#TrashboatsGuide2FGCN

end of thread

So that's all for basic usage of FGCN. If you want more info, then you can ask me for specifics or check the support portal in the upper right hand corner of the Local feed for a help wiki on FGCN.

#TrashboatsGuide2FGCN

Bookmarks and Lists

You can bookmark posts by clicking the meatball menu and clicking bookmark. Bookmarked posts are saved for you to find later. I think these posts can go away if their owning account or home server go down for whatever reason.

Lists are ways for you to make customized feeds. You can group accounts by what they post, and when you access those list you'll see a feed made up of the accounts you saved together. you can save accounts to lists using the meatball menu in their profile.

#TrashboatsGuide2FGCN

Profile Options

Here's the meatball menu of an account that isn't on FGCN. This menu let's you mute, block, hide RTs, and more. another option you have when looking at the menu of non-FGCN accounts is blocking the all accounts from the particular home server of the selected account.

Also this account has a bot indicator, but that's a voluntary label the account owner has to turn on.

#TrashboatsGuide2FGCN

Profile Options

So let's take a look at one of our fellow neighbors to talk about ways you can interact with other profiles.

This is where you can see their PFP, Profile Banner, and even a bit of their recent media. Sorta like twitter, you can adjust their profile feed to filter certain posts out.

If you're looking at a fellow FGCN member, you can see the chat icon next to the follow button and meatball menu.

#TrashboatsGuide2FGCN

Fediverse Basics

So let me take this chance to describe some basics about how fediverse works. So it's kinda like the social media equivalent of email. You have specific account on various home servers (commonly referred to as instances)

Alot of fediverse servers are self-hosted or hosted by small organizations. Our own FGCN is hosted by shib and is a part of the supercombo.gg Shibiverse. You can donate to patreon to help with server costs, but there hasn't been alot of hay made about finances afaik.

Maybe we can host a FGCN funding tournament one day.

Many people refer to the fediverse as mastodon and vice versa like how some folks equate Gmail with email. No big deal if you mix em up.

So let's take my username

@ TrashboatdaGod @ fgc.network

The name after the first @ is the username and the name after the second @ is the instance. In addition to the fediverse, you can sometimes look at other folks' local feeds to see what other home servers are about, you might find something new and interesting.

Like the 6 button icon FGCN users have, other users will have similar icons near their names. You can click those icons to get a look at other local feeds assuming that you or FGCN isn't blocked by that instance.

#TrashboatsGuide2FGCN

Basic Posting: Quote RTs

I almost forgot that we can QRT here on FGCN. Not everyone on Fedi has this feature because different home servers let you have access to different features.

To do a QRT, simply click the Repost button then click quote post. You can also paste the link to a post in the test area to also do a QRT.

Funny enough, Repost won't show up on Local Feed, but since QRTs are technically regular posts, then they can show up on the Local feed with public visibility.

#TrashboatsGuide2FGCN

Basic Posting: Content Warnings

Back in the early days of FGCN we didn't have this feature, but now that we're on soapbox we can add content warnings to our posts.

content warnings don't affect privacy, so if a post is public it'll still show up on FGCN Local feed, but most of the post will be hidden behind a screen that warns users what's behind the veil.

Content warnings are a good way to warn users that your post has an excessive amount of violence, sex, or something you may not want someone to see overlooking a reader's shoulder in public.

Another thing I like to use content warnings for is they can shorten the height of your post if it has a shit ton of text. Or at least it let's folks pass by your posts more easily.

#TrashboatsGuide2FGCN

Basic Posting: Privacy

Privacy is an important option since alot of the fediverse is dependent on privacy.

Public: Posted to Fediverse, Local, and the feeds of any non-FGCN accounts that follow you. As I mentioned before this can also include replies to non-FGCN pages.

Unlisted: Won't show up on Fediverse or local feeds, but someone can go directly to your profile to see they post if they wnated.

Followers-Only: Only accounts that follow you (FGCN or otherwise) will see this post. Sometimes when you set this option, the UI will warn you that you don't have follow approval, so anyone can just follow to see the hidden post.

Direct: Only visible to the mentioned accounts. Basically this is how DMs work.

#TrashboatsGuide2FGCN

Basic Posting: Attachments

FGCN has a 50mb attachment limit. There are maybe some format limitations, but I haven't run into any yet. your basic mp4s and jpegs, and mp3s should work fine.

For pictures, and video, you can add alt text that will make it easier for blind or visually impaired users to understand what you posted. there's also an extra opportunity to add more information, like you can put combo notation in your alt text.

Some people get nervous about the proper way to do alt text, and I'll share an easy rule that's helped me write good alt text:

How would you describe this is you wanted to show your friend, but they're in the bathroom?

This general rule of thumb helps me keep my alt text in a balance between short and informative.

#TrashboatsGuide2FGCN

Basic Posting

Alright! you've done enough reading. It's time to post. Here's our posting UI. You can type whatever you want (within TOS) and have a whopping 5000 character limit. That's alot of posting. We also have some icons at the bottom for extra options.

From left to right these icons are.

I'm gonna go a little more in-depth on these options in the following posts.