Ethan Black @golemwire@librem.one

You liked it a lot, so here’s more old computers

Mastodon – Simplified Federation! a plugin for Firefox

Simplifies following or interacting with other users on remote Mastodon instances in the Fediverse. It skips the “Enter your Mastodon handle” popup and takes you to your own “home” instance, without entering your Mastodon handle on remote instances.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mastodon-simplified-federation/

Also Mastodon is the only social media where I've seen Ublock have nothing to block

This one is for all the new people on #Mastodon: did you know that the #fediverse has more than just a microblogging replacement? And that they can all interoperate with your Mastodon account?

Check them out!

Facebook replacement: Friendica
Instagram replacement: Pixelfed
YouTube replacement: PeerTube
Spotify replacement: Funkwhale
MeetUp replacement: Mobilizon
Reddit replacement: Lemmy
Podcasting replacement: Castopod
GoodReads replacement: BookWyrm

One thing that was super common on Mastodon / Fediverse prior to this mass migration was adding image descriptions to help be accessible to our many blind and partially sighted users here. Many people won't boost posts without them.
Please consider adding alt text to your images when you can.

Some advise for new peeps on Mastodon:

The people you're following would generally *love* to follow you back IF you:
* Post an #Introduction toot and pin it
* Fill out your profile's bio
* Put in a profile picture

Whenever I get a follow request and there's no profile pic, no bio, no intro, and no toots posted yet in general, I don't follow back, because I don't know anything about that person. It's like being introduced to a person wearing a bag over their head. ;)

#Boost please :D

I haven’t seen so many people so excited about a social network since the early days of Twitter.

As more people join the #Fediverse, some instances will likely need to pause new registrations while they allow their existing community to absorb new members. This is a *good* thing and no different from towns limiting new housing developments based on what town infrastructure can handle. The town/city governance metaphor applies pretty well to the Fediverse in my opinion.

I don't think Mastodon or the fediverse has ever received this much attention before. It's a great opportunity for people to finally see that social media can be done differently, that it can be a protocol not under control of any single company.

Okay, apologies for the many unanswered questions that are slipping past, am trying to answer as many as possible.

My timeline has just frozen completely.

Please check sites like https://fedi.tips and https://github.com/joyeusenoelle/GuideToMastodon/, they will answer lots and lots of common questions about Mastodon and the Fediverse!

If you are a techy person who wants to see technical details, you can find the official Mastodon documentation at https://docs.joinmastodon.org

I've made a deliberate choice against a quoting feature because it inevitably adds toxicity to people's behaviours. You are tempted to quote when you should be replying, and so you speak at your audience instead of with the person you are talking to. It becomes performative. Even when doing it for "good" like ridiculing awful comments, you are giving awful comments more eyeballs that way. No quote toots. Thank's

Livestreaming people!

Do you want people on Mastodon to be able to follow your livestream and be notified when you go live?

There's a free open source streaming platform called @owncast which is also part of the Fediverse:

➡️ https://owncast.online

You can follow OwnCast streams from Mastodon, and a post will appear in your timeline when they go live.

For example you can follow music accounts like @live or tech & gaming streamers like @Hamish or @hatnix

#Fediverse #ActivityPub #OwnCast

Friend spotted

@Stephan

Alright I hope I don’t come off to preachy, so forgive me if it sounds that way.

But, one of the things I struggled with after I moved from twitland about a year ago was changing my twitter-user mindset.

Entering fedi is kinda like entering into a new school.

First, you just gotta get to know the kids in your class. (Your instance.)

Then, you expand and get to know the kids in other grades and other schools. (Other instances.) You figure out who is popular and who is not.

Ultimately, I found (just like in school) that I do not care if I have a lot of followers. I have a handful of people I consider friends and interact with regularly and that has been good enough for me. It’s something I never had on Twitter, reddit, or even Facebook (atleast not in the later years), and it has felt really good to have that homie feel online again.

Everyone on popular social media nowadays are chasing internet points. What we in Public Relations call ‘vanity metrics’.

More followers
More boosts
More exposure

I think most people around here actually shy away from that. It’s not a contest for popularity on fedi. This isn’t really a news platform where the goal is to garner followers, gain popularity, become an influencer and rise to be a cyberpower. Most of us see right through that stuff and I for one don’t care for it.

It’s just social media. for being social. For making friends and meeting new people. Plain and simple.

I am only saying all this because I find that lots of new users think like this:

Follow all the big accounts.Businesses
Admins
Developers
Public figures
Get more followersPost memes
beg for boosts

After a few months of doing this my self, I ended up un-following most of those “big” accounts and changing the way I interacted with fedizens. Now, I stick with the peeps I consider friends, and keep my eyes open to meeting new people who are interesting, friendly, and may challenge my belief system in some way.

I don’t care at all for metrics on here. I just care about my people.

Honestly, that’s what has made fedi so fulfilling for me. Social media is fun again.

On Mastodon the so called "Direct messages" are *actually* messages where the privacy setting is "visable for mentioned users only", i.e. users you "@"'

Now let's follow that to it's logical conclusion shall we… what if you want to talk to someone in private about a third person?

Do NOT "@" the person you want to talk about or guess what… you are talking to them as well!!! 😱

💡 If you write out their username without the first @, e.g "ruari@velocipederider.com" that OK.

#FediTips

Can I ask a favour?

I'm really grateful to be recommended as a follow, but can you also mention the website (https://fedi.tips) when you do so?

At the moment getting a lot of questions which are answered on the site, and it's difficult to keep up with every question. I'm happy to keep answering, but also afraid I'll miss someone's question.

If they know about the site from the beginning, they will have a chance of finding the answers themselves if I do miss their question.

Thanks 🙏