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Una guía mucho más breve a Mastodon

NO SE ASUSTEN.

Acá se hizo lo posible para que esto sea entendible, pero se agradece cualquier sugerencia! Si tenés cuenta en Github, podés mandar tus pedidos de cambios de forma directa; o si no, podés contactarte con dos personas:

  1. Con quien hizo la guía original en inglés en Mastodon o por mail en noelle AT noelle.codes.
  2. Conmigo en Mastodon o por mail en juntapuchos AT firemail.cc

Si vas a copiar un link de esta página, usá este link http://guidetomastodon.com, y acordate de darle crédito a @Noelle@elekk.xyz. ¡Muchas Gracias!

Tabla de contenidos

¿Qué es Mastodon?

Mastodon es una red social al estilo de Twitter combinada con servidores de instancias al estilo de los emails. El nombre lo sacaron por la banda de metal de ese nombre, pero su temática viene del animal ya extinto de ese nombre.

¿Qué parecido tiene con Twitter?

Allí escribís estados relativamente cortos, y podés ver una lista en constante actualización de los estados de la gente que seguís. Podés tener la notificaciones (respuestas, republicaciones, favoritos, DMs) en una columna separada.

Así como los estados en Twitter se llaman "tweets", los de Mastodon se llaman "toots". Un toot puede tener como mucho 500 caracteres.

Mastodon también soporta hashtags, que son palabras con el prefijo #, como por ejemplo "#juegos" or "#introduccion". Podés hacer click en un hashtag para buscar otros posts que tienen ese tag.

¿Qué parecido tiene con el email?

Cada instancia de Mastodon es independiente pero dentro de una red, como los servidores de correo electrónico. Si te registrás para tener una cuenta de email en gmail.com, no hace falta que tengas una cuenta en hotmail.com o aol.com, pero podés mandar y recibir mensajes desde y hacia usuarios en hotmail.com y aol.com.

Aquí pasa lo mismo. Si te hacés una cuenta en mastodon.social, no hace falta que te hagas una cuenta en cualquier otra instancia, pero podés conversar con usuarios de otras instancias y estos pueden conversar contigo.

Podés crearte cuentas en varias instancias si lo que querés es hablar de cosas distintas de forma separada. Por ejemplo una cuenta en https://cybre.space para hablar de tecnología, otra en https://elekk.xyz para hablar de juegos, y otra en https://mastodon.social para charlas en general. Tenés que loguearte en cada cuenta de forma separada y mantenerlas abiertas en ventanas o pestañas separadas.

Tené en cuenta que en general, al hablar de Mastodon, "instancia" y "servidor" significan lo mismo.

¿Y qué tiene de distinto con ambas; o mejor dicho, qué son las Lineas de tiempo locales y federadas?

Mastodon tiene dos lineas de tiempo adicionales que podés ver: la Linea de tiempo local y la Linea de tiempo federada.

La Linea de tiempo local se hace con todos los posteos de estado público escritos por los usuarios de tu instancia, salvo las respuestas. (Una respuesta se refiere solo a los toots posteados en respuesta a otro toot - ¡NO a cualquier toot que sólo mencione a otro usuario!)

La Linea de tiempo federada se hace con todos los posteos de estado público escritos por cualquier usuario del cual tu instancia tenga conocimiento, incluso de otras instancias. Tu instancia conoce a un usuario remoto si al menos un usuario de tu instancia lo haya seguido ALGUNA vez.

Las Lineas de tiempo locales y federadas pueden a veces ser chorros de mucha información de lo rápido que van. ¡Ten cuidado!

¿Qué es el Fediverso?

Desafortunadamente, nada puede decirse sobre qué es el Fediverso

El Fediverso es esa gigantesca matriz de servidores que se comunican a través de los protocolos ActivityPub u OStatus. (Hablando en general, a menos de que desarrolles o edites software para interactuar con el fediverso, no necesitás saber qué son esos protocolos.) En el fediverso hay muchos y variados tipos diferentes de software para servidor, por ejemplo Pixelfed, Pleroma, Misskey, o WriteFreely. Entre ellos Mastodon es uno de los más populares, y esta guía es sobre este. Si estás usando alguno de los otros, esta guía quizás no te va a servir mucho.

¿Cómo establezco la presencia de mi marca en Mastodon?

Respuesta corta: De forma extremadamente cuidadosa.

