Looks like a bunch of new people and old friends either arriving for the first time or reactivating dormant accounts!
Here are my Miscellaneous Useful Things to know about Mastodon:
1 - Hashtags! - You can follow hashtags as well as following people on here. This is a brilliant way to find new people and more content. Search for hashtags around things that interest you, follow them, and use them in your posts!
You'll find like minded people this way - now go and engage with them 😊
2 - Editing posts - as somebody very, very typo prone I think this might be my favourite feature! Yes, you can edit posts after the fact.
It will tell people who have interacted with your post when you edit it, and you can see the edit history on a post so it's all quite transparent and very, very useful.
3 - Alt text! - Please, please add alt text to your images. It just needs a brief visual description of the image, and a transcript of the text if there's text in the image.
It's really important for accessibility, and honestly it's kind of fascinating reading people's descriptions of their work.
If you're prone to forgetting then you can follow @PleaseCaption for a reminder - and you can use the edit function to go back and add it to an existing post so there's no need to delete and repost.
Might I add:
If you're just joining a Mastodon instance for the first time (or you've come back), please put some information in your bio. Don't be shy; we'd love to hear about /you/ and your ideas; and you'll probably get more reciprocal follows; and so your circle - and our community - grows.
Morag Perkins
simunch
Russ Cheshire
El Duvelle