Susannah BirchAre you new to Mastodon and have a question about something on the platform?
Put your question below and we can all dive in to help!
DB@susannahbirch is there an effective way to find our twitter followers/people are are following on here?
@DB I use Debirdify; as long as your Twitter followers have placed their Mastodon address in the name/bio/website, it can match them. Of course, that's only if they have it there.
Another option is to search "mastodon" on Twitter search, then filter it by people you follow. Then you'll see any tweets people made with their Mastodon link.
Christian Findlay@susannahbirch how does the algorithm work?
@cfdevelop What Christian said. I remember reading somewhere that Mastodon doesn't have an algorithm. That said, popular Toots do get promoted as "gaining traction", if you consider that algorithmic.
bsterix@susannahbirch why are some accounts @[email protected] and some only @xxx? Example attached.
@bsterix The ones that are on your own server (troet.cafe) won't have a server listed at the end. Ones that are on different servers (like me), will have the server name attached at the end.
Damien Murtagh@susannahbirch I would like to financially contribute to my server. How do I find out how to do this?
@damomurtagh Great to hear you want to support the people running your server since all of them pay for it out of their own pocket, and costs are spiking during the big #TwitterMigration. If you click on "About" (on PC it's at the bottom left of the screen), you can see the username of the person who administrates the server. On most servers, the administrator will have a donation option such as Patreon pinned on their profile, or further information about supporting their server ad admin costs.
Steve Paull@susannahbirch yes! Is there a way to filter posts that aren't in English? I get that is a world-wide platform and I've nothing against the posts (or posters) personally, I just can't read them and there must be an easier way than muting them all individually..?
annaraven@stevepaull @susannahbirch on the website version, in your settings, you can choose which languages to see.
@annaraven @susannahbirch aha!! Thankye muchly for that, and it seems to have carried over to Tusky no dramas..! :)
Toussaint@stevepaull @susannahbirch hey i joined a server on a whim and it not supe r active. How do I see content from other communities and is there a way to change home server ?
Depending on how big your server is, you should be able to see some content from other servers yours interacts with on both the federated feed as well as using hashtag searches.
You can migrate to another server, and redirect your old account, but it's not perfect. You will have to import your following list, and you will lose some things, like your posts. I had an old account here on a big server, and I migrated at the start of the #TwitterMigration. Full directions here: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2019/06/how-to-migrate-from-one-server-to-another/
How to migrate from one server to another
With the sad news that KNZK was shutting down we thought it might be useful for people to have a refresher on the features that Mastodon has built in that make moving instances easy and painless. Backing up Your Data Data export If you are moving to a new instance the first thing you will want to do is to get a backup of all of your data. Thankfully this process is painless with the Data Export tab under the “Import and Export” page.
WildGoose@susannahbirch my avatar photo is skew-wiff! What have I done??? Also downloaded M app to my iPad - but it wants me to set up new account???
@WildGoose For the profile photo, you could try uploading it as a different format than you've tried before (PNG or JPG). To convert, just Google "Convert JPG to PNG" or whichever format you wish to try.
The Mastodon app is for accessing ALL the servers. That means, you could potentially have accounts on dozens of servers. You need to specify your server first; for you it would be typing in aus.social, and then logging into that server specifically.
@susannahbirch thanks! I’ll try that.
Petrina Meldrum@susannahbirch I’ve managed to open an account but it only has .au rather than aus.social. Is it possible to change to aus.social and would it make any difference?
@trinapetrina Mastodon has a lot of different servers, all run by different people. The size of the server and topic will impact what content you see on your Local Feed, as well as your Federated feed (A topical server will have posts on that topic; a big server will have a lot of fast moving posts; a small server might have very few posts.)
You can migrate if you want to join a server with more people or posts that align with your interests. Aus.social has closed registration, but I can send you an invite if you wish to join. You'll need to create a new account, then redirect your old one so people know you've moved. Full directions here: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2019/06/how-to-migrate-from-one-server-to-another/
How to migrate from one server to another
With the sad news that KNZK was shutting down we thought it might be useful for people to have a refresher on the features that Mastodon has built in that make moving instances easy and painless. Backing up Your Data Data export If you are moving to a new instance the first thing you will want to do is to get a backup of all of your data. Thankfully this process is painless with the Data Export tab under the “Import and Export” page.
Aram@susannahbirch - any chance you could share a registration/invite link in my direction? I’d really appreciate it. Thanks!
@AramHosie Sorry Aram, I'm only inviting people I personally know already. Your profile also has almost no content or information about who you are.
Ian W Roberts 🎺🚴🏽♂️😷💉@susannahbirch Trap for beginners: Currently if you open https://mastodon.au/home in a browser window that's too narrow (not very narrow), you won't be able to see the left-hand column that contains the search and this posting field. Widen or maximise the window and all is good.
It looks like a CCS bug that needs to be fixed.
@irober02 I just tried it and you're right. That's a bit annoying! I'm going to do a post about it, because that would explain a few things I've seen people mention.
Adam 💚@susannahbirch is there an easy way to see the rules of a server before posting on it (I'm using the android app)?
AllOfUsSorry, double post.
When I try and comment on another post, on another 'server' it asks me to logon, but it won't recognise my logon details.
I was trying to comment on a post on 'social.au' when it happened.
Please be gentle as I only recently flew here from the bluebird's nest.
@AllOfUs3010 Hi there, sorry for the late reply. I don't have the tech language to fully explain the why, but essentially, each server is its own separate instance, that can talk to each other.
The issue you're experiencing probably happens when you click a link from a different site, or open one in a new window, right?
Try accessing the content from your logged in window only, or manually paste in their username in the search, and stay in the same window. Hope that helps!
JustJules@susannahbirch Hi Susannah. I just joined & am using this through my email account. I've downloaded the Mastodon app as a shortcut but can't work out the app. It doesn't recognise my user name
@Just_Jules_ This is a common issue, don't worry.
Because Mastodon is decentralised, it's made up of hundreds of serverse. You can create a whole new account on each server if you wish (although one single account can still talk to other servers).
When logging into the app, you'll first need to type in your server - in your case, that's aus.social. Once you've done that, you should be able to login.
@susannahbirch Thank you Susan. I'll try again
lawrencew@susannahbirch yep, I'm having trouble signing in...it's quite confusing...
Jake Jeffreys@susannahbirch what do the emblems along the bottom mean, I get the reply,but was does the star,arrows etc do.
@JakeJeffreys From left to right; reply, retoot (share), favourite (like), bookmark (save for later), share (outside the site), more (additional options).
@susannahbirch
Now that I’m here and I can see the four people I’ve followed, is there a search button I can use, to find someone who has shared their mastodon name which doesn’t come up?
If they’d was a search I find her @abc. When I type it in this post she comes up but I don’t get an option to follow. When I put it in google as I had the others she doesn’t come up
Now that I’m here and I can see the four people I’ve followed, is there a search button I can use, to find someone who has shared their mastodon name which doesn’t come up?
If they’d was a search I find her @abc. When I type it in this post she comes up but I don’t get an option to follow. When I put it in google as I had the others she doesn’t come up
Helen@susannahbirch Great tips, thank you.
@susannahbirch
And thank you, I’m not used to feeling hopeless on apps
And thank you, I’m not used to feeling hopeless on apps
Monsteratmydesk@susannahbirch how does one edit their background image. I feel dumb asking…