Hemos llevado toda una década de cómo Twitter, Facebook, y quién sabe cuantas otras plataformas de redes sociales se convirtieron en plataformas para la Optimización para motores de búsqueda (o por sus siglas en inglés, SEO), la Conciencia de marca (Brand Awareness), y la Sinergia corporativa, y acá se debe decir con franqueza: ESTAMOS MUY, PERO QUE MUY CANSADOS DE ESO.

Mastodon no se trata de aprovechar a tus seguidores para convertirlos en clientes. No se trata de SEO o lealtad de marca. Mastodon se trata de gente. No trates a la gente como clientes potenciales que puedan comprarte lo que vendés; tratalos como la gente a quien te gustaría conocer.

Si sos alguien que hace o crea algo y pensás que alguien querría comprar tu producto o usar tu servicio, ¡está bien! Podés contarle a la gente sobre eso - solamente tratalos como gente, no como objetivos de marketing.

Hay un comportamiento en que las compañías participan a menudo y que enloquece a la gente, y es algo que de verdad no deberías hacer: no mandes mensajes promocionando tu producto o servicio a nadie y sin que te lo pidan. Conocé gente, conversá con esa gente, y si pensás que alguien que vos conocés podría estar interesado y no sabe lo que estás haciendo, entonces contale lo que hacés o lo que creas.

Si representás a una compañía y tu jefe te dice que tu compañía necesita tener presencia en Mastodon, esto es lo que le podés decir (e incluso podés decirle que yo te dije que se lo dijeras):

Mastodon no funciona así. Si vamos a tener presencia en Mastodon, debe ser alguien con tiempo para ser alguien en esa cuenta, y no un portavoz corporativo. Eso significa que la persona en la cuenta de Mastodon no se va a llevar bien con todo el mundo (aunque debería intentarlo) y va a tratar a los otros usuarios como gente y no como objetivos de marketing. Si está bien así, me encargaré de eso. Si no, tenés que hacer una mayor investigación sobre Mastodon antes de establecer una presencia ahí.

¿Cómo puedo estar verificado en Mastodon?

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.

Está bien, ¿Cómo hago para que la gente sepa que yo soy quien dice ser?

Las instancias de Mastodon te permiten añadir metadatos a tu perfil - hasta cuatro campos que se muestran en una tabla en tu página de perfil que no cuentan dentro del largo del texto del perfil. Si usás esos campos para enlazar a tus otros sitios web, algunas instancias te dejarán verificar que esos sitios web son tuyos al ofrecer un link en esos sitios web que dirijan a tu cuenta en Mastodon. Por ejemplo, si tenés un sitio web personal, podés incluir el link a tu sitio web en tus metadatos de Mastodon, y luego incuir un link a tu cuenta de Mastodon en el header del sitio web, y Mastodon verificará que sos la persona que es dueña de tu sitio web.

Una instancia de Mastodon que permita eso contendrá las instrucciones en la página de Editar Perfil sobre como añadir el enlace de verificación.

¿COMO ELIJO UNA INSTANCIA?

Las mayúsculas son a propósito.

Elegir una instancia puede ser difícil. Muchas instancias tienen un enfoque específico: loa.masto.host es un espacio seguro para gente LGTB+, infosec.exchange es un espacio para quienes les gusta la seguridad informática, mastodont.cat fue hecha para quienes hablan catalán, y botsin.space se enfoca en el desarrollo y alojamiento de bots automatizados. En oulipo.social no se permite escribir un toot que incluya la letra "e".

Si no te creaste una cuenta en mastodon todavía, te podría ser útil probar en una de las instancias más grandes, como mastodon.social - la instancia principal, con más de 100.000 usuarios activos - o mas.to . Estas instancias tienen una población enorme y generalmente amigable que te ayudarán a encontrar una instancia más de nicho si eso es lo que estás buscando. Sin embargo, cuidado, porque debido a su tamaño, las lineas de tiempo locales en esas instancias pueden moverse muy rápido.

(Una breve nota sobre mastodon.social: Esta es la instancia más grande de propósito general. Mucha gente va allí y nunca vuelve a buscar otras instancias. Si te hacés una cuenta en mastodon.social, considerá tratarla como una parada temporal mientras buscás una instancia que se adecúe más a tus necesidades e intereses. Una vez que la encuentres, podés exportar a toda la gente que seguís, silenciás y bloqueás en mastodon.social e importarlos a tu nueva cuenta, así no tenés que buscar a todos de nuevo.)

