-
Mastodon has several important differences from Twitter, but you'll get used to it. I've tried to mark all of the important differences with the :bangbang: emoji; forgive me if I missed some. It's been a while since I've been on Twitter!
+Mastodon has several important differences from Twitter, but you'll get used to it. I've tried to mark all of the important differences with the ‼️ emoji; forgive me if I missed some. It's been a while since I've been on Twitter!
I've done my best to make this understandable, but you're welcome to suggest changes! If you have a Github account, you can submit change requests directly; otherwise, feel free to contact me on Mastodon or by email at noelle AT noelle.codes.
When linking to this page, please use the link http://guidetomastodon.com, and please credit [@Noelle@elekk.xyz](https://elekk.xyz/@noelle). Thank you!
+When linking to this page, please use the link http://guidetomastodon.com, and please credit @Noelle@elekk.xyz. Thank you!
Mastodon's statuses are called "toots", like Twitter's are called "tweets". A toot can be up to 500 characters long.
Mastodon also supports hashtags, which are words prefixed by #, like "#gaming" or "#pineapple". You can click on a hashtag to search for other posts containing that tag.
:bangbang: Each Mastodon instance is independent but networked, like email servers. If you sign up for an email account on gmail.com, you don't automatically have an account on hotmail.com or aol.com, but you can send and receive messages to and from users on hotmail.com and aol.com.
+‼️ Each Mastodon instance is independent but networked, like email servers. If you sign up for an email account on gmail.com, you don't automatically have an account on hotmail.com or aol.com, but you can send and receive messages to and from users on hotmail.com and aol.com.
Likewise, if you sign up for an account on mastodon.social, that doesn't make an account for you on every other instance, but you can talk to users from other instances and they can talk to you.
-You can make accounts on multiple instances if you want to talk about different things separately. You could have an account on https://hackers.town to talk about technology, an account on https://elekk.xyz to talk about gaming, and an account on https://mastodon.online for general chatter. You have to sign into each account separately and keep each open in a separate browser tab or window. (The various mobile apps all allow multiple accounts, too.)
+You can make accounts on multiple instances if you want to talk about different things separately. You could have an account on https://hackers.town to talk about technology, an account on https://elekk.xyz to talk about gaming, and an account on https://mastodon.online for general chatter. You have to sign into each account separately and keep each open in a separate browser tab or window. (The various mobile apps all allow multiple accounts, too.)
Keep in mind that in general, when talking about Mastodon, "instance" and "server" mean the same thing.
:bangbang: Mastodon has two additional timelines that you can view: the Local timeline and the Federated timeline.
+‼️ Mastodon has two additional timelines that you can view: the Local timeline and the Federated timeline.
The Local timeline is every post with a public status posted by users on your instance, with the exception of replies. (A reply is any toot posted in response to another toot - NOT any toot that simply mentions another user!)
The Federated timeline is every post with a public status posted by any user that your instance knows about, even from other instances. Your instance knows about a remote user if at least one user on your instance has EVER followed them.
The Local and Federated timelines can turn into firehoses sometimes. Be careful!
@@ -72,7 +69,7 @@ DON'T PANIC.Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Fediverse is
The Fediverse is the vast array of servers that communicate via the ActivityPub or OStatus protocols. (Generally speaking, unless you're making or editing software to interact with the fediverse, you don't need to know what those are.) There are lots of different kinds of server software on the fediverse, like Pixelfed, Pleroma, Misskey, or WriteFreely. Mastodon is one of the most popular of these, and it's what this guide is about. If you're using one of the others, this guide probably won't help you much.
:bangbang: The short answer: Very carefully.
+‼️ The short answer: Very carefully.
We've had fifteen years of Twitter, Facebook, and heaven knows how many other social media platforms becoming platforms for Search Engine Optimization, Brand Awareness, and Corporate Synergy, and I'll be blunt: most of us are really, really tired of it.
Mastodon isn't about leveraging followers into customers. It's not about SEO or brand loyalty. Mastodon is about people. Don't treat people like potential customers who might buy your stuff; treat them like people whom you might want to get to know.
