My year with Mastodon (#MastodonWrapped)
I celebrated my first #Mastoversary a few days ago. It’s been a good first year on Mastodon for me; I like the #Fediverse idea, I like people here, and I like the calm vibe this place offers.
Also, I ditched all of my other #SocialMedia accounts. All but one.¹
As I say, Mastodon is a good #platform to be, however there are a couple of things I’ve been struggling with the whole time. I’m going to put together a brief summary below in hope that someone can help me with them.
¹ I still keep Instagram to exchange cute pics of sloths and pandas, and ice-hockey reels with my sons. 😁
2/
The thing that buggers me the most is boosting.
I know boosting is important because it’s the only way to spread the news around as there are no #algorithms here to force-feed us what they “think” is good for us, and I’m quite a #booster myself, too. But I’ve cut back a bit recently for a simple reason: I can’t hide boosted posts from my #profile.
I mean, when someone views my profile I want them to see my toots first so they can get an idea of who I am and, conversely, when I visit someone else’s profile I prefer to see what they have to say.
If you’re a generous booster but not so creative in the “#ContentCreation” department, just like me, you get a profile full of re-blogged posts where your original #toots are hard to find. And no, #Pinned toots don’t do the trick.
If there’s a #hack to work around this, I would much appreciate if you share it here.
@xl8freelancer
Caveat: These tips work for the web interface. I don't use any apps.
When looking at someone else's profile you can eliminate boosts by clicking on the "Posts and Replies" tab. Still has replies but does leave out boosts.
Do you know about Just My Toots? Here's an link for my posts:
Do you need help with using Mastodon and the Fediverse? Especially if you're a beginner or unsure about techy things?
You can ask by messaging me or replying to this thread, and I'll try to help or find someone else who can help. Don't worry if a question seems silly or basic!
You can also look things up on the guide at https://fedi.tips, which has an "essentials" section at the top and a complete list of answered questions below that.
If someone recommends an account to follow and it looks blank to you, it probably isn't actually blank! It probably just looks that way when you view it from your server.
If you follow the account, future posts will start showing up on your server.
It is confusing, but there are really good reasons why it happens. You can read more about it (including how to check what a profile really looks like, and how to prevent your own profile looking blank) here:
For those unfamiliar with it, Lemmy is basically a federated version of Reddit, distributed across multiple servers like Mastodon. (For anyone who wants to delve further, lemmy.ml, beehaw.org, and aussie.zone are three popular Lemmy instances.)
From Mastodon, you can follow any Lemmy group by following its handle, exactly the same way that you would follow a Mastodon account. Any new posts to that group will then begin appearing in your Mastodon feed.
Even better, if you start a thread on Mastodon, you can also post it to a relevant Lemmy group just by including its handle in your post. (Please note this only seems to work with the first post of a thread.)
A reminder that you can have custom content filters setup on mastodon. I use it to minimise content that might annoy or upset me. Sometimes its fun to click “show anyway” but its nice not having it in my face.
Recommended follow list for Ukraine war on Mastodon
Here are my recommendations for coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Only accounts active recently and you can easily import them from a file. They are split into two different lists by type.
Ukraine: OSINT & war updates
This list mostly has accounts posting quickly about daily events of the war and doing open source intelligence.
The import file relies on the List import feature recently added to Mastodon. I have noticed the list import results in a few accounts sometimes ending up in their separate list by the same name so you may have to fix that manually afterwards if this happens on your instance. If many people are on an older Mastodon version and want it I can also post a follows file that will work for those.
Import instructions:
Sign into your instance on the web
go to settings (Gear icon)
Choose Import and Export -> Import
For import type choose "Lists" (could also be "Translation missing: en.imports.types.lists" if there is an issue with the localization).
Select "merge" to only add to your current follows/lists so nothing you have gets deleted
If you're looking to share music, podcasts or other audio on the Fediverse, you might want to sign up on a FunkWhale server.
Funkwhale is a free open source audio platform featuring channels that can be followed from Mastodon etc. You can sign up on servers or start your own.
relay.fedi.buzz... What this does is gather posts from instances you're not already talking to and brings them in for you... Here's how to do it as a single user.
Using a tag you're already following, type this into the search box (without spaces):
@ tag-[TagNameHere] @ relay.fedi.buzz
That'll bring up a result. (See picture.) Click on the follow icon. You will see more soon.