Si ya te registraste en una instancia pero no estás seguro de si te sirve, intentá preguntar por allí si hay instancias que te podrían servir más. También, intentá buscar por un #hashtag que te interese; si ves a mucha gente en una instancia hablando de esa cuestión, puede que sea un buen lugar para que revises.

También podés probar el selector de instancias en joinmastodon.org o el asistente instances.social, aunque estos tienen muchas instancias listadas y puede que te abrumes. Hacelo despacio y con calma.

¿Cómo menciono a alguien que no está en mi instancia?

Los nombres de usuario en Mastodon tienen la forma @nombredeusuario@instancia. Por ejemplo quien hizo esta guía en inglés tiene su cuenta en mastodon.social y es @noelle@mastodon.social; y tambien tiene una en elekk.xyz y es @noelle@elekk.xyz. Si estás mencionando a alguien en una instancia diferente, tenes que escribir toda la dirección (aunque el cuadrito donde escribís el toot te ayudará a autocompletar el nombre de usuario si es un nombre que la instancia ya conoce).

Si estás mencionando a alguien de tu propia instancia, sólo necesitás escribir la primera parte; si estás en mastodon.social, @Gargron te llevará a contactar con él de la misma forma que @Gargron@mastodon.social. Si omitís el "@instancia" Mastodon entiende que le querés hablar al usuario local.

¿Cuales son las reglas?

Las reglas dependen de la instancia en que estés. Cada instancia tiene una página en https://instancia/about/more que por lo general contiene más información sobre la instancia y a menudo describe las normas de la comunidad. Por ejemplo, mastodon.social tiene las normas de su comunidad escritas en https://mastodon.social/about/more .

Tené presente que estas son normas en general y no reglas estrictas. Como cada instancia es administrada por un grupo separado de moderadores - ¡a menudo suele haber un solo moderador! - ellos tienen la última palabra sobre qué se permite y qué no se permite en sus instancias. Los administradores de tu instancia incluso pueden llegar hasta bloquear una instancia entera si sus usuarios resultan incompatibles con los valores que defiende tu instancia y los moderadores de la otra instancia no ayudan.

¿Qué pasa si veo a alguien rompiendo las reglas?

Si ves a alguien que rompe las reglas, podés reportarlo. Hacé click en la parte ... que aparece debajo del post que rompe la regla, y seleccioná dentro del menú Reportar. Eso mostrará una ventana donde podés elegir otros posts recientes de ese usuario, si es necesario, y también escibir una razón para reportarlo, para que el moderador que reciba el reporte entienda por qué se lo mandaste.

Si el usuario es de otra instancia, debajo de las razones del reporte, aparecerá un switch para "Reenviar a su instancia". Esto no solo reporta el usuario a los moderadores de tu instancia, sino que también manda el reporte a la instancia del otro usuario. Antes de hacer eso, comprobá las reglas de la instancia en la que el usuario está. Puede que no esté rompiendo sus reglas.

Los moderadores y administradores de tu instancia podrán ver que vos mandaste el reporte. Si enviás el reporte a la instancia de un usuario remoto, los moderadores y administradores de esa instancia no podrán ver quién envió el reporte — sólo podrán ver que vino desde tu instancia.

Por defecto, no te llegarán notificaciones sobre las acciones que los moderadores y administradores tomen en respuesta a tu reporte. Podés preguntarles, pero que no te extrañe si te responden "no hacemos comentarios sobre como resolvemos los reportes".

¿Cuales son los diferentes tipos de posts?

Los posts de Mastodon (y de otros servidores del fediverso) pueden encadenarse de diferentes maneras. Se pueden usar estos tres términos para referirse a los tipos diferentes de posts. Puede que otra gente use otros términos.

