FediTips has moved!

Hey there new people!

If you've just joined here, you may be wondering if you need to sign up on multiple servers?

The short answer is no! One account on one server is enough 👍

Longer answer:

The servers on here talk to each other through a process called "Federation".

This might sound complicated and technical, but it's really not. You already use federated networks every day, and so does pretty much everyone in the world, even your grandparents.

When you phone someone, you don't need to be on the same provider or even in the same country, because the world's phone networks are connected together through federation.

When you email someone, you don't need to be on the same email provider, because the world's email providers are federated together.

Servers on Mastodon and the Fediverse are federated together in the same way phones or email are. One account on one server lets you seamlessly interact with people on other servers.

#FediTips #Fediverse #MastoTips

Jul 16, 2022 at 3:54pmWeb
Show threadmikeJul 16, 2022
@feditips I don't get it. I thought this was satire. Poe's law, I guess!
Show threadQueen Jayla 👑Jul 17, 2022
@feditips Another thing: Anyone that feels as if they "joined the wrong instance" because they found out one has way more registered users shouldn't worry. They just simply joined their preferred one.
Show threadFediTips has moved!Jul 17, 2022

@QueenofWhiteIce

Yup, you don't need to be on a big server at all.

The servers talk to each other so it doesn't matter if your server is very small, you can still follow millions of people from other servers.

Show threadRattlesnakeStuJul 17, 2022
@feditips Older users like me remember when email wasn't so seamless and you had to find gateways between systems. I look forward to the day when younger users of social networks are unfamiliar with non-federated services like younger users of email are unfamiliar with email gateways.
Show threadSelthionJul 17, 2022
@feditips When I started to think about it, the potential of the Fediverse reminds me of the Web's challenge to walled-garden Online Service Providers (aka AOL, Compuserv, Prodigy, etc.). They were huge in their day, and now virtually no one uses them. In that same fashion, I hope we'll see a future where things like FB are more or less a historical footnote in any real sense.
Show threadFediTips has moved!Jul 17, 2022

@selthion

We have to hope this happens 🤞

Show threadminecraftchest1Jul 17, 2022
@feditips
It is important that even though you can interact with other server softwares and instances, you may not be able to fully use all of that servers features. For instance, I can not upload videos to peertube from mastodon.
Show threadFediTips has moved!Jul 17, 2022

@minecraftchest1

Yes, good point 👍

If you want to use a very different type of Fedi server (like PeerTube, BookWyrm etc), you do need a separate account.

Original post was aimed at people who think they need multiple accounts on similar types of servers. I'll try to make that clearer in future posts.

Show threadRaven9Jul 18, 2022
@feditips So if I have only one account and it is on mastodon.social what happens to all the content I posted if mastodon.social gets taken down?
Show threadFediTips has moved!Jul 18, 2022

@raven9

If a server disappears, you lose the content you posted. That's a fair point. You can't move posts from one server to another, though you can move accounts.

The original post was aimed more at people who think they need to have an account on each server they want to interact with.

(Incidentally, mastodon.social specifically is unlikely to disappear as it's been in existence since 2016 and is owned by the developers of Mastodon.)

Show threadCyborg 2-A ✅Jul 19, 2022
The other thing is, mastodon broadcasts your content all over the place so it's probably on another server. For example I've received 12,567,753 messages since February that i didn't ask for, from people on mastodon I don't know. That's called 'decentralized'. Back in the old days a person could put a message on their web site and get a few replies, etc, but today they can post a simple "smiley" or "thumbs up" and it is replicated tens of thousands of times and burns down trees and eats more electricity than bitcoin. But crazy people say that's not possible only because their thing is good. They just know it. :)
Show threadCyborg 2-A ✅Jul 19, 2022
I set up a new streams site on a new server and cloned my account, the posts transferred to the server.  Not sure what you mean by "can't"
Show threadFediTips has moved!Jul 19, 2022

@wago

Which platform are you using?