First thing you should know that #mastodon is a decentralized social media platform.

That is the fundamental difference between of it from #twitter or #facebook.

A decentralized network, which means there is no central group with all of the power.

So here it is #fediverse

#mastodon isn’t just a website, it is a federation.

There are thousands, of small communities that live within the Mastodon system.

Each one is independent and unique, but they can all talk to one another.

These communities are called "INSTANCES".

So you are not creating your account in a centralised server here like in https://twitter.com.

Instead at any domain that runs Mastodon is called an instance and you can join any instance!

Confused?

Think about various email providers.

Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook etc.

These email providers are analogous to #mastodon instances.

U can create an email address is [email protected] or [email protected].

Here xyz is the username. We know that both email address belong to different persons or same persons.

They can send email to each other.

Here in #fediverse our #mastodon works in the same way, for that it uses a protocol called Activity Hub, so that various instances can speak to each other.

So http://mastodon.social and http://mstdn.social and http://masthead.social are different instances in #mastodon

I seen that someone here complain about fake site and claimed that finally created profile in the original site, means http://mastodon.social

Natural confusion.

Unlike Twitter which is having a unique site https://twitter.com,

You can join #mastodon through any INSTANCE

http://mastodon.social is the flagship site, which is maintained by Eugen, who is the creator of #mastodon which is having around 4 lakh users!

http://pawoo.net instance with 5.8 lakh users is biggest

But my instance http://mstdn.social is having only 3721 users!

If you are confused to choose an instance, this link will help you to choose you

https://instances.social/

Given screenshots to understand how the steps are!

So you should understand that many instances choices are in #fediverse of #mastodon.

Whichever instances you join, you can follow people at other instances & see the toots of theirs. Similarly your toots are visible to your followers irrespective of their instances.

This is an area which many of the people, even prominent people, complain about, some says that these instances create confusion!

My QN is are you confused with Gmail and Yahoo mail?

You are too much used to Twitterverse & you expect a single server.

Here it work differently

In Twitter's centralised world, you can be identified by your "username"

Same is the case is with Facebook.

But here your ID is
username@instance_domain.

Exactly like email, ie, [email protected]

Here my ID is [email protected]

My instance name is also needed to identify

So if people are complaining that this is so complicated and confusing in comparison with Twitter, let me ask you one question.

Are you confused with various email addresses with different service providers?

Is it necessary all should have same domain address to communicate?

So please understand when you join in #mastodon, you are joining in a federated network and you choose an INSTANCE of your choice.

Here no centralised server or a monopoly corporation, each instance is a community which is moderated by human admins, not by bots run on AI ;)

In my opinion, understanding what is an INSTANCE is the most important aspect on #mastodon.

'Activity pub' protocol helps each instance to talk with other instances in #mastodon and do these functions shown in the picture, so we get an interface familiar to #twitter

So it is your choice to join which instance, a large instance or a small instance or a special community instance or general instance.

But that choice is not going to curtail your freedom to follow people from other instances or getting followers from other instances.

Now how to join in #mastodon?

First let me teach you when someone sharing their profile, how you can join from that link to #mastodon

Example mine https://mstdn.social/@jamewils

Open and click follow, so you can sign up from there.

This link opens take you to my instance sign up page. If you want to join my instance http://mstdn.social fill up the form and join there.

Otherwise forget the above steps.

I will guide you how to join other instances in next tweet.

The next way is click this link https://joinmastodon.org and choose from any instance (server) of your choice.

Here for example, I decided to join http://mastodon.social site, then click join and then sign up in that instance.

Once you sign up, the instance will send an email to you for confirmation.

Once you confirmed, the login page will be opened, sign in with email and password to the site.

So http://mastodon.social wil welcome you with a tutorial.

In #mastodon you can see 3 timelines

HOME is like our Twitter TL - from the people you are following.

LOCAL- Public posts from the people in your instance

FEDERATED - public posts from other instances

So you are now in #mastodon now! Most of the instances, the admins are automatically followed by you by default.

Here, Eugen's TOOTS and BOOSTS are in my HOME TL.

All this exercise can be done through your mobile browser or desktop browser.

If someone share their #mastodon profile, you can click that link and follow the following steps.

Example

My profile is https://mstdn.social/@jamewils

Click it and open the window

1. Once you click my profile opens. Click on follow

2. Here on the column provide your #mastodon ID (here [email protected]), then click "Proceed to follow"

3. It's done, now by clicking "Go to Web" you can go to HOME or see "User's Profile

Now please get familiarise with the mobile web interface and desktop web interface in your default browser viz. Chrome, Safari or Firefox.

Look at the mobile web interface.

You can see HOME TL, Mention, Local TL, Federated TL, Search and Options there on the top

You can see each toot has the following icons:

Reply
Boost
Favourite
Share
Bookmark
Other options...

The beauty of Home/Local/Federated Timelines in #mastodon is they will not show you the count of boosts (retweets) and Favourites (likes), which massage your ego ;)

You need to click individual toot (tweet) to see the number of boosts and favourites

If you are not seeing this four column interface, please click preferences from the "Getting Started" tab and go and enable "advance web interface"

Actually I love this interface a lot...