I'm a bit unclear of the role of servers in Mastodon. Do I see messages from other servers? If so, what's special about individual servers? Can anyone recommend the best resource to understand the Mastodon ecosystem?
@selea Thanks, that's a pretty good video! I'll use that to spread the word to those who need it. :D
(They're both the same video, by the way?)
𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚊 
@selea Ah, thanks! That was a video I've already been spreading around but it was on a different platform and didn't have subtitles that YouTube conveniently provides. Now I can actually understand what it says! I'll be spreading this one too from now on! :D
@selea @roydanroy @KLdivergence @alexpghayes this thread is helpful in figuring out instances and stuff
@roydanroy I think it might be better to call it ”instances”, since technically an instance might be built on 1 or more servers.
What’s special is the aspects of control, autonomy and moderation.
Because there are multiple federated instances, one single company can’t control the whole Fediverse. Similar to e-mail (or IRC).
And since instances are autonomous, they can have their own rules and moderation.
e.g. I might launch foo.com and on that instance it’s forbidden to talk about carrots. Or whatever. It’s up to the admins of the instance.
Therefore, they can have their own rules regarding harassment and similar. Their own social contracts.
Compare to Twitter/Facebook/Instagram, where the owners have to take care of all that, globally. It becomes very messy.
I hope this makes sense, somewhat :)
@roydanroy this article gives a good overview: https://medium.com/@jimpjorps/a-non-computer-persons-guide-to-how-mastodon-instances-work-da6ceac1994a
@roydanroy (also found it helpful as a computer-person)
@roydanroy if you start an ML server let us know!
bonifartius 𒂼𒄄
@roydanroy tl;dr: it's just like with email, you can send and receive mails from roy@danroy.net to boni@fartius.org or free@mo.com. you see all the public messages from all the servers in the fediverse (it isn't just mastodon) your own knows about. individual servers are not special in a technical sense, but culturally.
@roydanroy There are lots of resources to explain how it all works. Here's my take:
https://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/ThinkingAboutMastodon.html?vd28mn
I *think* it's different from most others, so if you're struggling, try reading that and asking me questions. I don't know everything, but my way of thinking might be reasonably aligned with yours.
Your chart is ready, and can be found here:
https://www.solipsys.co.uk/Chartodon/108208780696938672.svg
Things may have changed since I started compiling that, and some things may have been inaccessible.
The chart will eventually be deleted, so if you'd like to keep it, make sure you download a copy.
Here's a pretty comprehensive guide:
https://github.com/joyeusenoelle/GuideToMastodon
@roydanroy
The videos here explains it well I think:
https://youtu.be/S57uhCQBEk0
https://youtu.be/S57uhCQBEk0