Getting started with Mastodon

Aug 29 2024
Getting started with Mastodon

There's plenty of blogposts about getting started with Mastodon, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be another. This one is aimed particularly at UK users, people who might be academics, special interest folks or alternative culture people. Technical topic interests is sort of expected in the Fediverse, but it's certainly not mandatory and this post isn't about complicated customisation, it's about the easiest way to get going and where to put your effort. I'll also point out the real basic differences between Mastodon and usual/well known social media.

Caveat: The Fediverse is not only about Mastodon! This is an obligatory statement to assure Fediverse purists that we don't only know about Mastodon. But it's a beginners guide to Mastodon, so that's what this article is about.

WARNING 😀 Mastodon is not like social media you have experienced before, though it may seem like Twitter, it works very differently. It is also not like Slack, Discord, Teams or other work type chat services or 'communities'. It is of itself. Unlike other ordinary socmed it connects to all sorts of other apps. Don't worry. You'll get used to it. Be prepared for a small learning curve before you find your feet. Once you have, I'd bet you won't go back.

Mastodon does NOT have any of the following:
  • No adverts or promoted posts
  • No algorithms
  • No suggested to follows
  • No data tracking at all
  • No paid for blue tick (there is validated ID via website ownership)
  • No AI training data agreements
  • No single server hosting
  • Not only one app
Mastodon DOES have all of the following:
  • Multiple server hosting
  • Portable account - move your account to another server and bring followers and follows (but not yet posts)
  • Blocking and muting of users or whole servers
  • Limited life posts (auto delete after 1 week, or 3 months etc, or not at all)
  • Many free and paid apps for Android, iOS and desktop for PC/ Mac/ Linux
  • Local feed, Federated feed (the firehose), Home feed
  • Ability to connect with many other services and platforms including Fediverse apps like Lemmy or Misskey, and other apps like Threads, Bluesky, Flipboard and very likely soon Tumblr and others
  • Hashtag following
  • Lists
  • Drafts
  • Controlled post audience
  • Sexiness

How does it work?

Mastodon works differently to a usual socmed platform, but you wouldn't know it if you're using it or looking at it. To access Mastodon you use an app or a web browser, just like any other socmed platform. There's lots of choice of apps (brief list and recommendations at bottom of page).

Mastodon, like other Fediverse software apps, is not only hosted on one server, or servers owned by one company, like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit or (X)Twitter. It uses lots of different servers owned and ran by different people, to host different 'instances' (installations) of Mastodon, each hosting its own Mastodon local community, but connected to most of the others. Short list available below.

The server 'instance'

  • Each of these server communities (aka instances) connect to each other (they federate)
  • Each instance has its own rules. These are usually really cool, and displayed on their homepage (see image below).
  • Each instance may block or specifically not connect to particular other servers, either to protect their own users or for other stated reasons
  • You can see most if not all posts that are being made on the other instances, this is the federated feed (aka the firehose)
  • You can view just your home server instance posts of your instance account holders plus who they are connected to.
  • You can view a local feed of just your local server accounts

In actuality I have found this generally doesn't make much difference to my user experience. Im on @mastodon.social which is the biggest instance of Mastodon, but this seems to be true to a large extent on my other account on lor.sh, a much smaller Russian hosted instance. I use the home feed mostly, and occasionally browse specific hashtags I follow or that I've searched for, but hashtag content comes into my home feed too so its enough for me and works really well.

An image of the server rules on Lor.sh

Image: the server rules from LOR.SH (FYI - lor.sh is a portmanteau of Lordy and Gosh. It's an alt culture instance). Click to enlarge.

Using Mastodon

Some simple things to know to help you get started and find people to build your networks. It doesnt happen overnight, but it's really worth the effort to explore and steadily put it together so it works for you.

Getting a network of users going

It's easy, but it will take a little time. You need to find people you want to connect with and you won't get an automatically generated list of who to follow, like on XTwitter. The best and fastest way is to search and follow hashtags of content you're interested in, and follow people who look interesting. Hashtags and interesting people for me will be anything from AI, software and apps, academic topics, social media topics, news topics to the open social web and people who share any of this kind of thing. This content will appear in your own home feed.

Stuff you 'do' on Mastodon

  • You can favourite or like a post as you would on twitter
  • You can bookmark posts
  • You can comment on posts
  • You post (or the old term 'toot') as you would tweet
  • You boost as you would retweet
  • You cannot quote boost on Mastodon, ie boost while also making your own comment (aka quote tweet) about that other post - this is because on Mastodon considers this kind of quote boost action as being potentially a ' performative power play ', and may often lead to bad vibes. So you can't do it. This doesnt mean you can't do it with apps that are not Mastodon (eg Misskey etc), so you may well see it in Fediverse feeds, but it won't be a Mastodon app doing it. This is probably going to change in the future.
  • You can share media just like you would on Twitter
  • It is very encouraged to use alt text on images or video so that partially sighted users can use screen readers to tell them what your media is
  • On the better phone or desktop apps you can comment, like, boost or bookmark a post with different Mastodon accounts (nice) from the feed of one of your accounts, if all the accounts are added to the app. (I do this with two Pixelfed (like Instgarm) accounts and 2 Mastodon accounts, all from the same phone app.)

