pettter βœ…
So, for all you new users, there's this OStatus thing called "groups", which is indicated with a bang ( ! ), where you can follow, say, a topic (music, security, crypto, games and whatnot), or a specific thing (emacs, coffee etc.), or even a greeting (the tzag group for Time Zone Appropriate Greetings), regardless of who posts about it.

It's a pretty powerful tool, all things considered, and !fediverse and !fedgroups may be of interest for exploring what's out there.

Also, for all you infosec peeps there's of course the !security group, there's also one for !musicians, for !ccmusic, for your current !listening habits, etc.

A limitation is that groups live on a specific instance, though I think there might be proposals to mitigate that...  
Apr 5, 2017 at 12:11pmWeb
Show threadSquattingApr 5, 2017
@pettter mastodon doesn't have groups though!
Show threadpettter βœ…Apr 5, 2017
@taknamay Doesn't it? :( I thought that got implemented a while back, but that might have been only in my dreams, I suppose.
Show threadpettter βœ…Apr 5, 2017
@taknamay Oh well, that's a selling point for alternative implementations then ;)
Show threadSquattingApr 5, 2017
@pettter well I'm not sure, but I asked @gargron and he said he doesn't like the way groups are implemented
Show threadIndigo 🌸Apr 5, 2017
@pettter how would you follow a group?
Show threadpettter βœ…Apr 5, 2017
@indigofera Generally, it's called "joining" and you'd do it by visiting the page (e.g. https://quitter.se/group/cycling), and then clicking "join remotely", and entering your user@instance, then confirming on your own instance
Show threadπŸ΄β€β˜ οΈπŸ΄β€β˜ οΈKODOπŸ΄β€β˜ οΈπŸ΄β€β˜ οΈApr 5, 2017
@pettter group joining doesn't work on mastodon instances
Show threadmalokiApr 5, 2017
@pettter great that you shared, but it's not supported /implemented in Mastodon yet.
It was the first thing I asked for.
Show threadᏒ๐ϲoα΄„o β…―oԁｅm ᏴaｓіliｓkApr 5, 2017
@pettter Some of these appear to be down. Maybe due to traffic?
Show threadpettter βœ…Apr 5, 2017
@enkiv2 Skilledtests isn't active in OStatus anymore, unfortunately, and I linked the wrong !listening group, so that's entirely on me.

CCMusic seems to have linked wrong somehow:  https://micro.fragdev.com/group/ccmusic is the proper link.   
Show threadᏒ๐ϲoα΄„o β…―oԁｅm ᏴaｓіliｓkApr 6, 2017
@pettter Good to know!
Show threadHedgeMageApr 5, 2017

@pettter I've noted that finding people via a !group from the Mastodon interface is trivial (use your search bar), but adding oneself to a group via the Mastodon interface is non-intuitive...

I see Mastodon-based users in here, but have no clue as to how to add myself...thoughts, help, and insights welcome.

Show threadπŸ”œ@[email protected]Apr 5, 2017
@pettter so they're like instance-scoped hashtags?
Show threadpettter βœ…Apr 5, 2017
@parataxis I explained it badly I think - a group "lives" on an instance, but anyone can join it, and post/receive updates from it. So !dumpsterdiving lives on quitter.se, meaning that's where you go to join/leave/admin the group, and watch the complete group timeline. But once you've joined a group, you'll get all those posts to your own timeline (regardless if you follow the person or not, or even someone on their instance), and can post to the group from your own instance etc.

The real downside to this way of doing things is if/when instances go down, they take all their groups with them. So !fediverse was for example a fairly large group (15k members or so) of things that were relevant to the whole federated network, but oracle.skilledtests.com went down for reasons unrelated, so that whole group died and has yet to be resurrected. Likewise with some groups on status.vinilox.eu etc... See http://www.skilledtests.com/wiki/List_of_federated_Statusnet_groups on web.archive.org 
Show threadpettter βœ…Apr 5, 2017
@parataxis So in some sense groups are actually _less_ instance-scoped than hashtags.
Show threadπŸ”œ@[email protected]Apr 5, 2017
@pettter so unlike hashtags for a group to exist someone has to create it?
Show threadAlanApr 5, 2017
@pettter this is strange – do you know why this toot is showing up in my personal timeline? I don't follow you, no one I follow boosted it, and I'm not mentioned. Bug?
Show threadedd 🍍Apr 5, 2017
@pettter so like, if I want to start a group, can I just prepend a "!" to anything? Did I just start the !dinosaur group?
Show threadBrendan Tobolaski 🌹Apr 5, 2017
@pettter TFW you find out about a super useful feature but then find out you can't use it because you're self-hosting :frowning2:
Show threadOracle(tm) e-Business Social πŸŽƒApr 5, 2017
@pettter Mastodon the software doesn't support it last I heard though...
Show threadpettter βœ…Apr 5, 2017
@kitredgrave Yup, heard that from a few others also. Supposedly, it's on the list at least.
Show threadYohan Yukiya Sese Cuneta μ‚¬μš”ν•œApr 7, 2017

@pettter I've been trying that for awhile, doesn't seem to be compatible in any GNUsocial instance I've tried. It returns invalid XML. But works on my quitter.se account. We can follow non-group acounts though.

Did you have any success?

Show threadpettter βœ…Apr 7, 2017
@yahananxie It seems that Mastodon doesn't have group support as of yet (but I hear it's coming). My instance is also a GNU Social (like the quitters), and works just fine, afaict.

Where are you getting the invalid XML from?
Show threadYohan Yukiya Sese Cuneta μ‚¬μš”ν•œApr 7, 2017
@pettter When trying to join fediverse and gnusocial groups from Mastodon, but I was able from GNUsocial/quitter.
Show threadpettter βœ…Apr 7, 2017
@yahananxie Yeah, I thought Mastodon had already implemented them when posting, but turns out they're still on the TODO-list.