Robin Venneman @robinv@qoto.org

Have you noticed almost everything on Instagram feels like an ad for something, even when it's friends posting?

Welcome journalists 👋

Be sure to spread the word about #Mastodon and the #Fediverse as the new public square!

Encourage your employers to set up an official Mastodon server for your whole team.

This is all built with ActivityPub, an official web standard like HTML and CSS. It belongs to all of us!

If you're trying to find journalists on Mastodon, I've created a verified database of several hundred here: http://presscheck.org. Since the backlog has become enormous, the unverified waiting list is now public also: http://presscheck.org/pending

Big rumblings in the expansion of the #Fediverse have been happening recently.

#Tumblr has already promised to implement #ActivityPub (the protocol Mastodon uses), which will mean you can follow Tumblr accounts from here and vice versa. And today we a learning that #Flickr is also considering it!

This will be a massive expansion bringing, which obviously carries some uncertainties, but I, for one, welcome our new federation partners.

This is the way the internet is supposed to work.

Thanks to @rich_harris I just found out about http://fedifinder.glitch.me/ which makes importing my Twitter followers to Mastodon so much easier. This scans all the profiles of your followers for Mastodon accounts and you can import that list.

debirdify seems broken rn but you can also use: https://fedifinder.glitch.me/

The latest Mastodon update lets you follow hashtags. When you follow, posts with that tag appear in your timeline automatically.

For example, follow hashtag #Florespondence to make posts about flowers appear in your timeline.

This feature can be REALLY useful for discovering interesting accounts.

To follow a hashtag:
1. Log in through your server's website
2. Search for hashtag
3. Click it to see its results
4. Click on 👤+ icon in top right (click again to unfollow)

It's not on the apps yet.

The other funny thing is that *when* you use other Fediverse apps, this whole Fediverse thing starts to make a lot more sense.

And the lightbulb will go off over your head: this isn't just about replacing Twitter—this is about a whole new ecosystem to organize your online life.

Frankly, that's exciting because it's the next big frontier for Internet development.

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

When I joined #mastodon, I just wanted an open-source #twitter clone.

I got more than that. Subtle design differences made for healthier conversations in ways I wasn't expecting.

Here's a blog post to try to capture those differences and why they matter. https://scott.mn/2022/10/29/twitter_features_mastodon_is_better_without/

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.