Dear Mastadon noobs: Welcome.
Welcome. I'm GeePaw. I am way leftie. I am a software geek. I love *making*, and if you are making things and sharing work in progress, I will love that.
This place is different. It really is.
Here's the key: follow people, and read home, not local or federated. Read home, read who you follow, and follow the people *they* follow.
The way you make a community on mastodon is to *follow* people. There's no algorithm, you won't get random ass-hats in your home feed.
More backstory: I am old (64), tired, and generally sad or angry. I am cis and, wellllllll, mostly het, tho I just last week got to give blood to the Red Cross cuz I slept with a guy back in 1980.
I am absolutely just fine with your gender presentation, your pronouns, and your sexual preference. It might be central to your identity, but it is not central to how I think of you.
I honor pronouns and live names, and I don't give a fuck what pronouns or names you call me.
I am a poly-dork. Tho I'm known for software dorkishness, I'm actually also a dork in other areas: English literature, 20th century American pop, evolution, and history.
I am a kind of weird anti-chameleon, really: I don't fit in anywhere, but since everyone can tell that I'm not one of them, they can also tell I'm not really one of anyone, so they let me in, as an outsider.
I have the most astonishing wife, who is ten years older than me, and whose children were just coming to their majority when we first got together. Further, we're a family of very big hearts.
Thus I am a grandfather to, idunno, maybe two dozen people, ranging in age from 35 to 5, without ever having been a father.
I have two dogs and two cats. I love them, as I have loved all of the dogs and cats I have known, but Molly, the dog, she just idunno broke in to my heart so hard.
I once said out loud that I didn't know quite why I loved her so much, given the many dogs I have loved.
Daughter broke out laughing. I'm like, "What?"
"Well. She is exactly like you. She is an old soul, she is kind, and loving, with very sad eyes, and she is given to occasional bouts of homicidal mania."
Anyway, that's all just a starter.
WELCOME. I am glad you came. You will find your way. If you have any problems or issues, ping me. I will do what I can.
I think you are right to have chosen to be here.
I think your first month might be a little challenging.
But you'll figure it out.
I'm GeePaw, and I am a doofus, and if you need help or advice, just ask your local Geepaw-The-Doofus.
Oh. One more thing: alt text is important here. This is a community where we don't just post our pics, we also describe them, for them as such, like me, don't see so good, as well as them as such, are in fact blind.
Learn how to add alt text to your pics. It will depend on your app.
Be love. There are more of us out there than you think, more of us who want to know what you're doing, more of us who cannot see images so well.
You can do this.
Alt text is good.
Alt text is a public service.
.
I've just been tested as having 20/20 vision. And I'm not color blind in any way.
But I do find alt text useful at times. Like sometimes I don't get the joke, or don't really understand the context, or don't recognize the source or context of the image. So the alt text "hints" can be really helpful, even for me.
And for those with vision and other limitations, alt text is helpful and often really needed.
GeePawHill
RiaResists
Peter Blok
Jeff Grigg