Rudi Pfenniger @rpfennig@qoto.org

It’s time I reveal my family’s love/hate relationship with and addiction to #boardgames.

We love the #boardgame but hate finding new and creative ways to fit them into our dining room’s shelving units.

#Brettspiele #boardgamecollection #boardgameporn

@ben @CatButtes Here’s what I went through and where we’re at now: https://blog.freeradical.zone/post/surviving-thriving-through-2022-11-05-meltdown/

Mastodon is so good that I'm honestly feeling a little emotional about it. It is like online communities used to be, with people willing to engage in friendly and productive conversations, and no algorithm creating divisions for the sake of engagement.

It is honestly wonderful!

#introduction

To help make connections name…
Last 5 #ttrpgs / #boardgames you played
AND
Next 5 you really want to play!

Then, boost this post so others know to do the same!

_Last Five_
#dnd5e
#brindlewoodbay
#ffstarwars
#forbiddendesert
#unstableunicorns

_Next Five_
#motw #monsteroftheweek
#deadlands #swade
#wingspan
#macromicrocrimecity
#monstdrawcity

Trying to see how much different #Mastodon is from the birdsite in terms of interaction, replies and mutual benefit in deeper relations and communication. Thought I would share something and see how it goes from there.

So...
One thing that has been on my mind the past few days, witnessing the great #TwitterMigration, is the role, or rather, the impact of social media in the current day and age.

I would be very interested in your thought re: these 2 possibly opposing points of view.

1) Social media allows a degree of connection, of communication, that arguably represents a paradigm change of the level of the wheel, agriculture (and the way it allowed for bigger and sustained settlements), writing, the printing press and the internal combustion engine.
We have expanded beyond our villages into these virtual settlements of virtually limitless size.

Now, can this expansion be limitless? To the point of an interconnected consciousness of 7 billion people?

Or rather, is there a critical point of no-return beyond which more social interaction is counterproductive? (certainly the sort of "social" interaction online would be the weakest link in social interactions"?)

2) As you become more and more connected with so many others, is there a point where you stop benefiting and rather just lose yourself?
Ie, achievements are only rewarding if there is some degree of uniqueness to them. Is there a law of diminishing returns whereby knowing more people who have done something reduces your reward from it?

TLDR; What is individuality and the place of the self in the social media age? Interested in your thoughts and your help elaborating on this question.

#socialmedia #individuality #phylosophy

To all the lovely humans starting Mastodon instances:

Please think about succession planning, resourcing, and rules of engagement (aka Code of Conduct) as a matter of priority for your instance.

When you create a community resource, you're making a commitment. If you're new to stewarding a community, ask for help. #AskACommunityManager

It'd be really sad if in 3, 6, 12 months we start losing a ton of instances and Fediverse community members with them.

#MastodonAdmin #FediTips #Admins

It’s amazing how quickly I’ve gone from “What the hell is Mastodon?” to “Maybe I should start a Mastodon server?”

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

Free list of over 400 literary magazines that accept free submissions, you're welcome to share with anyone. This is a list I kept originally for myself, but friends were interested and so I made it public. https://crowcollectiveworkshops.com/free-submissions/

I'm only a few days into using Mastodon and, hands down, the absolute highlight so far has been reading people's #introduction toots because:
1. I've come into contact with so many people with whom I otherwise wouldn't have seen.
2. This very much seems to be a platform that encourages reading, talking and sharing, not furiously typing out a response or shouting.

Over the weekend, every time I have popped across to read my feed, I've left thinking, "how wonderful". And that is, well, wonderful.