Hello #Mastodon - I need advice
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Hello #Mastodon - I need advice
When I signed up 3 weeks ago, I joined a server without knowing what I was doing. Some have suggested that I might be better on another, but I am lost and confused
What are the benefits of moving? What are the benefits of staying?
And if I do move, where should I go? I know nothing - so your subjective recommendations & insights would be much appreciated
P.S. Here’s a picture of my cat, Max, looking confused - like me
@rufustheduck if you’re happy with where you are and there’s not another server you’re looking at and going ‘I wish I was on that one’ then you probably don’t need to change.
The recommendations you’re getting to move are probably a mastodon culture thing, I’ll explain as much as I understand from just being around:
Likely people suggesting you move are referring to the mastodon.social being sort of infamous across mastodon. Mastodon.social keep their numbers up by leaving no-approval-needed signup open, so they are quite large - but their moderation is worse as a result. I want to clarify that their mods and admin are generally good, no shade on them because they do good work - but they have so many users and new joins that they cannot moderate as well as other servers (just by the numbers)
Usually servers are fairly strict about other servers they can connect with. If there’s a server with a lot of bots trying to scam or manipulate people, it usually gets blocked pretty quick. Mastodon.social is tolerated despite this, because of how many users they have (you wouldn’t want to cut off that many other users from your own users)
Is that a reason to move off the server? Not to me personally, but everybody is different. I think you should only move to another if you really want to be there instead (‘Moving to’ rather than ‘moving away from’)
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Hello #Mastodon - I need advice
When I signed up 3 weeks ago, I joined a server without knowing what I was doing. Some have suggested that I might be better on another, but I am lost and confused
What are the benefits of moving? What are the benefits of staying?
And if I do move, where should I go? I know nothing - so your subjective recommendations & insights would be much appreciated
P.S. Here’s a picture of my cat, Max, looking confused - like me
@rufustheduck I had a similar experience to you after joining mastodon.social a while back. At this point I will probably only move if:
1. I have actual real problems with mastodon.social (other than feeling like I'm on the lame normie server),
2. I find another community that feels like it's absolutely the right fit
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Hello #Mastodon - I need advice
When I signed up 3 weeks ago, I joined a server without knowing what I was doing. Some have suggested that I might be better on another, but I am lost and confused
What are the benefits of moving? What are the benefits of staying?
And if I do move, where should I go? I know nothing - so your subjective recommendations & insights would be much appreciated
P.S. Here’s a picture of my cat, Max, looking confused - like me
@rufustheduck I started a new one because my first one kept cutting out for days. I made a typo in my handle, so I had to begin again
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Hello #Mastodon - I need advice
When I signed up 3 weeks ago, I joined a server without knowing what I was doing. Some have suggested that I might be better on another, but I am lost and confused
What are the benefits of moving? What are the benefits of staying?
And if I do move, where should I go? I know nothing - so your subjective recommendations & insights would be much appreciated
P.S. Here’s a picture of my cat, Max, looking confused - like me
Loads of great advice/info already so I'm just here to say that Max is fabulous
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Hello #Mastodon - I need advice
When I signed up 3 weeks ago, I joined a server without knowing what I was doing. Some have suggested that I might be better on another, but I am lost and confused
What are the benefits of moving? What are the benefits of staying?
And if I do move, where should I go? I know nothing - so your subjective recommendations & insights would be much appreciated
P.S. Here’s a picture of my cat, Max, looking confused - like me
@rufustheduck I like Max.
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@rufustheduck A few things to look for in instances:
What is the character count limit? This can be vastly different across instances. If you post long form content, this could matter to you.
What instances do they block? If you're into some stuff that others aren't into, and more power to you, check if they block instances with that stuff. Also check their content posting policy.
How good are they about updating mastodon? Are they stuck on an old version? How active is the admin?
This was my major concern. Who does the admin for my chosen instance federate with. There are some nasty instances out there.
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Hello #Mastodon - I need advice
When I signed up 3 weeks ago, I joined a server without knowing what I was doing. Some have suggested that I might be better on another, but I am lost and confused
What are the benefits of moving? What are the benefits of staying?
And if I do move, where should I go? I know nothing - so your subjective recommendations & insights would be much appreciated
P.S. Here’s a picture of my cat, Max, looking confused - like me
@rufustheduck nice cat!
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Hello #Mastodon - I need advice
When I signed up 3 weeks ago, I joined a server without knowing what I was doing. Some have suggested that I might be better on another, but I am lost and confused
What are the benefits of moving? What are the benefits of staying?
