FediTips has moved!Apr 27, 2022

For new people wondering why Mastodon is on thousands of servers instead of one:

-It helps protect us all against Elon Musk scenarios. It's very difficult for anyone to buy a network made of thousands of independently owned servers. (It's the same reason why no one owns the world's email network, because there are so many independent providers out there.)

-If your server misbehaves (or sells out to a malevolent billionaire), you can move your account to a different server, or even to a brand new server. Decentralisation means you're never trapped on a site you hate.

-Mastodon is an open platform where anyone can start their own server, and they don't need tech knowledge if they use a service like https://masto.host or https://federation.spacebear.ee

...and there are lots more good reasons too, to do with servers using alternative Fediverse software etc, but I'll save that for a future post 😁

#MastoTips #Mastodon #FediTips #Fediverse

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Masto.host was built from the ground up to make running a Mastodon instance easy.

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Show threadFediTips has moved!Apr 28, 2022

Sooo... wow... okay a lot of people shared the previous post! Welcome again to all the new members!

It might be good if I clarified how Mastodon works, as some people think they need to sign up on multiple servers etc.

Short version: You do not need to sign up on multiple servers! Don't have FOMO! One server works fine!

Longer version:

Mastodon is a federated network, which means it's made of lots of independent servers that talk to each other.

And... everyone uses federated networks all the time! You probably use them so much you never even think about it 😮

Telephones use a federated network, so does email.

You only need one phone to call anyone anywhere. It doesn't matter if they're on another phone company or in another country, because all phone companies are federated together into a single network.

That's how Mastodon works. You get an account, and you follow people you're interested in, and they appear in your timeline. It doesn't matter if they're on another server.

Show threadWilhelmApr 28, 2022
@feditips is there a way to look at a specific instance's timeline? Like if I wanted to see what was going on over at mastodon.art ?
Show threadChristian WaidnerApr 29, 2022
@Wbud @feditips this is exactly what I am looking for. But doesn't seem possible. Mastodon seems people centered, not topic centered. And I'm switching topics a lot. Only way to get inspired is looking at the fed timeline hoping that there is a post from the topic I'm currently interested in. With the correct hashtag. Problem #hashtagmania. You can't search fulltext. I know this is a deliberate decision.
Show threadChristian WaidnerApr 29, 2022
@Wbud @feditips is there a way to look a a servers full local timeline without creating a new account?
Is there a way to merge accounts?
How do I go about posting something not the servers topic? Like if I'm interested in #tabletop I'm using a different account from when I'm asking a #tech question?
Show threadFediTips has moved!

@ChrisMcZork @Wbud

If you go to an instance's website and click on "what's happening" on the front page, this lets you see what's on there and what they are following.

But, if you do that you will notice that they are mostly following people outside their server. The network is designed like this so that it cannot be bought out. If one server got really cool that everyone wanted to be on, it would be in danger of a buyout by some random billionaire.

You can't merge accounts but you can transfer them from one server to another:

https://mstdn.social/@feditips/107939441820299376

And, hopefully I covered the topic thing ok in my previous post?

Fedi.Tips (@[email protected])

UPDATE: If you want to transfer your account to another server, here's how to do it: ➡️ https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server This guide is a bit longer than other guides as it includes moving your followers, follows and blocks/mutes/bookmarks. (By the way, sorry for people seeing notification of this post edit. I had to edit as the original contents were somewhat out of date. As this post now links to my website instead, you won't get any future update notices for this post.)

Mastodon 🐘
Apr 29, 2022 at 9:03amWeb
Show threadChristian WaidnerApr 29, 2022
@feditips @Wbud hmm, when I go e.g. to rollenspiel.social, there is no "What's happening" for me, only the profile list and (that servers?) federated list (maybe this is the what's happening feed, I got the German interface. No chance to get the local feed.
metalhead.club looks different - here the "What's happening" feed seems to be local. Is this an instance setting?
Show threadFediTips has moved!Apr 29, 2022

@ChrisMcZork @Wbud

Yeah, some servers switch off the "what's happening" completely.

Yes, there is a setting on servers to allow federated content on the public timeline page. If it's switched off, it just shows local public posts. It's switched off by default, I think.