  • Los posts sueltos son posts que no son respuestas a ningún otro post. (O sea, no hiciste click en el botón de responder para escibir el post.) Estos están al principio de la cadena. Podés incluir los nombre de usuarios de otra gente en los posts sueltos para mencionarlos; hacer eso no hace que el post sea una respuesta. Por ejemplo: Vos usás el cuadrito (El que dice "¿En qué estás pensando?") para hacer un post nuevo.
  • Las autorespuestas son posts que son respuestas directas a uno de tus propios posts sueltos o a otra autorespuesta. De nuevo, estas pueden incluir referencias a otra persona. Podés seguir respondiendo tus propios posts lo más que quieras, y mientras un post de otro no esté encima de lo que estés escribiendo en la cadena, seguirán siendo autorespuestas. Por ejemplo: Vos hacés click en el botón de responder en uno de tus propios posts sueltos para responderte a ti mismo, y luego haces click en responder a ese post para responderte de nuevo.
  • Las respuestas son posts que son respuestas a los posts de otra perona o respuestas a una respuesta de otra persona. Por ejemplo: Hacés click en el botón de respuesta del post de otra persona para responderle, o hacés click en el botón de respuesta de un post tuyo que sea la respuesta a un post de otra persona.

Aquí tenés un diagrama para ver mejor (es un link porque es una imagen grande). Vas a ver que apenas entre en la cadena un post de otra persona, tus respuestas dejan de ser autorespuestas. Esto es importante, porque las autorespuestas y las respuestas funcionan distinto en las lineas de tiempo de tus seguidores.

How do privacy settings work?

Under each post, you'll see three icons: a camera, a globe or a padlock, and the letters "CW". Click on the globe or padlock to choose the privacy settings for your post. You can set the default privacy level for your posts under Preferences > Other > Posting Privacy.

  • Public means that everyone can see your post. It will appear on your list of posts and in your followers' Home timelines. Your stand-alone posts and self-replies that are public will appear in your list of toots, in your followers' Home timelines, in the public local and federated timelines, and in the Mentions of anyone you mention by username. Your replies that are public will appear in your list of toots and replies (not the primary list of toots; it's a separate list!), in the Home timelines of any of your followers who also follow the person you're replying to, and in the Mentions of anyone you mention by username.
  • Unlisted means that everyone can see your post, but it won't appear on the public timelines - either Local or Federated. Other than that, Unlisted posts behave exactly like Public posts.
  • Followers-Only means that only people who follow you and people mentioned in the post can see your post in their timelines or on your profile page. If someone who doesn't follow you views your profile, they won't see your followers-only posts. For your followers, followers-only posts behave exactly like Unlisted posts. Your followers-only posts that mention another user will also appear in that user's mentions, even if they don't follow you!
  • Private means that only people who are mentioned in your post can see it. It will appear in their mentions and, on Mastodon servers above version 3.0, will appear in their Direct Messages column.

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!

How private is "Private"?

I cannot stress this enough: Private toots are not encrypted or secure.

The admin of your server may be able to read any toot posted on their server, as well as any toot sent to a user on their server. However, it's a pain in the ass to do so. Your private posts will not appear in the admin panel on the website; your admin has to manually, directly access the database -- typically through logging into the server's command line -- in order to access them. This isn't something admins do on a whim; they only do it when they absolutely have to, and this is because:

This is a necessary security precaution. Admins don't want to read your private toots, but they have to be able to because otherwise private toots allow some users to secretly harass others or to conduct illegal dealings without the admin's knowledge, and under many laws the admin will be responsible for enabling the harassment or illegal behavior even if they didn't know it was happening.

That said, in general, your admin will only look over the toots you've marked Private if they have reason to believe harassment or illicit dealings are going on. Make sure you trust your admin to act like this, and if you don't, it might be time to look for another instance.

While we're on the subject, it's worth noting that this is true of nearly any social media software. Twitter admins can read your DMs. Forum admins can read your private messages. This is not a novel or unusual feature of Mastodon; I'm just making sure you know about it.

As a general rule, if an application you're using isn't peer-to-peer and relies on an intermediary like a server, the information you're sending isn't secure unless you take extra steps outside the application to secure it.

What happens when someone follows me?

If someone follows you, you incur a life debt to that person. You will be required to lay down your life for that person when they need it. Once you've done so, they will unfollow you and, if you survived, you are free to go about your life normally.

Just kidding.

If someone follows you, they will see your posts on their Home timeline and they will be able to see your followers-only posts. If you want, you can limit the people who can follow you by clicking on Edit profile and selecting Lock account, which will allow you to manually approve and reject people who want to follow you.

So if I lock my account, only approved people can see my posts?

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.

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.

What if someone's following or interacting with me and I don't want them to?

You have a couple options.

