because I have so many new users coming #mastodonTips #mastodon
discovery/discoverability
1) in addition to a bio, consider also making an #introduction / #introduction post also check this tag to find people who are also new and their interests
2) https://communitywiki.org/trunk is a wonderful place to find people who are active. it is human moderated. if you decide to stick around and have the bandwidth to do so, consider joining a list to welcome others as well.
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algorithm (there is none)
3) your home timeline is not curated. this means favorite/boost counts of your posts (or the links on them doesn't matter)
4) boosts however carry posts, consider boosting.
5) more importantly consider engaging in meaningful dialogues with people. not fly by comments but engaging in discussions.
6) hashtags are your friend. (use camelCaseToMakeThemScreenReadable for blind users)
accessibility/etiquette
7) in addition to formatting your hashtags, add an image description to your media.
8) we use content warning to hide sensitive topics. we also use them to hide long posts and make question/answer type posts though. you'll notice CW of politics, common phobias and sometimes even fediverse related discussions like this (a lot of it happens) is also common. also different servers will have different rules
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instances / servers... what?
9) instances are servers hosted by different people. they are like small towns in the city. like you can commute to other towns from where you live, you can follow users from other servers on your account.
10) you can move from server to server as well (like moving a house). your social graph (following/follower) will come with you. posts unfortunately won't yet.
11) servers are like communities: general interest, topic based, location based.
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servers / federation continued
12) different servers will have different rules. read up on about before you decide to join.
13) Some servers will require approval or invitation. If you think it will be a good match for you don't hesitate to apply. many server admins (yes there are humans running each server) close off open invites to avoid spam. it doesn't mean they don't welcome new members.
14) your admins are volunteers and humans like you.
the fediverse
15) Your ability to follow goes beyond mastodon into what we call the fediverse, many software that uses the same communication protocol.
16) In addition to microblogging there is services out there: pixelfed (photo sharing), peertube (video), funkwhale (music), writefreely (blog), there is even an addon that makes wordpress blogs into activitypub streams.
17) you can follow accounts from fediverse on mastodon too. no need for a separate account on these services!
Welcome!
@eggbox
it is that there is no conflicting issue of a business model that will earn money
crowd funding is a tricky thing: commons are still humans, we need to get better at supporting our devs and admins alike to make this sustainable but mastodon and fediverse is proof that this works.
Eylul Dogruel
Eggbox