Ethan Black @golemwire@librem.one

If you have a Mastodon account and follow someone, the follow button will sometimes display a "Follow request sent" message.

Usually this is because the other account has follow approval switched on, which means its owner will manually decide whether to accept your follow request. This kind of account has a padlock 🔒 icon next to it on its profile page.

However... Mastodon also displays this "Follow request sent" message if something has gone wrong with the follow, especially if you're trying to follow someone on a non-Mastodon server.

Partially broken federation often causes Mastodon to display this message, for some reason.

If you see "follow request sent" when you try to follow someone, and they don't have a padlock 🔒 on their profile page, then it's likely that the follow didn't work properly.

If a follow doesn't work properly, try unfollowing them (or cancel the follow request), wait a bit, then click "follow" again.

#Mastodon #Following #FollowRequests

@technicalissues I'm going to go ahead and say that security-minded software should not use SMS as an authentication factor.

I'm trying to find out about the atrocities that computers / information technologies have enabled, for a lesson on computer ethics.

I know about IBM and the Holocaust (though further resources on that would be helpful), but what else is there?

#boostsappreciated #askfedi #history #genocide

Desiring less garbage has been a big motivator in my computing journey.

Yo #Fedi folk,

What #Mastodon instance would you recommend to your mom? It's not for my mom, but for friends that aren't really the target demographic for @fosstodon (which I love).

Looking for something reasonably large (>9999 members), but family friendly, that blocks all the fringe political junk and NSFW.

#AskFedi #Fediverse #AskFediverse

Just had a question about this, thought it might be useful to answer as a post:

There are lots of different server types on the Fediverse, but they talk to each other using a common standard called ActivityPub.

This means you don't need to be on the same server type to interact.

For example, if you're on a Mastodon server you can have a conversation with someone on a Friendica server.

This works even when the server types are very different. People on Mastodon etc can like, comment and share videos from @peertube or follow livestreaming accounts on @owncast. (To see examples, take a look at @FediVideos)

This process is so seamless that you may not even be aware you're interacting with people from other server types. If you're a Mastodon user, try clicking on @bobfisherphoto and it will look like a Masto account, but it's actually a @pixelfed account. To see what an account "really" looks like, click on the avatar on its profile page.

#Fediverse #ActivityPub

If you're browsing a very new account, it may appear to be empty even though they have already posted lots of stuff.

This is because most Fediverse servers don't "backfill" new profiles, i.e. if no one followed them at the time a post was made then their post will not be visible from other servers, even if people follow them later. Followers of new users will only see posts made after they follow them, and the oldest posts will remain invisible.

You can see all of a profile's public posts by clicking on the profile's avatar to open it on its home server.

You can also force any post to become visible from your server too by copying the post's public URL and pasting it into the search box on your server.

(If you think this is crazy, and you'd like Mastodon to automatically backfill posts when people follow an account, please give a thumbs up to the issue at https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/34 so that the developers realise you want this.)

#FediTips #MastoTips #Fediverse #Mastodon

The best #Linux phones you can buy right now

(Updated: @shiftphones 6mq, @Fairphone 4 climb closer to the top)

https://tuxphones.com/best-linux-phones-buying-guide-2022/