If you're a person who makes or does something and you think someone might want to buy your product or use your service, great! You can tell people about it - just treat them like people, not marketing targets.
@@ -82,7 +79,7 @@ DON'T PANIC.Mastodon doesn't really work like that. If we're going to have a Mastodon presence, it needs to be one person who's free to be a person on that account, instead of a corporate mouthpiece. That means the person on the Mastodon account isn't going to get along with everybody (although they should certainly try to) and is going to treat other users like they're people instead of marketing targets. If you're okay with that, then I'll get right on it. If not, then you need to do some more research into Mastodon before you establish a presence there.
:bangbang: There's no such thing as a verified account on Mastodon. We assume you are who you say you are. If you see someone with a checkmark by their name (like :white_check_mark:), they've just typed that emoji into their display name.
+‼️ There's no such thing as a verified account on Mastodon. We assume you are who you say you are. If you see someone with a checkmark by their name (like ✅), they've just typed that emoji into their display name.
If someone's impersonating you, contact the admin of the instance they're on to get it sorted out.
Mastodon instances will allow you to add metadata to your profile - up to four items displayed in a table on your profile page that don't count against the length of your profile text. If you use these fields to link to your other websites, some instances will allow you to verify that you own those websites by providing a link on those websites back to your Mastodon account. For instance, if you have a personal website, you can include the link to your website in your Mastodon metadata, and then include a link to your Mastodon account in the header of your website, and Mastodon will verify that you're the person who owns your website.
@@ -94,7 +91,7 @@ DON'T PANIC.(A brief note about mastodon.social: it is the largest general-purpose instance (the largest overall is a Japanese-language instance, mstdn.jp). Many people go there and never check out other instances. If you make an account on mastodon.social, consider treating it as a temporary waypoint while you find an instance that better fits your needs and interests. Once you've found one, you can export all the people you're following, muting, and blocking on mastodon.social and import them at your new account, so you don't have to go around and find everybody again.)
If you've already registered on an instance but you're not sure if it's a good fit for you, try asking around for instances where you might be a better fit. Also, try searching for a #hashtag that interests you; if you see a lot of people on one instance talking about that subject, it might be a good place for you to check out.
You can also try the instance picker on joinmastodon.org or the wizard at instances.social, although these have lots of instances listed and you might be overwhelmed. Take it slow and easy.
-Yes and no.
There are two ways to accomplish this: you can redirect your account or migrate your account.
If you redirect your account, your old account will have a redirection notice added to it, and you won't be able to fully use it (I believe this mostly means you won't be able to post from it anymore). You'll still be able to export your account's data, and you can reactivate your account at any time. Users who go to your old account's profile will be told that they can find you at your new account. Nothing else will be transferred automatically. You can do this by going to [your server]/settings/migration/redirect/new (for example, elekk.xyz/settings/migration/redirect/new). There's also a link on the account migration page. All you have to do is put in the name of the account you're redirecting to and Mastodon will handle the rest.
If you migrate your account, all the same things will happen as redirecting your account. In addition, all of your followers will be moved to your new account (so nobody has to find and re-follow you). You can, in addition, manually move your follows, lists, blocks, mutes, domain blocks, and bookmarks over, but the system won't automatically do that for you.
In neither case will your posts move over. You'll be starting with an empty post history on your new account.
Here are the steps for migrating your account, including optional steps. (It looks like a lot of steps, but I've split some things up to make the instructions easier to follow.)
-Preferences in the right-hand Getting Started panel, then go to Profile > Appearance. Below your header and profile picture, make sure Require follow requests is unchecked. (If it's checked, you'll have to manually approve every follower the automated process tries to bring over.) Click Save changes at the top or bottom of the page if you had to uncheck the box.Account > Account Settings. At the bottom of that page, under the Moving from a different account header, click "create an account alias".username@instance of the old account (for example, noelle@elekk.xyz) and click "Create Alias".Import and export > Data export.CSV. Click that for each thing you want to move over to your new account; this will download a list of each of those in a standardized format. Make a note of where the downloads go.CSV. Click that for each thing you want to move over to your new account; this will download a list of each of those in a standardized format. Make a note of where the downloads go.Import and export > Import. For each of the files you just downloaded (except Lists, which doesn't have an import function yet):Account > Account Settings. Near the bottom of that page, under the Move to a different account header, click "configure it here".username@instance of your new account, along with the password for your old account. This verifies that you're the owner of the account (in case you forgot to log out and someone else is using the computer). Then click "Move Followers".And you're done! Please note that it might take a while to migrate everything over and to import everything you've uploaded, especially if you're moving to or from a large or old server.