  • If you just don't want to see them in your feed anymore, you can mute them. This will prevent their posts from showing up in any of your feeds; you can optionally block notifications (Favorites, Boosts, and Mentions) from them, so that if you don't want to see someone's stand-alone posts but do want to see their attempts to interact with you, you can.
  • If you don't want to see them and you don't want them to see you, you can block them. This will automatically mute them; if they were following you and/or you were following them, it will sever those as well. They will not be able to follow you or show up in any of your feeds unless you unblock them. (But see below.)
  • If they are harassing you or otherwise breaking the rules, you can report them, and hopefully, your moderator will deal with it.

All three of these options are available by clicking the ... under one of the user's toots or on their profile inside the Mastodon web interface.

However.

Just like with a locked account, any user — even ones you've blocked or that have been suspended by a moderator — can go to your public page or your RSS feed to view your public and unlisted toots. There is not a good way around this, unfortunately, except to make all of your toots followers-only.

How will I know if someone's muted or blocked me?

You will not get a notification if someone mutes or blocks you.

If someone's muted you, there's really no way for you to tell. If they consistently don't reply to you when you mention their username, you might get suspicious, but Mastodon deliberately makes it almost impossible to know if you've been muted. (Among other things, this is a stopgap to try to prevent someone harassing you by creating multiple accounts to get around mutes.)

If someone's blocked you, you will no longer be following them, their posts won't appear in your feed, and when you view their account profile within Mastodon's web interface, none of their posts will load. (It is worth noting that if you're looking at the profile of someone you don't follow, sometimes their posts won't load and it's just because the server is being slow, not because they've blocked you, so don't be too quick to make an assumption.)

If someone has blocked you, you can still go to their public page and see their public and unlisted toots; public profiles don't require authentication (i.e. you don't have to be signed into that instance to view them) and so they can't tell who you are or that the user has blocked you. That said, let's be honest. If someone's blocked you, they don't want you around. You can keep reading their public and unlisted posts, but maybe don't? In a substantial way you're invading their privacy and deliberately crossing a boundary they've set up, and "the software allows me to, so it must be okay" is a pretty flimsy justification. Just leave them alone, please.

What if I go over the character limit?

Don't worry. First, you can't; Mastodon won't let you post a toot over the instance's character limit. You won't get in trouble or anything.

If you find that what you want to say is too long for a single toot, or if you think of something else after you've posted a toot, you can reply to your own toot. Mastodon supports toot threads, so you can toot as many times as you want to, replying to each toot in sequence, and the whole series will show up when someone clicks on any of the toots in the thread.

So if your toot is too long, just split it up and make the second half a reply to the first; if you think of something else later, just reply to your original toot and the reply will show up whenever anyone clicks on the original toot.

What are hashtags?

To make a hashtag, type "#" and then any number of letters or numbers. Accents count; punctuation, spaces, symbols, and emoji don't. #howismydaygoing is a valid hashtag; #höwísmydàygôíng is valid; #how-is-my-day-going isn't (it'll just catch #how).

A hashtag is metadata about your toot: it provides additional information that doesn't necessarily belong in the body of the toot, but is useful for understanding. If you're a programmer, it's sort of like a code comment.

As a bonus†, hashtags are tracked by each instance. Clicking on a hashtag takes you to a list of public posts with that hashtag. You can use them to track #politics, check out the users people are recommending on #FollowFriday, or see people's artwork using #mastoart.

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.

What does "CW" mean?

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:

  • Politics
  • Sex
  • Gross topics
  • Common phobias, like spiders or blood
  • Health discussions
  • Punchlines to jokes
  • Long posts that might otherwise fill up people's timelines
  • Commentary on discussions that are going on elsewhere in the fediverse, often with the CW "meta" or "discourse"

Some common abbreviations you'll find in CWs are:

  • mh: mental health
  • ph: physical health
  • alc: alcohol
  • pol: politics, sometimes plus locale, like "uspol" means United States politics
  • pda: public display of affection
  • nsfw: not safe for work
  • ec: eye contact, usually used when there's a photograph attached

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.

I just attached a picture to my toot. What's with the new 'eye' icon?

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.

I just attached a picture to my toot. How can I add a caption to it?

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".

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!

Why should I add a caption to my picture?

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.

How come my friend on another instance can use this emoji, but I can't?

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.

Why can't I search for a specific word or phrase?

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.)

