Liberonscien @Liberonscien@qoto.org

@evelyn @meave I can kind of deal with the former, I can respect that. "We don't believe in censoring anything, but please be nice to everyone outside, they didn't ask for this and you'll just get us federated, making things worse for everyone.". The latter is of course, as absurd as you expect from some of these people.

Back in 2019, I wrote a case-study on ad- and tracker-blocking as part of EFF's series on adversarial interoperability (AKA "competitive compatibility" or comcom). My point was that the ad-tech industry says that it tracks you as part of a bargain: you trade away your privacy and get media in exchange, but that this was a bizarre kind of take-it-or-leave-it form of bargaining.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

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My tldr; for new Mastodon users:

Toots = Tweets
Boosts = Retweets
Stars = Hearts

Home feed is who you follow (think Twitter).

Local feed is everyone on your instance (i.e. server)

Federated is posts from people on *other* instances followed by at least one person on *your* instance.

You don't have to use Local or Federated, but they can be helpful for finding people to follow.

You can follow/interact with anyone on any instance by using their full handle:

@username@instancename

Mastodon has Direct Messages (DMs), there are two ways to make them happen:

-Create a normal message, set its privacy to "Direct" and then @ mention whomever you want to receive the message. If you mention more than one person it becomes a group chat. This works on all apps and versions of Mastodon.

OR

-If you're logged in through the website, or if you're using a third party app, you can click on the "..." menu on a post or a person's profile and select Direct Message. This then automatically creates a direct message just like the one in the previous method. You can also look at your previous DMs by clicking on the envelope or the "Direct Message" link in the menu.

The official apps don't currently have any specific DM features, but you can use the first method in them and it works fine.

The end result of both methods is exactly the same.

#MastoTips #FediTips #Mastodon #Fediverse #DirectMessages #DMs

Sooo... wow... okay a lot of people shared the previous post! Welcome again to all the new members!

It might be good if I clarified how Mastodon works, as some people think they need to sign up on multiple servers etc.

Short version: You do not need to sign up on multiple servers! Don't have FOMO! One server works fine!

Longer version:

Mastodon is a federated network, which means it's made of lots of independent servers that talk to each other.

And... everyone uses federated networks all the time! You probably use them so much you never even think about it 😮

Telephones use a federated network, so does email.

You only need one phone to call anyone anywhere. It doesn't matter if they're on another phone company or in another country, because all phone companies are federated together into a single network.

That's how Mastodon works. You get an account, and you follow people you're interested in, and they appear in your timeline. It doesn't matter if they're on another server.

Ok, so how does this long-form posting work? X qoto.org is 65536 max, but the mastodon IOS client is 512, but I was replying to someone and it was 256?

If I make a mega-post - can others see it? Just the beginning? Not at all? maybe it chops it up?

Just curious. I'll work it out eventually myself...

For new people wondering why Mastodon is on thousands of servers instead of one:

-It helps protect us all against Elon Musk scenarios. It's very difficult for anyone to buy a network made of thousands of independently owned servers. (It's the same reason why no one owns the world's email network, because there are so many independent providers out there.)

-If your server misbehaves (or sells out to a malevolent billionaire), you can move your account to a different server, or even to a brand new server. Decentralisation means you're never trapped on a site you hate.

-Mastodon is an open platform where anyone can start their own server, and they don't need tech knowledge if they use a service like https://masto.host or https://federation.spacebear.ee

...and there are lots more good reasons too, to do with servers using alternative Fediverse software etc, but I'll save that for a future post 😁

#MastoTips #Mastodon #FediTips #Fediverse

Before joining Mastodon had you participated or were active on BBS (dial-up) or forums (vBulletin style) in the past?

Boosts are appreciated for better sample sizes.

Unless you already have enough money to live solely off the interest, you're not a capitalist. You're merely a supporter of capitalists.

To wildly misquote John Mulaney, Capitalism is a hooker, "and you are an idiot who fell in love with her. She's not gonna do anything else for you. It's done."