Just a reminder, please do add alt text descriptions to your images, videos and audio clips. It will make them accessible to people with visual or hearing impairment.
You'll also get a lot more boosts if you add descriptions, because a lot of people only share posts that have descriptions.
If you forget, don't worry, you can edit your post afterwards to add it 👍
It can take a while to get into the habit, so there's a bot to help you remember at @PleaseCaption
I really wish the academic institutions, international organisations, #Research departments, relevant journals and magazines, and academics that already have accounts on #Mastodon would post more often.
I am finding very difficult to populate my feed with relevant information here. It isn't just about getting users to migrate, it's also about having those users engage meaningfully - even by cross-posting.
imagine a fedi instance where someone messages the webmaster and asks to sign up and the webmaster shoots them in the chest twice and they fall to the ground and blleeds a bunch and another person comes up and walks over them and asks to sign up and the webmaster shoots them in the chest twice
Hashtags are important in the #fediverse, for both following and muting, but people don't seem to be using them as much as they could, even the obvious ones. That's understandable. Remembering and typing them can get tedious.
So, a little #feditip : instead of typing #hashtags de novo each time, keep a running collection of ones you use in a document. That way, you can copy many hashtags, paste, and delete any irrelevant ones.
I keep mine in an email draft, grouped by category. #feditips
Pixelfed is a photo sharing network on the Fediverse, intended as an alternative to Instagram. You can follow Pixelfed accounts from Mastodon and vice versa. There's more info about it at:
Did you know that Mastodon lets you create lists of people you follow? While people use these for many purposes, here’s my approach.
Every time (well, most times) I follow someone, I also add them to one of my lists. Right now, I have lists for Artists, Boosts, Bots, Humor, Law, Med, Nature, News, Politicians, Scientists, Tech, and Writers. If nothing fits, I make a new group. If they fit in multiple places, I add them to multiple lists.
So, why do I do this? There are two main reasons: curation and hankering.
Curation
I follow people widely. If someone posts something interesting, whether as a reply or a post that is boosted, I open their profile, follow them, and add them to lists. As you can imagine, this results in a home
feed that at times is a firehose of posts. So, when I find myself overwhelmed, I do a bit of judicious trimming. In general, I don’t unfollow or mute people. Instead, if I haven’t interacted with someone for a while, or they are posting way more than I can keep up with, I just remove them from my home feed. This just means that means that I won’t see their posts in my Home feed. Sometimes, when I look at someone’s profile, I see that they are a very prolific poster or booster, and I choose to just add them to a list or two and not put them in the home feed at all.
[ Update: I realized I forgot to mention that you can also leave someone’s posts in your Home, but remove their Reposts/Boosts from your Home. Should be accessible as a menu item somewhere when viewing their profile. ]
[ Update 2: I hadn’t realized that the “Remove from Home” feature I was using is unique to the Mona app. There is a new feature rolling out on Mastodon now that allows you to create lists that will exclude people from the home feed. When you edit a list, look for a setting to “Exclude these posts from home”. If you don’t see it yet, you will need to wait until your instance admin installs the latest Mastodon software. I think this means you could use my exact method, except also create a list called “removed from home” which has this option set, but I haven’t tried it yet. ]
Hankering
Sometimes, I feel a yearning for a specific kind of post. Maybe I want to see some art. Maybe I’m looking for any news about a specific topic. Maybe I just want to read something funny. I can just tap on the appropriate list and see posts from people who specialize in those things, including people who I followed, but for some reason removed from the home feed.
Do you use lists in Mastodon? What do you use them for? I’d love to hear how others are using this tool.
As Twitter ditches its iconic branding in favor of owner Elon Musk's favorite letter "X," its open source competitor Mastodon is once again seeing usage numbers soar.
One idea is to browse the hashtag #introduction and follow people whose introductions sound promising to you. The hashtag #FediTips might also be useful. If you want to follow scholars and scientists, there is this list grouped by discipline: github.com/nathanlesage/academics-on-mastodonAnd in general, you can follow hashtags on Mastodon, e.g. “#bloomscrolling” for pictures of plants.
As Twitter destroys its brand by renaming itself X, Mastodon user numbers are again soaring | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)
As Twitter ditches its iconic branding in favor of owner Elon Musk's favorite letter "X," its open source competitor Mastodon is once again seeing usage numbers soar.