Mastodole for considery thorkus and explorakers of the intellectufole, and Twittle for bons-mots and gigglit.
Deep joy.
Mordy!
Mixey sentimoles over on the blue tweet’n’warbly. Familiode faceboles, all entertail and charmit there. But increasy “recommendapers” from intolery, mysogenale and racizzle. Deepest folly.
However, Prof’s unswervit optimizzers is that when MrGraphene Skin’s attentiol span drifts to a new antisemitty conspiralode, or other hateymost theory, both sites will persizzle:
It’s here! Our 2022 free-to-download colouring-in Advent Calendar is ready for you. Feel free to share, download, print off and send to everyone you know.
Some Mastodon thoughts, for bird-site expats (which include myself). I'm aggregating these from posts I've boosted before, so little of this is my own brain.
- There's no algorithm here. That means favoriting/liking doesn't do anything except communicate approval to the OP and others (which is still nice!).
- No algorithm means boosting ("retweeting") is the true method to increase a post's visibility. Do that more than you did on birdsite.
- There's no post-quoting here, and that's by design. Look at quote-tweets on the birdsite; it's a feature primarily used for toxicity.
- There's no direct word-search here either; that means you want to use hashtags to make posts more searchable. This is also intended, since word-searching posts was often used to harass/stalk on the birdsite and elsewhere, so that was left by the wayside here. This also means hashtags are much more a thing here than any of the algorithm-powered sites.
- It's encouraged to put in text descriptions when you post images; a lot of Mastodon users use screen-readers due to various disabilities, and getting an image description read out loud helps them immensely.
- Speaking of screen-readers: using capitalization in your hashtags allows the screen-readers to read them more easily, especially if you're smashing multiple words together. #rockmusic = unreadable. #RockMusic = readable.
- The best way to make threads is to make set your first post as public, but "unlist" all of your replies. This prevents your whole thread from clogging up feeds.
- Content Warnings should be used more liberally here. If you haven't gotten the impression yet, much of Mastodon was built and populated by marginalized groups who were harassed/bullied off of other platforms. This is the culture they built, to respect each other's mental health. It's not a rule, but it's well-appreciated.
- Consider chipping a few bucks towards whomever runs the server you're on; the strain is real, and most server admins were likely paying out of pocket before so don't have an existing donation base. The growth here has been extremely fast, and that means money's needed.
- DMs are just posts with privacy settings. So if you @ someone in a DM, you pull them into the thread. That could be embarrassing.
- Also, no, DMs aren't end-to-end encrypted, but they aren't on Twitter either. Don't use either if you want true privacy.
- Including your Mastodon handle in your birdsite profile will help people find you here; there's a tool (pruvisto.org/debirdify/ is one of them that's used) people can use to pull Mastodon handles from Twitter profile.
- Use the blocking and reporting features liberally, if needed. This should go without saying, but they work, and work well!
- If there's an entire Mastodon server you don't want to hear from, you can block the whole thing too.
- Preferences -> Appearance -> "Slow Mode": this can make larger "Local" feeds and any "Federated" feed much more readable.
I'll reply with some more as I see them, or reply here too. I've only been here 4 days but I'm loving it so far.
hey guys from Twitter.
we are glad to see you here but please understand that the fact that fediverse is anti-viral, anti-hierarchy and anti-capitalist is the point of it
please also understand that CWs, alt text and other stuff here is not there to "silence you" — it is to allow users greater agency over their feeds for their mental benefit, and to support disabled people.
this network was built by marginalized people. who disliked Twitter for the same reasons you do.
don't bring it back.
Because I'm on a German server my trending topics are #keinVergessen and #niemalsVergessen. This is because 9 November is the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
These brass plates in the pavements memorialise Jewish people at what were their addresses. I saw this one in Berlin in the spring. #NeverForget
Mastodon: What you need to know for your security and privacy
If you’re leaving Twitter for Mastodon, here are some things you should know.
https://grahamcluley.com/mastodon-what-you-need-to-know-for-your-security-and-privacy/
Please reblog/boost if you think this would help folks you know who are new to Mastodon. (Likes are appreciated, but won't help spread the advice)
Moose Allain
Richard Littler
Brian Bilston
Christopher
CHECK PINNED IF YOU FOLLOW ME
Jack Fraser
Graham Cluley