@JulieNye, I also have a thing about sunset photos. 🙂
These were taken near #RogersCity #Michigan last summer.

Winter has arrived! #PureMichigan

@freemo I don't have context for what you're describing, but if your BP is that high, you really should seek medical treatment. And maybe take a break from social media for a day or three. Even if the site struggles or crashes without your attention, we'll be fine. Please take care of yourself!

@charlesroper
I feel compelled to share this each time I hear the Oxford comma mentioned.
https://youtu.be/_9osMhzQmcA

@angelobottone
Might it be better to focus on solutions that offset the problems of a shrinking population? From a long-term sustainability perspective, smaller should be a lot better.

Or is there an embedded assumption in your post that I am not considering?

I did a brief #introduction post on my original server, but nothing since I switched.

Instead of defining myself by saying “I am a…”, here’s a collection of hashtags that interest me (in no particular order). #meditation (specifically #twim right now) #cigars #bicycling #photography #computerscience #physics #guitar #music .

I live in #Michigan (in #LakeOrion, which is 35+ miles north of #Detroit), and spend a lot of time around #RogersCity (I’ll bet that’s the first time that hashtag has been used on Mastodon). My kids are really bright and sometimes struggle with #ADHD, so I’ll probably talk about that at times as well. I have spent more than 3 decades of my life as a #programmer, and now I get to be the old man who leads really smart people in solving big problems with small amounts of #software.

AMA - I’m always happy to share!

Some advice I have seen (which you may find useful):

• post about things that interest you, and include hashtags (for instance “birdwatching”)
• boost posts that you find interesting from others - while there is no algorithm which those actions drive, it fosters connections as well
• spend some quality time finding people to follow - I love reading a variety of science topics, and I found a list of science journalists to follow on Reddit

On that last point, doing a more general web search to find mastodon users with whom you share interests is probably better than trying to find them on Mastodon itself.

@obi
It looks like I have to choose Markdown as my post type. I did that for this reply and put some italics and bold in the first two sentences.

This should be a heading

(for instance)

And this should be a subheading

This is the drop-down I used in the web UI:

@shengokai I have not read all of those responses, so I might be misconstruing what you’re saying.

I do think that this might illuminate what I was trying to say in my comment above. Maybe, “build your own instances” is part of the answer in some cases, but it wuld help to enlist the assistance of others to bootstrap doing that.

I considered creating my own instance, but it seemed like a silly waste of time to do that for just myself and a handful of family or friends. Helping other people connect in a way that has been denied them seems like a much better way to spend my time and energy.

@shengokai Might there be a way to turn the tech-bro culture you referred to into an advantage? From my own limited experience, it seems that there are many inclusive communities here. If you have a sufficient number of privileged people who are inclined to be inclusive, could there be a way to raise their awareness and solicit their help in establishing a better foundation for more marginalized groups?

I have seen a high concentration of people with a background in science here. These are people who enjoy solving problems, and many of them are aware that including more perspectives makes for better solutions. Could you better define the problems that they could solve, and offer them some perspectives to solve them from?

I would love to help amplify the voices of people who need more representation. I’m not sure how to do that.

@obi I saw than when I joined, then promptly forgot about it. 🙂

There are a lot of other features to explore in there! For instance, There is an option to choose *markdown* as my default posting format, and apply **some basic formatting** to my toots.
(It doesn't seem to work, though - it is selected, but at least when I view the post above it doesn't show either italics or bold. Hmm...)

@obi Thank you!

Do you have a link to the documentation where it says that? That's really the question I should have asked. The site I found isn't searchable and I can't find any mention of Circles on it. (Here: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/)

Is there a guide somewhere on how to use Circles? I kinda get lists, but wouldn't mind reading a bit on how to get the most out of them, too. I did some searching but didn't turn up any clear descriptions.
#MastodonHelp

@iratesheep
If I have an image in my clipboard, I just paste it with Cmd+V on a Mac or Ctrl+V on Windows and it works for me.

@crasblinton Assuming you're using the Mastodon web browser client...

1. Run a search - can be full-text if your instance supports it, or a hashtag if not.
2. Click the filter icon on the upper-right of the new column
3. Click "pin"