social media – To be decided

Creating an account

People say that it doesn’t matter what instance (aka server) you choose. They are wrong. Difference instances have different rules and different vibes.

Think of an instance as your local neighbourhood. While you may have friends around the world, you have to follow the rules that are based on where you are.

Pick an instance that:
1. Suits your moderation preferences
2. Matches your interests / location or is pretty generic
3. Is open for new accounts at the moment.

To help you find such an instance, I recommend people use https://instances.social/ (best viewed on a large screen browser rather than a mobile device) to search for one that fits their needs. Personally, avoiding the very large instances at the moment is probably a good idea, as they are most likely to be overwhelmed with moderation of a lot of new people unused to the culture.

When you have picked a server / instance to join, read up on it a little more, just to check. For example, I am on the https://mastodon.ie server; https://mastodon.ie/@mastodonie has some useful pinned posts that help explain the vibes of the server.

Sign-up messages for mastodon.ie get read by the admins, and we use them as a simple reassurance that someone is grand.
If you used dummy text, it was probably rejected, because the humans didn’t understand it.
One thing we’ve learned is that a lot of people thought it was just a bot thing, but it isn’t.

If you think something like that happened you, you can just apply again at: https://mastodon.ie/auth/sign_up

Sorry for any confusion.

(please pass on if you know someone)
https://mastodon.ie/@mastodonie/109522400216871086

Now you have joined a server: getting started

Sit back and observe just a little. Check to see if the server is what you expected. The easiest time to switch servers is when you have few followers / are following few people and you don’t have many posts, so use the time to figure out if you are where you want to be. Note that you can only switch servers once a month (or so), but you can hold accounts on multiple servers at once, especially if they serve difference purposes.

Start by following hashtags rather than just people. It can start diversifying who you follow. There isn’t an algorithm driving engagement with the feed and suggesting new people to follow, so it is more work than commercial social media sites, for whom commercial success depends on audience retention and engagement.

Boosts versus favourites

Favouriting a post does not increase its visibility. Instead it lets the author know that you have seen their post and like it. If you want others to see the posts, then boost them. You will only receive notifications about posts that you have made, not that you have boosted (other than a notification if the original author edits the post). Determining how many times a post has been interacted with is actually a bit tricky on mastodon, as not all interactions are visible – it will depend on federation status and lots more complicated things (not for this post!)

Different Feeds

You will typically have three different feeds. Your home feed is for accounts (or hashtags) that you follow; a second one (a group of people) is for accounts that are on the same server as you and then the global feed (for all accounts that your server is federated with). Federation is a thing in and of itself. I will give a short (missing all subtlety) version below

Two servers (A and B) can be linked when people from those servers follow accounts on the other server, allowing the servers to be visible to one another. However, if moderators of one of the servers (A) decide that the moderation policies of the other server (B) aren’t up to scratch, then they can choose to defederate from server B, so while you (on server A) can still follow accounts from server (B) and they can still appear in your home timeline, posts from this server won’t appear on your global feed.

Finding things: the hashtag

Text is not searchable on mastodon. To find an account, you need to know the full handle of the account: for example the username and the server. I am @dtoher@mastodon.ie or https://mastodon.ie/@dtoher

If you want others to find your posts by searching, you will need need to include relevant hashtags – such as #EJC or #juggling if I am talking about the European Juggling Convention, or #RStats when talking about R. To be polite to those using screenreaders, it is recommended to use either camelCase or PascalCase when combining words to form a single hashtag: so it would be #EuropeanJugglingConvention if using Pascal case! The screenreader can then tell when each word ends and it can be read more naturally.

More on accessibility

Using alt text for the images posted is more of a cultural norm on mastodon than on other social media sites I have used. However, many new users have not adopted this (which is a pity) and not all apps make it possible to read the alt text – this was one thing that recent versions of twitter got right!

Accessibility goes beyond physical barriers – it also includes gender, race and location barriers. At the moment, due, in part, to its European origins, mastodon is still very white and Eurocentric. Many servers ban TERFs and all forms of transphobic posting, which makes a nice difference from twitter.

Conflicts can arise due to different cultural expectations. This can mean that someone may be banned from a server for what may seem to be petty reasons (and may in fact be relatively petty) – with big waves of new users, moderation teams (usually volunteers) may be overwhelmed. Think before reporting –

Please consider the report button to mean “this person may need to be removed”. When you press the button, mods have to stop making the dinner until they know what’s happening and that nobody feels unsafe.

If someone needs guidance rather than removal, (CW, global vs unlisted, etc) maybe you can do it?

If you’d like to try, be friendly, be conversational, start by saying “Hello, how are you finding all this?” Let people know you have their back before making them self-conscious or defensive.
https://mastodon.ie/@mastodonie/109348667879690753

That being said, if someone is posting something in obvious breach of your servers rules, report it. If they are on your server, then your mod team will look at it and evaluate what to do. If it is on a different server, then, if the server you are on is linked (federated with) the process is a little more complex – but if it is in breech of the rules of their home server they may be banned; if it is not but your mod team still think that it is objectionable, then they may start the defederation process.

Do remember that you also have the choice to block individual accounts, and block terms. You also have the option to hide terms within a content wrapper/warning (CW) using the filtering system. I really like this; it essentially creates a spoiler for you.

The request for use of CW was a big point of conflict between different communities during the last twitter influx. In particular, many black people found being requested to put a CW on their posts insulting, especially posts discussing being racially harassed; saying that personal experiences shouldn’t need to be hidden. This was against the culture of “opt-in” consent that had built up and that existing users claimed that it allowed them to decide if they were in a suitable frame of mind to read posts that may be triggering.

Some of the requests to put things behind a CW were more innocuous – for example, I found that people putting food related posts behind a CW to be really helpful, as I have had eating related issues in the past. Other people thought that there was excessive amount of CW happening. Most people would never think to do this, so the new feature (arrived in November) to create text based CW filters can help this.

Therefore, at a minimum, put an appropriate hashtag on your post, so that people with that CW filter set up can have it activated. Forcing someone to listen to you without their consent doesn’t bring happiness, respecting personal boundaries is important.

Switching servers

There are lots of guides out there on how to switch servers. Danielle Navarro’s excellent blog post on mastodon is the best I have found on that (linked at bottom). The only bit missing is how to archive your posts on the old server. You may need to do a manual request for this – especially if you have posted more than 20 posts (as 20 posts is the number that comes up with your RSS feed – add rss to the end of your url to get the feed. https://mastodon.ie/@dtoher.rss will access my RSS feed. I have used the rtoot package to create a local archive of my posts. This means that I can set up an autodelete function (if I choose) which will help to minimise load on my server.

Support your server

Remember, this isn’t ad funded. Someone has to pay hosting costs. Check out how your server is funded. Toss a coin (if you can) to your admin team! Be friendly to other new arrivals – check out #introduction posts!

Apps

I have three mastodon accounts across two servers. I use the tusky app for two of those and the browser for the third. Mastodon works fine in a mobile browser, so you don’t have to pick an app to use it! Generally the official mastodon app isn’t great (on both Android and iOS) – other apps are nicer to use.