Gigi 🍄‍🟫Feb 18, 2023

🧵 Gigi's Mastodon Tips 🧵

(I originally posted this as a Twitter thread to help people migrate, but as I have finally succeeded in getting banned, I'm putting it here so I can just give people a link and don't have to explain it multiple times.)

Part 1 of 3 (maybe)
Getting the lay of the land

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The hell is with instances?
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Mastodon is the software and what you would think of as the equivalent of Twitter (the network of users) is actually ❝the Fediverse.❞ That's a bunch of instances (servers running Mastodon) that communicate with each other.

Do I need to be on all?
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No. You CAN have multiple accounts on multiple servers, but that's can also be a PITA. You can follow/communicate with/be followed by people on any instance (server) that is connected to the network (Fediverse) from whichever server you choose.

There are instances of Mastodon that are NOT connected (defederated) -- that is, not in communication with the main Fediverse.

In most cases, they're full of terrible people.
Gab, iirc, is one such instance.

Choosing
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Some instances are better than others.

Why?
Well, when perusing messages from other users, you have three main (default) areas to explore:

1. Your timeline (people you follow);
2. Local (people on your server); and
3. Federated (everyone on every connected server).

If you pick a good, philosophically compatible instance (server), your Local feed is a fantastic way to discover new people.

(Federated moves way too fast, and until you have a good mix of people, your own timeline may be a bit sparse.)

Objectively speaking, some instances are less pleasant because the population is huge and the moderators are overwhelmed. Or numpties.

Moving
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If you find something better, you can export your follows and followers to a new instance, but not past toots.

Rather than list servers to avoid, here are some that I have heard good things about:

BlackTwitter.io (set up and run by Black admins);
Indg.club (set up and run by Indigenous admins);
mstdn.ca (a catch all server of mostly Canadians).

#SaveForLater #GigiTips #Feditips

Show threadGigi 🍄‍🟫Feb 18, 2023

Part 2 of 3 (theoretically)

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Setting Up and Managing Stuff
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Some things are just easier to accomplish on the web interface than on any of the apps.
General account setup and managing lists are two of those functions.

More on apps later.

Privacy
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My first recommendation is to set your account to:
1. Require follow requests (Manually control who can follow you by approving follow requests)
2. Hide your social graph (Who you follow and who follows you will be hidden on your profile)

Additionally, if you set Posting privacy to "unlisted" you need to remember to choose which posts turn up in searches, even for hashtag searches, so be aware of this.

IMPORTANT
Check the settings of each post and if there's no globe, it's not searchable. (If you aren't getting responses, even though you added hashtags, this may be why.)

Lists
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My second recommendation is to set up a Friends list early, and add to it as you follow people who want to make sure you see their posts.

Messages from less-frequent posters will get lost quickly as you follow high-volume accounts.

If you want to know what your favourite people are up to, lists are your best way.

Unlike Twitter, you can only add people you follow to lists, so none of that being added to "People who are insufficiently obsequious to white people" nonsense.

Getting an app
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I can fully attest to the suckitude of the default Mastodon app. I used it for a whole day and it's missing so much functionality.

If you are an app person, Tusky or Fedilab for android or Metatext or Toot! for iphone seem to be the preferred choices.

Getting reach
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For whatever reason [and please resist the urge to mansplain, I don't fucking care that deeply] most old-school residents of the platform hate everything they associate with BirdChan, including some actually useful features like: search and quote-toots.

For the former, you may as well accept that you need to use hashtags, even just to find your own content. Make up your own hashtags, as long as it helps you find shit later.

Also, you can follow hashtags, so public content that is tagged with your interests will automatically appear in your feed.

As for the lack of quote-toots:
You can go to the trouble of screenshotting an interesting toot, and posting it with your commentary and a link to the original toot.

As for me, I'm going to protest by retooting @lowqualityfacts without any warning that they are not, in fact, facts.

That is what you get for not letting me prepend things with: "Hilarious, though untrue."

#SaveForLater #GigiTips #Feditips

Show threadGigi 🍄‍🟫

Part 3 of 3 (highly unlikely in the log run)
Other stuff (that will probably be updated)

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Tusky-specific recommendations
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Here another couple of items to help you bypass some of the crappy "getting to know a new platform" phase.

1️⃣ You can customize your tabs.
I highly recommend getting rid of the default Federated tab and replacing it with either some of your favourite hashtags or your friends list.

Actually you can do both, because you can have up to five tabs. (Mine, for example, include #topoli, #TorontoActions, and #onpoli.)

2️⃣ You can manage multiple accounts easily.

I made a blacktwitter.io as a backup at first, but now I've realized that I can have 2 very different experiences by filtering things differently.

At the moment, I'm mostly reading on that account, while focusing on activism stuff here. Plus! I can always ping myself with content, or use the "open as" function to just pop into a different account if I find something interesting that I would like to retoot from here.

#SaveForLater #GigiTips #Feditips

Feb 18, 2023 at 11:30pmWeb
Show threadsnodaFeb 19, 2023
@Gigi thanks for the Tusky tip. I didn't realize it was possible to customize tabs.
Show threadGigi 🍄‍🟫Feb 19, 2023
@snoda
🙏🏾
It definitely makes it easier to keep track of people who don't post as much some of the larger/more prolific accounts.