And if I do move, where should I go? I know nothing - so your subjective recommendations & insights would be much appreciated
P.S. Here’s a picture of my cat, Max, looking confused - like me
@rufustheduck Meh, not much, except perhaps responsiveness. If you choose an instance with lots of users, it will go slower. If you're happy where you are, then just stay. I moved exactly because of responsiveness. Some people move to instances because of the topic. something like. hobbies.social knitters.social, ETC.
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Hello #Mastodon - I need advice
When I signed up 3 weeks ago, I joined a server without knowing what I was doing. Some have suggested that I might be better on another, but I am lost and confused
What are the benefits of moving? What are the benefits of staying?
And if I do move, where should I go? I know nothing - so your subjective recommendations & insights would be much appreciated
P.S. Here’s a picture of my cat, Max, looking confused - like me
@rufustheduck My opinion doesn't inherently matter, butt, [with 2 t's] there's nothing wrong with this default instance. It's the easiest option for those less technical. Other instances allow for more text, higher quality photos, longer videos, etc... At this point, it's your choice. The only thing to remember is this isn't a 'free' corporate sponsored service. So, if you do use a different instance, be sure to support them financially to keep that instance running. Good luck out here.
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@caiocgo *butts in* mastodon.social has a ton of problems exactly because it's the biggest server that is also barely moderated. It's twitter 3.0 and the source of many headaches for many admins because it's open sign-up and spouts endless russian bots, phishing attacks and spam accounts that rivals X. If you hear about spam and phishing problems on mastodon there's a 110% chance it comes from that instance. Rampant racism on top of everything. Many smaller instances decide to block it, restrict access to it or mute it. Which means a lot of the fediverse is shut out, which makes mastodon.social one of the least federated instances. It literally is a counter point to the whole idea of federating and the fediverse. Make of that what you will *sees myself out* @rufustheduck
@DrJLecter @caiocgo @rufustheduck
️️️️️️
T H I S !Joining "specialized instances" allows you to roughly pre-filter the communities you wanna interact with, so you end up in a kind of safe space.
mastodon.social is indeed a Twitter x.0 since it provides the same unfiltered breeding ground for a**holes as Twitter back then (it's gotten worse in the age of X). The lack of proper moderation and the free sign up turned this place into an undesirable pit for me.
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@rufustheduck I also joined your instance and had nothing against it but moved to cupoftea.social because it aligns with my values of positivity and wholesomeness.
So, if you find the local timeline meets your values, consider staying where you are. If not, ask your fedi-friends for instance recs that might align more closely to you
@mandy @rufustheduck This right here.
I really understand the worries around mastodon.social getting too big, but at the same time, it _is_ a good place to start to get a big overview. Once you have the big overview for a while, if you spot an instance where you really like the vibe there in general (and you use the local timeline to find local things), _then_ consider moving.
mastodon.social makes a fine generic first home here, and it may be where you stay for good and that's fine.
But you may decide you want to be somewhere less generic, and you _can_, and that's fine too.
Also, your cat has very good cat vibes and I like them.
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Hello #Mastodon - I need advice
When I signed up 3 weeks ago, I joined a server without knowing what I was doing. Some have suggested that I might be better on another, but I am lost and confused
What are the benefits of moving? What are the benefits of staying?
And if I do move, where should I go? I know nothing - so your subjective recommendations & insights would be much appreciated
P.S. Here’s a picture of my cat, Max, looking confused - like me
@rufustheduck Hi Rufus! If you do move (think of moving as re-pointing your followers to another account on another server... maybe some day it'll be more than that but that's essentially what it is, and your posts not moving over is a big part of the downside), take your time, and you can create alt accounts on other servers and spend time checking out the local scene before making the leap. Different people habitate other instances for different reasons. Having the local timeline (one of the links on the right in the web view) reflect your interests is one reason. I joined here (bsd.network) to keep up with things and people related to the BSD Unix like operating system. Also people I knew from before I came here invited me here. For some people, their server is part of their identity. For example, you might tech.lgbt if that was a really good summary of you as a person and you wanted to hype that about yourself. People join one server or another because they like the admin and/or moderators there. It can be a friendly community affair kind of like you a bunch of people are hanging out someone else's place, but virtual. You don't need to do that to find community... you're doing fine there
But that's one reason other people do. You might join an instance because you agree with the moderation decisions it makes. If you're on an instance that blocks a lot of other instances and people related to something you're interested in, you might not ever notice that unless you get off of there. A lot of people don't agree with a lot of the moderation decisions mastodon.social makes. I don't. But that's an individual decision and there are instances with worse moderation (by my standards and likely yours too). Any instance is kind of part of a subnetwork of instances that tend to block similar other instances. Like 4D space, your view can change radically depending on where you're standing. mastodon.social has on and off been the source for a lot of spam. Being the "default" instance, some other instances also just cloister themselves from it, preferring to interact with people who likewise took efforts to diversify... -