-:bangbang: Important: This process is the closest thing Mastodon has to changing your username.
+‼️ Important: This process is the closest thing Mastodon has to changing your username.
Special thanks to Ted and arachnomyrmex for helping me make sure I got this right!
:bangbang: The short version: you can't. Once you choose a username for your account, it's immutable, so choose wisely.
+‼️ The short version: you can't. Once you choose a username for your account, it's immutable, so choose wisely.
The long version: The only way to kind of change your username is to migrate your account (see above), but again, you won't take your post history with you no matter what you do.
Some enterprising admins have tried changing someone's username directly in the database (at their request), and for whatever reason, doing so breaks federation for that account; they can no longer reliably send messages to other instances or receive mentions.
:bangbang: Mastodon usernames take the form @*username@*instance. My account on mastodon.social is @noelle@mastodon.social; my account on elekk.xyz is @noelle@elekk.xyz. If you're mentioning someone on a different instance, you have to type the whole thing (although the toot input box will help you auto-complete the username if it's a name the instance knows already).
-If you're mentioning someone on your own instance, you just have to type the first part; if you're on elekk.xyz, @noelle will get to me just like @noelle@elekk.xyz will. If you leave off the "@*instance*" Mastodon understands that you want to talk to the local user.
+‼️ Mastodon usernames take the form @username@instance. My account on mastodon.social is @noelle@mastodon.social; my account on elekk.xyz is @noelle@elekk.xyz. If you're mentioning someone on a different instance, you have to type the whole thing (although the toot input box will help you auto-complete the username if it's a name the instance knows already).
+If you're mentioning someone on your own instance, you just have to type the first part; if you're on elekk.xyz, @noelle will get to me just like @noelle@elekk.xyz will. If you leave off the "@instance" Mastodon understands that you want to talk to the local user.
The rules depend on which instance you're on. Each instance has a page at https://instance/about/more that usually contains more information about the instance and often describes the community guidelines. For example, mastodon.social has its community guidelines posted at https://mastodon.social/about/more .
+The rules depend on which instance you're on. Each instance has a page at https://instance/about/more that usually contains more information about the instance and often describes the community guidelines. For example, mastodon.social has its community guidelines posted at https://mastodon.social/about/more .
Keep in mind that these are usually guidelines and not hard-and-fast rules. Since each instance is run by a separate team of moderators - often just one person! - they have the final say over what's allowed and not allowed on their instance. Your instance admins might even go so far as to block an entire other instance if their users turn out to be incompatible with your instance's values and the other instance's moderators won't help.
If you see someone breaking the rules, you can send a report. Click on the ... under the offending post, and select Report @user (which is usually at the very bottom of that menu). This will bring up a window where you can select additional recent posts from that user, if you need to, and also type out a reason for the report, so that the moderator who receives the report will understand why you sent it.
The moderators and administrators of your instance will be able to see that it was you who sent the report. If you forward the report to a remote user's instance, the moderators and administrators of that instance will not be able to see who sent the report — only that it came from your instance.
By default, you will not get any notification about actions that any moderators or administrators take in response to your reports. You can ask them, but be prepared to hear something like "we don't comment on how we resolve reports".
:bangbang: Mastodon (and other fediverse) posts can be chained together in different ways. I use three terms to refer to different kinds of posts. These might not be the terms other people use.
+‼️ Mastodon (and other fediverse) posts can be chained together in different ways. I use three terms to refer to different kinds of posts. These might not be the terms other people use.
Keep in mind that some servers, which run software that's compatible with but not the same as Mastodon, will ignore these privacy settings if you send a message to their users, so be careful!
Yes and no.
