Kajetan @kajetan@qoto.org

So I've been secretly in a cold war with some weird crypto bros for like 6 months now, and worryingly in the last couple days it's looking like they've won. They wanted my Instagram handle, and somehow they've now got it. Without my consent. And it's kinda scary. Strap in for a toot storm (is that what we call it?) [1/16]

#Introduction I'm a postdoc working at the Structure and Motion Lab at the Royal Veterinary College. British-Canadian, husband and father of four amazing children. I'm into comparative #biomechanics and #robotics, building a career at the interface of the two. Also looking for ways to contribute to #greenenergy. #DisabledinSTEM with #adhd and anxiety. Tell me about your #coolbugs #coolrobots and #weirdanimals

mastodon users

Some Mastodon thoughts, for bird-site expats (which include myself). I'm aggregating these from posts I've boosted before, so little of this is my own brain.

- There's no algorithm here. That means favoriting/liking doesn't do anything except communicate approval to the OP and others (which is still nice!).

- No algorithm means boosting ("retweeting") is the true method to increase a post's visibility. Do that more than you did on birdsite.

- There's no post-quoting here, and that's by design. Look at quote-tweets on the birdsite; it's a feature primarily used for toxicity.

- There's no direct word-search here either; that means you want to use hashtags to make posts more searchable. This is also intended, since word-searching posts was often used to harass/stalk on the birdsite and elsewhere, so that was left by the wayside here. This also means hashtags are much more a thing here than any of the algorithm-powered sites.

- It's encouraged to put in text descriptions when you post images; a lot of Mastodon users use screen-readers due to various disabilities, and getting an image description read out loud helps them immensely.

- Speaking of screen-readers: using capitalization in your hashtags allows the screen-readers to read them more easily, especially if you're smashing multiple words together. #rockmusic = unreadable. #RockMusic = readable.

- The best way to make threads is to make set your first post as public, but "unlist" all of your replies. This prevents your whole thread from clogging up feeds.

- Content Warnings should be used more liberally here. If you haven't gotten the impression yet, much of Mastodon was built and populated by marginalized groups who were harassed/bullied off of other platforms. This is the culture they built, to respect each other's mental health. It's not a rule, but it's well-appreciated.

- Consider chipping a few bucks towards whomever runs the server you're on; the strain is real, and most server admins were likely paying out of pocket before so don't have an existing donation base. The growth here has been extremely fast, and that means money's needed.

- DMs are just posts with privacy settings. So if you @ someone in a DM, you pull them into the thread. That could be embarrassing.

- Also, no, DMs aren't end-to-end encrypted, but they aren't on Twitter either. Don't use either if you want true privacy.

- Including your Mastodon handle in your birdsite profile will help people find you here; there's a tool (pruvisto.org/debirdify/ is one of them that's used) people can use to pull Mastodon handles from Twitter profile.

- Use the blocking and reporting features liberally, if needed. This should go without saying, but they work, and work well!

- If there's an entire Mastodon server you don't want to hear from, you can block the whole thing too.

- Preferences -> Appearance -> "Slow Mode": this can make larger "Local" feeds and any "Federated" feed much more readable.

I'll reply with some more as I see them, or reply here too. I've only been here 4 days but I'm loving it so far.

This one is for all the new people on #Mastodon: did you know that the #fediverse has more than just a microblogging replacement? And that they can all interoperate with your Mastodon account?

Check them out!

Facebook replacement: Friendica
Instagram replacement: Pixelfed
YouTube replacement: PeerTube
Spotify replacement: Funkwhale
MeetUp replacement: Mobilizon
Reddit replacement: Lemmy
Podcasting replacement: Castopod
GoodReads replacement: BookWyrm

Expect some of the following to happen in the coming weeks:

- celebrities with huge follower counts pushing tiny community-run servers to their knees

- instance admin burnout; shutting down of servers

- big new servers that don't "vibe" with common rules or culture being widely defederated

- some notable account violating an instance code of conduct and throwing a fit

- lots of people ragequitting Mastodon for one reason or another

- etc.

It'll be a rough ride. Patience and strength, all.

Hi!!
I'm using Mastodon for the 1st time, finally I landed!
It took me some time, the signup process... It's hard to grasp but here I am, I heard well about all of this ^^
Before I've been in other decentralized communities, i.e. Minds, ZeroMe, Steem, decentralized video platforms like BitTube, Dtube..

Hopefully happy to be here too : )