@rufustheduck Hi Rufus! If you do move (think of moving as re-pointing your followers to another account on another server... maybe some day it'll be more than that but that's essentially what it is, and your posts not moving over is a big part of the downside), take your time, and you can create alt accounts on other servers and spend time checking out the local scene before making the leap. Different people habitate other instances for different reasons. Having the local timeline (one of the links on the right in the web view) reflect your interests is one reason. I joined here (bsd.network) to keep up with things and people related to the BSD Unix like operating system. Also people I knew from before I came here invited me here. For some people, their server is part of their identity. For example, you might tech.lgbt if that was a really good summary of you as a person and you wanted to hype that about yourself. People join one server or another because they like the admin and/or moderators there. It can be a friendly community affair kind of like you a bunch of people are hanging out someone else's place, but virtual. You don't need to do that to find community... you're doing fine there
But that's one reason other people do. You might join an instance because you agree with the moderation decisions it makes. If you're on an instance that blocks a lot of other instances and people related to something you're interested in, you might not ever notice that unless you get off of there. A lot of people don't agree with a lot of the moderation decisions mastodon.social makes. I don't. But that's an individual decision and there are instances with worse moderation (by my standards and likely yours too). Any instance is kind of part of a subnetwork of instances that tend to block similar other instances. Like 4D space, your view can change radically depending on where you're standing. mastodon.social has on and off been the source for a lot of spam. Being the "default" instance, some other instances also just cloister themselves from it, preferring to interact with people who likewise took efforts to diversify...@rufustheduck You might think of it as logging in to Everquest or something, if you've ever played any of those, and landing in the default town that all new users log in to. That's exciting and there's always a lot going on there and it's fine, but a lot of people eventually just get the itch to go somewhere else
Anyway, again, take your time. Pay attention to where other people you like are from. Check out the main webpage of interesting places and see what they have to say about themselves. Don't even think about moving to start with, just learn about different instances. Oh, and different server software is another reason. Other flavors of ActivityPub server have neat and useful features or just make life better for the moderators and admins and that in turn makes the community there better. If you get the itch, dabble with an alt somewhere. One thing at a time -
@Oregon_Pacifist @rufustheduck exactly, if everyone is on mastodon.social and if it goes down for whatever reason its just like being on a centralized platform, the point of decentralization is so there can be many instances of the fediverse run by different communities and individuals so that if .social goes down or closes up shop there will still be others instances out there catering to different communities and making up the ecosystem if the fediverse
@GlitchGhost @Oregon_Pacifist @rufustheduck My 2 cents. When I joined around 4 years ago, I didn’t think any other instance was exactly what I wanted, so I joined the main one and that is totally fine. I know the code is open source but they ARE the ones actually maintaining it. I don’t think any other instance is safer. I of course understand and appreciate federation. That’s exactly what makes Mastodon cool.
That said, this “shaming” on whomever is on .social is really pointless.
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Hello #Mastodon - I need advice
When I signed up 3 weeks ago, I joined a server without knowing what I was doing. Some have suggested that I might be better on another, but I am lost and confused
What are the benefits of moving? What are the benefits of staying?
And if I do move, where should I go? I know nothing - so your subjective recommendations & insights would be much appreciated
P.S. Here’s a picture of my cat, Max, looking confused - like me
@rufustheduck hello house panther! Tell them I said pspspsps
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@rufustheduck hello house panther! Tell them I said pspspsps
@Irishmasms I did. Not sure he understood the nuances of your message, but he got the gist
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Hello #Mastodon - I need advice
When I signed up 3 weeks ago, I joined a server without knowing what I was doing. Some have suggested that I might be better on another, but I am lost and confused
What are the benefits of moving? What are the benefits of staying?
And if I do move, where should I go? I know nothing - so your subjective recommendations & insights would be much appreciated
P.S. Here’s a picture of my cat, Max, looking confused - like me
@rufustheduck There are many benefits by moving to other servers. The local timeline ist maybe more interesting for you. If you are interested in Heavy Metal, #metalhead.club is the right thing for you, if you are interested in technology #social.tchncs.de is maybe the right for you. A list of different mastodon servers and what they are up to, you can find here: https://joinmastodon.org/en/servers
And that is just mastodon. Do you feel limited by 500 characters and only 4 pictures per post? Maybe have a look at friendica, you like more pictures, check out the pixelfeed servers. The good thing is everybody in the fediverse can follow the other, independant what software or server they are using. So just check out the following site: https://jointhefediverse.net/
Just select a second account and see what is different. There is no hurry. -
S svenja@mstdn.games shared this topic