With a locked account, you get to approve who can follow you through the Mastodon interface. This means that only the people you approve will be able to see your followers-only posts. Your unlisted posts will still show up on your profile, and your public posts will still show up on your profile and on the local and federated timelines.
However.
-:bangbang: Every Mastodon account (on an unmodified server) also creates an RSS feed of their public and unlisted posts - i.e. the posts that appear on the account's profile. It does not include followers-only toots or direct messages, and if you've put a CW on a toot, only the CW appears in the RSS feed, not what's underneath it.
+‼️ Every Mastodon account (on an unmodified server) also creates an RSS feed of their public and unlisted posts - i.e. the posts that appear on the account's profile. It does not include followers-only toots or direct messages, and if you've put a CW on a toot, only the CW appears in the RSS feed, not what's underneath it.
Your RSS feed appears at https://<your-server>/users/<your-username>.rss ; for example, since I'm https://elekk.xyz/@noelle, my RSS feed is https://elekk.xyz/users/noelle.rss . (Remember to remove the @!)
Anyone can subscribe to these feeds using an RSS reader to see your public and unlisted posts when you post them. You can't control who can see these feeds, but they do not (and, by design, cannot) contain your followers-only or private toots. If you only post followers-only toots, your RSS feed will be empty.
Remember, you can set the default privacy level for your posts under Preferences > Other > Posting Privacy. If you have a locked account, you might prefer to set that default to followers-only so you have to make an active effort to post an unlisted or public toot.
@@ -201,7 +198,7 @@ DON'T PANIC.Don't go overboard with hashtags. As a guideline, your hashtags probably shouldn't be more than 10% of the total length of your toot. If you find yourself going over that, you might be spreading things a bit too thin.
† This was actually the original intent of hashtags, but the usage has moved on since then.
:bangbang: CW stands for Content Warning. It hides your post behind text (which you get to choose); it's like a Read More link.
+‼️ CW stands for Content Warning. It hides your post behind text (which you get to choose); it's like a Read More link.
You might use CWs for:
In general, just use your best judgment; think "is there a reason someone might not want to see this?". You have the opportunity to take an extra moment and make the fediverse a nicer place for people to be. Why wouldn't you take that opportunity?
An important note: Mastodon does not track hashtags that are in the text of a CW. Mastodon does track hashtags that are under a CW. Always put your hashtags in the body of your toot, never in the content warning.
-:bangbang: Clicking that will hide your image behind a "Sensitive content" overlay. This is good for nudity, gore and violence, political topics, etc.
+‼️ Clicking that will hide your image behind a "Sensitive content" overlay. This is good for nudity, gore and violence, political topics, etc.
You'll notice that if you have both an image and a CW on a toot, the "Sensitive content" overlay is turned on automatically and can't be turned off. That's on purpose.
-:interrobang: When you attach an image, you'll see "Edit" (plus a pencil icon) at the top right of the image. Clicking this will pop up a dialog box that lets you determine what part of the image should show in the preview; it also allows you to set alt-text for the image, which people can read if they mouse over the text, and which screen-readers (such as for the visually-impaired) can read instead of just saying "embedded image".
-For images that are largely text (for example, a screenshot of a Tumblr post), Mastodon has built-in optical character recognition (OCR) and can often transcribe the image for you, although you should probably double-check the transcription to make sure it's accurate. If, for some reason, your instance's OCR isn't working, you can use an online tool like Online OCR to transcribe your image. And if all else fails, there are OCRBots on the fediverse that will reply to your post with a transcription if you @mention them.
+⁉️ When you attach an image, you'll see "Edit" (plus a pencil icon) at the top right of the image. Clicking this will pop up a dialog box that lets you determine what part of the image should show in the preview; it also allows you to set alt-text for the image, which people can read if they mouse over the text, and which screen-readers (such as for the visually-impaired) can read instead of just saying "embedded image".
+For images that are largely text (for example, a screenshot of a Tumblr post), Mastodon has built-in optical character recognition (OCR) and can often transcribe the image for you, although you should probably double-check the transcription to make sure it's accurate. If, for some reason, your instance's OCR isn't working, you can use an online tool like Online OCR to transcribe your image. And if all else fails, there are OCRBots on the fediverse that will reply to your post with a transcription if you @mention them.
