@freemo didn’t understand much of that reply, I’m afraid. I guess what I’m asking, is can you link with specific people? Can you have groups with specific interests? I find facebook useful/entertaining/enlightening, but I want to move away from it because ethically it stinks. I was looking for something with similar features that doesn’t track your data and microtarget you with political lies

@Ilsa Yes you can link with people here, its called following. Groups are usually done with hashtags and lists.

We dont track your data here either other than what is needed for the site to function obviously.

@freemo thanks. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it

@Ilsa Let me know if you have any other questions. Did you read our about page we explain the basics in some detail.

@Ilsa there is diaspora*, that's a bit more like facebook, from what I understand. https://diasporafoundation.org/

mastodon is more like twitter

@namark thank you. I never went into the shark-infested waters of twitter, so I’m feeling a bit lost and blinking here. Clearly a lovely group of helpful and fun people, from my encounters over the past hour

@Ilsa

Compassion is pretty much our only real rule when it comes down to it :) Trying to bring back mutual respect on the internet again for people no matter what opinions they hold political or otherwise

@namark

@freemo @namark that is a wonderful rule. Would that it were the rule everywhere! I seem to have difficulty logging in, as my password doesn’t seem to be recognised. Then, without quite knowing what I’ve done, I seem to be in anyway. I also have signed up for one of your “art” servers - a photography one. This is probably a stupid question, coming from a non-techie, but is it possible to streamline them, so I can have my art ogling and my (compassionate, respectful) political rants in one place? I would like to drag my facebook friends over too, and would like a forum that is simple and easy to use

@Ilsa

Those arent my servers. qoto.org is our only servers. Those are entierly different instances that are part of the larger network (you can talk to, follow, and interact with people from those servers but they are run and owned by entierly different people).

That explains why your password probably didnt work, it will only be valid on qoto.org.

@namark

@freemo @namark thank you. That makes sense

@Ilsa On the fediverse, you may want to try Friendica (https://friendi.ca/)
or Diaspora* (https://diasporafoundation.org/) for a more Facebook-like experience, where you get to add people as friends, minus the tracking. Mastodon is to Twitter what Friendica and Diaspora* are to Facebook. @freemo

@crackurbones @freemo thanks. I’ve tried, but it’s very hard to use. I now understand why Zuckerberg is such a genius