Why can't I quote someone's toot, like a quote-tweet?

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.)

The Mastodon culture seems pretty weird?

It can be! But it gets to be a comfortable weirdness.

Here are some common weirdnesses:

  • 🍍: nobody really knows. acw posted it, someone else picked it up, and it's been going ever since. It's just silliness. When in doubt, just post a 🍍.
  • AWOO: Awoo.Space was one of the earlier Mastodon instances. "Awoo" is the sound of a wolf howling. It's fun to say. Awoo! (Pawoo.net has nothing to do with this; in Japanese, "pawoo" is the sound of an elephant trumpeting.) Someone got irritated at the awoos and instituted a $350 fine for awooing. Nobody's ever actually paid it, don't worry.
  • #gameing: There was (and still is) a perception that #gaming is "hardcore" and elitist, and there were (and are) worries about certain breeds of gamer overrunning the #gaming hashtag. #gameing was a pre-emptive strike; it's about a fun, lighthearted, and accessible approach to games, video and otherwise.
  • IT'S BEEN/SOME as CWs: a reference to the Barenaked Ladies song One Week and the Smash Mouth song All Star respectively. A common meme on Mastodon is to put the first word or two of the song into the CW and then subvert expectations by posting something else under the cut.

You'll get used to it.

What's the generally-accepted Mastodon etiquette?

There are no hard-and-fast rules for everybody, and (as noted above) different instances have different guidelines. That said, many people follow some simple guidelines meant to make Mastodon a friendlier place for everybody.

  • If you attach an image to your toot but don't describe it in the toot, use alt text to describe the image so that people using screen readers can understand it.
  • If you attach an image that contains nudity, porn or sexually-suggestive content, gore, violence, or politics, or any of a number of common PTSD/anxiety triggers (such as food, spiders, etc.), mark it sensitive.
  • If the text of your toot contains any of those subjects, use a content warning.
  • You don't need to use a URL shortener. Mastodon assumes that all URLs are exactly 20 characters long. Let people see what you're actually linking to.
  • If you make a bot that posts automatically, have it post using the unlisted privacy setting. This avoids having your bot flagged as spam.
  • If you use a script that cross-posts your Twitter tweets to Mastodon, have the script set to use a CW. This avoids sensitive topics (see above) being cross-posted to Mastodon.
  • If you see a conversation and have a comment you'd like to add:
    • Click through to the full conversation and make sure your thought hasn't already been expressed by someone else.
    • Make sure that your comment adheres to the tone of the conversation, is kind to the other posters in the conversation, and gives the other posters the benefit of the doubt.
  • "noadvice", as a hashtag or a CW, indicates that the user is just venting and is not looking for help or suggestions. Sympathy and comfort are welcome, though.
  • Remember that if someone doesn't reply to you, that doesn't mean they're ignoring you. They might be away from Mastodon; they might have so many notifications that they missed your post; they might have muted the conversation, so your reply didn't even show up! There are many reasons for someone to miss a toot, even one directed at them; don't take it personally.

I like Mastodon but I prefer the way Twitter looks.

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!

I like Mastodon but I want to use it on my phone.

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.)

How can I back up my Mastodon account?

Alex Schroeder has an excellent Mastodon Archiver that will help you back up your account and much more.

Can I use the keyboard to navigate Mastodon?

In the web interface, yes. The Mastodon web hotkeys are documented at https://<your-server>/web/keyboard-shortcuts , which you can access when you're logged into the web interface. (You can find the link at the bottom of the Getting Started column, labeled "Hotkeys".)

How do favorites work on other server types?

In general:

  • If you click 'favorite' on a post from a different server type (Misskey, Pleroma, GNU Social, etc.) it will federate properly. Some of these servers allow multiple response emoji, and each of them selects a generic "favorite" emoji, which will show up on the recipient's post.
  • If someone on a different server type selects an emoji to respond to your post, it will federate to you on Mastodon as a favorite, no matter what the emoji is.

Weird, my server doesn't have a bunch of these features.

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.

Weird, my server has a bunch of extra features.

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.

I have other questions.

Ask around! People are usually pretty happy to answer questions and help out. Also, FediThing has an excellent website that covers the Fediverse from a different perspective, and you might find your answer there.

If you really get stuck, ask me: https://elekk.xyz/@noelle

How can I contribute to the Guide?

Please check out the contributions guide!