Text in the description box has its own character limit of 1,500 characters; it does not count against the character limit for your toot!
In a word: Accessibility.
Some people who use Mastodon are visually impaired and use screen readers. Some people who use Mastodon have images turned off to conserve their data usage. Sometimes disk errors or server errors happen, or your admin decides to prune old files, and your image just doesn't load anymore. Captioning an image allows people in these conditions to participate in your toots with full context.
You can also use image captions to insert additional jokes (like webcomics often do) or additional commentary on the image. Take advantage of the fact that image descriptions have their own separate character limit and put whatever you like in there. The sky's the limit.
:bangbang: :bangbang: Each instance can define custom emoji for their users to use, and many have taken advantage of this. Your instance admin can copy emoji that they like from other instances. If you see an emoji that you like and it's not available on your instance, ask your admin to copy it over.
+‼️ ‼️ Each instance can define custom emoji for their users to use, and many have taken advantage of this. Your instance admin can copy emoji that they like from other instances. If you see an emoji that you like and it's not available on your instance, ask your admin to copy it over.
It's an anti-harassment feature. Harassers often search for particular words or phrases (like "TERF" or "homophobic" or "white supremacy") in order to attack and dogpile people they disagree with. By limiting search to usernames and hashtags, Mastodon allows users to decide how they want their toots to show up in others' searches. (While some Mastodon instances do allow full-text search, you can only search your own toots on those instances. This makes it easier to find something that you posted a while ago without exposing you to harassment.)
:bangbang: Like search, it's an anti-harassment feature. If you want to reply to someone's toot, you have to actually reply to it; you can't just broadcast it to your followers with a snarky comment.
+‼️ Like search, it's an anti-harassment feature. If you want to reply to someone's toot, you have to actually reply to it; you can't just broadcast it to your followers with a snarky comment.
(Don't try to get around this by screencapping toots and attaching them as images. You can do it, but the Mastodon community tends to frown on it and you'll get a bad reputation pretty quickly if you keep it up.)
It can be! But it gets to be a comfortable weirdness.
Here are some common weirdnesses:
You might get some mileage out of Pinafore, an interface for Mastodon by Nolan Lawson.
Halcyon is a web client for Mastodon that replicates the Twitter interface. Since Halcyon is itself open-source software, there are multiple servers running it; you can choose the one you like. Use your existing Mastodon login when you use Halcyon; for example, if you have an account on elekk.xyz, you would use your-account@elekk.xyz and your Elekk password to log in.
Remember that Pinafore and Halcyon are third-party clients, and make sure you trust them before you give them your login information!
-Mastodon has a responsive design, so you can use it in your phone's browser. Alternately, there are many apps available for Mastodon, including an official "Mastodon for iPhone" app released in August 2021. On iOS, try Toot!. On Android, try Tusky.
(NB: I've been told that "Tootdon silently forwards copies of posts you interact as well as the auth token to your account to its to own servers." I don't know if that still holds. As always, be cautious when giving apps your information.)
You might not be on Mastodon! The Fediverse - the vast collection of servers connected by the ActivityPub/OStatus protocol - has a lot of different kinds of servers on it. Your server might be running Pleroma, Misskey, GNU Social, or something else! Unfortunately, I don't know much about them, so you'll have to ask their users for a getting-started guide like this one.
-Because Mastodon is open source, you can make a copy of it and make any changes you want. Some people have decided to make their changes public; one of the most popular edited versions of Mastodon is Mastodon Glitch Edition, or "glitch-soc". (It's called that, as far as I know, because it originated with the instance glitch.social. Glitch-soc has a bunch of extra features that users often appreciate, like the ability to use Markdown in toots and the option to make a given post only show up on your local instance and not get federated out to other servers.
-Ask around! People are usually pretty happy to answer questions and help out. Also, you might benefit from checking out one of these other guides, which have a different perspective:
If you really get stuck, ask me: https://elekk.xyz/@noelle
+If you really get stuck, ask me: https://elekk.xyz/@noelle
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