Mark Mercer @mcmxs@qoto.org

it's pretty nice to see folks who have the time and inclination decide to start up their own single-user or small community instances. keep up the good work.

I am starting to unfollow journalists who spend a good chunk of time complaining about Mastodon or hawking links to for-profit social media sites.

If you want me to read your newspaper, magazine, blog, fine. If you want me to join some commercial Twitter replacement, hard no. Also, ick, what are you even doing? If you are a real journalist, just post links to where your stories reside, not some other platform.

#Journalism #TwitterMigration #Mastodon

I'm sure all of those companies who pulled their ads from Twitter over fears of threats to their brand safety will be reassured that the clear and robust process representing diverse viewpoints for allowing banned users back onto the site is now in place and…

*checks notes*

It's a Twitter poll.

Oh.

Twitter lifts Donald Trump ban after Elon Musk’s poll https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/20/twitter-lifts-donald-trump-ban-after-elon-musks-poll?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

It is so awesome to see a human-rated, deep-space craft... actually in deep space. For all of SLS and Orion's well-documented problems, this is only the second time in history that this has happened. Thinking back to watching the early Orion design analysis cycles internally in 2007-2010 and watching that heading towards to the moon.

@nathanreed Here, we're in a situation where a disaffiliationist minister spent the last six years packing committees with like-minded folks. Communications from those who want to #BeUMC have been actively suppressed. Many members are unaware of what all this really means; most have been told the vote is "a done deal." Disappointed the discernment period has no structured, required activities. A straw poll is pending; the vote about remaining UMC is likely January.

@markmcelroy I think it’s important, even for congregations that may likely “remain”, have a conversation, at least about what’s going on in the wider church. It is despicable that your church, and many others are not given a balanced view, or “both sides“. One of the largest churches in Memphis were denied the opportunity to have a speaker representing the #BeUMC point of view. We have failed, no matter what “side” we’re on, to be faithful to the whole church and its mission.

Self explanatory statements below. I have a theory on this.
Please boost if you take part
Thanks
#poll #extrovert #introvert #mastodon

@tanjabueltmann @axantoni another from the same amazing artist

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

Twitter refugees: if you are leaving Twitter for good, do NOT deactivate your account, just set it to private and leave it.

Otherwise you risk squatters taking your name and exploiting your reputation, manipulating your followers, or coercing you into buying it back from them.

Bots smell the blood in the water; let's not leave them chum.

Comments that Mastodon is complicated and confusing have to be taken seriously. How can we make the onboarding easier for non-techies? Perhaps a single entry point that automagically allocates a server to a new person and also solves the cold start problem so that the first experience in the platform is a good one

I know a lot of y'all think there's nothing complicated about Mastodon and that e.g. less-tech-savvy folks not coming over here is *only* because they don't want to: This is not true. Many people DO find it complicated and confusing. Maybe a community that's not as "general public" as Twitter is good in some ways, but (since at least some people want this) it absolutely cannot replace the many use cases of Twitter until more people can grok it.