What are the disadvantages?

You might end up with a snarky or otherwise unreliable server host. To me this is one of the biggest downsides, so you should choose where you host your account fairly carefully. But if it doesn't work out you can always move ;) . To be on the safe/easy side, maybe choose a bigger one, some servers are listed below. Ask me if you want advice.

You should consider whether you want to keep a copy or a back up of all your posts as at the moment it isn't technically possible to export or download your posts. I do this via an RSS feed and import into Obsidian but you can import to any RSS reader, or simply keep a copy/paste of your posts if you're inclined. It's certainly not essential unless it's important to you. I think it's likely that Mastodon will soon offer post exports.

What are the advantages?

For me the advantages are quite significant, and I would sum up the main one as being because it's like the internet used to be. This is not (only) because I'm older or a luddite but rather that for us academics or special interest people, there is a genuine community who is not driven by having social media high profiles, large follow counts (though people might have those) or any career progression reason to have a Mastodon account. People benefit because of the real connections they make, the knowledge they gain, the feedback from others and the new areas of thinking that spring up out of what and who they find in the Mastodon networks. Mastodon just works, and it simply is a great choice if you want to develop connections with genuine people.

Following Threads or Bluesky accounts

Because federated decentralised social media is the future (this is not only rhetoric), Threads (to Meta's absolute credit) can federate with any Fediverse app or service, it uses the same tech process. Bluesky uses a slightly different technical protocol, so needs to run a little 'bridge' (very easy, you just follow this bot account: @bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy), and bingo, you can follow any Bluesky account too. This is all possible directly from your Mastodon account, as if it is the same app.

The bluesky bridge bot account in Mastodon follow list Swifties for kamala threads account in Mastodon follow list

Images showing the Bluesky bot bridge account to follow, and the Swifties for Kamala Threads account, followed from Mastodon. Click to enlarge.

A more in depth article on bridging from Bluesky to Mastodon and vice versa is available here https://lifehacker.com/tech/bridgy-fed-connect-mastodon-and-bluesky

Of Note: Similar to Reddit, there is an excellent app called Lemmy, I have an account with Lemmy, hosted on @lemmy.world. Similar to Instagram when it was an image app (not a marketing free-for-all), there is Pixelfed, I have 2 accounts, one on @pixelfed.social and one on @pixelfed.de

Comment: A sad but true fact is that you WILL occasionally encounter snarky purists on Mastodon or elsewhere in the Fediverse. Ignore them. They are usually sad bros who want to correct you about anything you might say regarding their territory, the Fediverse. But the Fediverse is all things to all people, a point they completely miss.

Basic tech guide

  • Your user 'handle' is @my_username (@DrPen)

  • Links to mastodon accounts are structured like https://mastodon.social/@DrPen , so https://name-of-server/@my_username. eg my other account is structured as https://lor.sh/@penworks

  • As said above, there are lots of different servers, all linked up. Each has its own rules and there is a lot of choice. To make things easy, choose a bigger one (more users) or one that matches your interests or specific community preferences.

Good/larger servers

You can start off (or stay!) on a bigger server

Try other or smaller servers

These are with only a few hundred members. Here is a long recent list of all the servers. Click on each to find out about them. https://coxy.co/mastodon/

Special interest servers

You can join a special interest server, it will usually say in its homepage blurb what that is. For example:

  • Arts
  • Tech
  • Urban
  • Maps
  • FOSS etc
  • Social policy etc
  • Political activism
  • Subject area specialism
  • LGBTQ - many different ones

Apps

Android apps I use
  • Moshidon
  • Megalodon
  • There are many others, Id also recommend Tusky
Desktop app
  • Elk (Mac/Windows) is really good
  • Sengi (similar to Twe3etdeck but a bit clunky)
  • Any browser
IoS apps (I dont use as do not have an iPhone)
  • Ivory
  • Icecubes

Here's a post where I asked masto users what they used: https://mastodon.social/@DrPen/112813104366883726

Hashtags

Some of my hashtags displayed in elk desktop app

Image of my hashtags viewed in Elk. Click to enlarge

This image (above) is some of my academic masto account list of tags and includes the recent number of people posting using the hashtag. I copied the list from Elk desktop app. (NB I have a second masto account where I follow other hashtags.) I follow some tags in case anyone posts, others I follow because they are of current interest, others are key areas of ongoing interest. They are in no particular order.

My current full list of hashtags :

#huggingface
#aoir2024
#sociocracy
#stateofopencon24
#deepfakes
#deepfake
#fosdem
#gemini
#laravel
#palestine
#PrincetonCITP
#enshittification
#MetaCrisis
#geocoding
#SemanticFediverse
#academicchatter
#EUVoice
#evernote
#hackernews
#what3words
#goingdark
#ProjectLiberty
#obsidian
#devonthink
#grav
#urbanism
#mapping
#jekyll
#eleventy
#userexperience
#digitalsociety
#activitypub
#fediverse

/End of the list

Helpful Links

NB I'll probably add to this post over coming days with more links etc. Keep it bookmarked if you like but I'll share the post again to alert of any updates. Many thanks to those kind folks of my networks who have contributed resources and practice to this article

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