For people new to the fediverse/mastodon: there are some strong customs and strong personalities. I can make a few important quality of life recommendations to give you a more pleasant experience:

In your account settings, go to filters and add a filter to block the following words:
Nazi
Fash
Fascism
Fascist
Twitter
Reddit
Elon
Musk
Defederate
Fediblock

There’s a lot of name-calling and protracted and unproductive discussions using these words. Certainly it’s up to you, but this is my recommendation.

We strongly encourage you to add alt text to any images you post, and if for some reason you do not, you’ll likely be met with many replies all reminding you, with varying levels of intensity, that you forgot. I recommend blocking any account who is rude about it.

Some times you may post something important to you that causes others to be uncomfortable without a content warning. Similarly, you can expect replies of varying politeness asking you to “add a CW”. Things that are patently offensive or not safe for work definitely should have a content warning for obvious reasons, but other than that, use your discretion. Again, I recommend simply blocking people who are too aggressive in their replies related to CWs.

Follow your instance’s rules.

You will rightly be bounced for expressing hate, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or unwanted harassment. There is no place for that - don’t do it here. I can’t tell you what to think, but if you want to post hateful or harassing content, you should find another platform somewhere else. It isn’t hard to be kind. Or at least not an ass.

The fediverse is all about delegating control to instances and end users. We have many tools available, like muting and blocking accounts, and blocking entire instances, as well as muting conversations. These are very useful to have a good time on the fedi.

Be well and be kind.