esteban antonicelli @geantonicelli@qoto.org

Understanding a little bit more about the #fediverse through data. Here is a plot of all #fediverse instances at instances.social as a function of their number of users and toots (statuses) and if they are open for new accounts. In general, instances are small in the number of users (median = 28). Interestingly, there are a lot of small, very active, and closed servers in the #fediverse. Also, some of the biggest servers are Japanese communities.

Okay this might be a long post

One thing that I realised is making #twittermigration harder for people to switch is because the whole concept can feel daunting & overwhelming for non-tech savvy people.

With Twitter to them it was straight forward and easy to find topics they enjoy but with mastodon its a bit different.
So if you're new to mastodon or you want to introduce someone to mastodon here are some tips, useful sites & tools:
### Tips:
- Choosing a home instance isn't as importance as it seems, don't overthink it. Yes moderation rules & policies may differ but they all have one thing in common: Be a decent human. You **always** have the option to migrate your account to a new instance.
- Toots (or posts if you think toots are cringe ) are what we call micro-blogging instead of tweets
- You’re supposed to "boost" AKA "reblog" toots that you like.Since Mastodon does not have an algorithm that surfaces toots that have been liked a lot, boosting is the best way to help spread stuff that you like, and to show appreciation. (credit to @orsvarn for this comment)
- Another way to fill your timeline with content you enjoy is to: Find other people with similar interests, follow them, favourite their posts, boost their posts, use hashtags. rinse, repeat. (credit to @garry)
- If you ever feel yourself getting sucked into arguments on the #Fediverse, you might want to take advantage of the instance mute/block feature!
Instances tend to foster a culture, so if you find people from a specific site tend to be bothering you, muting/blocking that instance will keep other members of that community from bothering you as well.
- Finally do not share private/sensitive information via DMs on Mastodon. Direct Messages are not E2E. **Keep it in mind**

### Useful tools & resources:
[Twitodon](https://twitodon.com/) - Find your Twitter friends on Mastodon
[FediFinder](https://fedifinder.glitch.me/)- Similar to Twitodon
[Fedi Tips](https://fedi.tips/) - an informal, unofficial guide for non-technical people who want to use Mastodon and the wider Fediverse
[Fedi Directory](https://fedi.directory) - A human-curated small selection of accounts to spice up your timeline.
[Trunk](https://communitywiki.org/trunk) -Trunk allows you to mass-follow a bunch of people in order to get started with Mastodon or any other platform on the Fediverse
[Fediverse.info](https://fediverse.info/explore/people) -growing list of people and topics can help you discover mutual interests with people around the world
**Mobile Apps:**
[Metatext for iOS ](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/metatext/id1523996615)
[Tusky for Android ](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.keylesspalace.tusky&hl=en&gl=USt)

Lastly if you are interested in setting up your own instance you can learn via https://learnfoss.org/ its completely free and its made by the wonderful @stux

I apologize for the long post lol, just hope this helps anyones transition over

Fun Mastodon accounts to follow

https://www.howtogeek.com/847422/new-to-mastodon-here-are-10-fun-accounts-to-follow/

Decided to look at network stats again. There are 1M more people using #Mastodon today than there were on October 27.

Mastodon tips (brief)

1. Server choice - tricky
2. Add a pic and bio
3. I prefer 'Advanced web interface'
4. And the 'Light' theme
5. Listen to long-time users
6. Tip your server admins
7. Hashtags pretty important
8. Put Alt text on pics
9. Use Content Warning if in doubt
10. Pin introduction post
11. Do some boosting
12. Follow interesting people
13. Hashtags can be followed too
14. DMs not secure
15. Be respectful
16. Thank you, people who run this

#mastodon #tips #MastodonTips #tootorial

If you come to Mastodon expecting Twitter, you won’t only be disappointed, you’ll probably be angry. The fediverse is a great platform, it’s where I spend most of my social time, and it has an awesome community. It’s also a wierd niche project run by weird nerds, queer people, furries, neurodivergent people, tech people, anarchists, and radicals (I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which of those apply to me.)

We built this thing, some of us over the last 10 years. We built it to provide a place to do Social Media that wasn’t owned and controlled by some behemoth that could be sold to Elon Musk.

Guess what? It was a good idea.

https://ajroach42.com/what-everyone-seems-to-get-wrong-about-mastodon/

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)

#Mastodon #Fediverse #choice

Who can see your toots? Whose toots can you see? Found this clarifying graphic at https://axbom.com/mastodon-tips/

The best way to increase everyone's feed diversity is to go follow interesting accounts on other instances :)

It's not #FreeDOS but check out this cool history of #Unix

https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/unix-linux-history

"Many of the commands in 1972's Unix 2nd edition are still used in today's Linux. Learn how Unix started and how it's changed over time."

Looking for a user-friendly way to learn more about @Mastodon and the #Fediverse? Visit https://fediverse.info/ to:

1. Add your account + hashtags to a list of searchable profiles.

2. Find other accounts with shared interests.

3. Check out really cool open source projects in the Fediverse (one example: Instagram alternative called @pixelfed).

4. See a full list of smartphone apps for iOS and Android.

@FediFollows @feditips

https://fediverse.info/

@victoria @benreaves #mastodon 4.0 will be released soon with #edit and #translate functionality