestions might not be acceptable:
- random special interests
- too overtly political
- too insular, etc
In that case, have a look at some of the following options…
A sampling of servers
- Most any server allows general communication
- Some also gravitate toward specific interests
Big general purpose servers
Smaller special interest servers
Selection considerations for the connoisseur
You could just pick any reasonably large (1000+) server.
It will be fine.
But if you want to check more carefully, consider:
- Up-to-date software version
- Big&stable vs small&nimble
- Which language
- Server responsiveness
- Moderator responsiveness
- Max post text length (varies, often 500 chars)
- Local code of conduct
- Extra features
- Communities
- Based on fields and interests
- Based on identity
- Based on location
- Load the server’s home page and click the “Local” feed link (or append
/public/local)
- There’s at least something going on, right?
- Evaluate the content subjectively…
- Can you see a few interesting random posts?
- Comfortable neighborhood? What kind of people?
- Right level of friendliness, intellectualism, etc?
- Read the server’s about page (click about on lower left or append
/about)
- Important: can you abide the code of conduct?
- Do the server rules offer the protections you want?
- Do the server rules offer the freedoms you want?
- Extra credit: sanity check moderated servers list…
- Are there people or servers you want to follow that would be filtered?
Setting up an account
Create an account
- Use the “Create” or “Sign up” button on the server home page
- In some cases it’s immediate
- In other cases you have to go through hoops e.g. email ping
- Add profile pic
- Add sufficient info for disambiguation
- Add whatever personal info you wish to divulge
- Abilities?
- Sensitivities?
- Proclivities?
- Location?
- Profession?
- Add links to your websites
Post an introduction
It is common convention to introduce yourself via a post:
- Use the
#introduction hashtag
- Additional hashtags might help with visibility
- Synopsis of personal info on your profile
- What sort of posts to expect from you
- Some exciting hook to convince people to follow you?
- An interesting picture might help
Ideally, do this before you follow others (see below).
@me@some.server in text, https://some.server/@me in link
- Post on your other social media accounts like facebook, twitter, etc
- Send emails as appropriate
- Also consider adding the link to appropriate web pages, etc
Follow some interesting accounts
You have to actively choose to follow people, otherwise your feed will happily remain barren.
How barren or full is your preference.
There are tools for finding friends from twitter, if you’re migrating. Those are not documented here.
Easy way
- Whenever you see an interesting persona…
- Perhaps from a boosted post
- Perhaps when perusing the local or federated feed
- Click their name for more info, click follow
- Have a look what kind of things they post and how often
Curated directories
Manually
- Use the search box
- You can type a name, e.g.
James Corey
- Or you can type username and server, e.g.
@jaymcor@mastodon.acm.org
- Click the “Follow” button next to the appropriate search result
Starter pack
You should definitely follow the admin for your server.
Below are some random starting points you might try…
- Institutional
- 3 Random Famous people
- 3 Random Subject experts
Yes, you can follow hashtags, just enter them in search or explore, open the feed, and hit the plus icon at the top.
#BreadPosting#lichensubscribe#caturday
Please note
- If somebody is posting too much, you can temporarily mute them
- If somebody is boosting too much, you can hide just their boosts
- Beware impersonation accounts
- The linked website verification method is very helpful
- If verification checks, it is highlighted in green
- Compare vs google search results for the name if in doubt
- Web of trust considerations apply
- Did you get the link from someone you know IRL?
- How careful is that person?
Write some things
- Text
- Images
- Links
- Polls
- Audio
- Video
Mentioning other users
- Same server?
@jaymcor
- Different server?
@jaymcor@mastodon.acm.org
- Use them! It helps people search and discover
- Prefer collected at end for accessibility
- Don’t go crazy
- CamelCase for clarity and screenreaders
- But it’s not case sensitive
- No hyphens just letters and numbers
- Examples:
#politics#FollowFriday#sporespondence
- See more examples by selecting Explore/Hashtags
Content warnings (CW)
- Use for traditional sensitive content
- But also for spoiler alerts, politics, ugly things like TFG
- Also can use for “below the fold”
- Perhaps to make skimming easier for the reader
- Some community variations in usage
Provisos
- For now, do not assume your posts are truly private
- Even when you shared only with followers or an individual
- They flow through the fediverse unencrypted
- If secrecy is crucial, use a different tool
- Analogous to email
Boost some things
- In other words re-posting or re-sharing
- No annotations as of 2023-02-05
- The original rationale may be of some historic interest
- By popular request, annotations are on the dev roadmap
- Best mechanism for discovery and cohesion
- Don’t worry, people have the option to hide your boosts if they like
- Liking (the star) is nice but less crucial
- It lets the author know you appreciate their post
- But it does not increase visibility
- Not a competition
Other introductory guides
There is no shortage of introductions on the web, a quick search away.
Some examples:
Beyond getting started