Mastodon

Trying out a new social network really isn’t that scary. It is free, painless, and you can always keep using whatever you are used to if you like. Hopefully some of the links on this page will make it a bit easier to get started with Mastodon.

mastodon meme.jpeg

What is Mastodon?

Getting started

Mastodon Quick Start guide by https://twitter.com/MastodonMigrate
- Includes recommendations for specific servers that are good for newcomers to start with.
Most people get stuck on the first screen at https://joinmastodon.org/ because the need to choose a server feels overwhelming. Do not get hung up on this. No matter what server you pick, you can still follow people at other servers. Think of it like email. You can still email people with yahoo.com email addresses, even if you are at gmail.com yourself. Mastodon is the same. And, even better, you can migrate your account from one server to another (bringing your followers with you) later on if you choose to do so. So just pick one and get started.
Going into this a bit deeper…
- understand that Mastodon is not a corporation. Like email, it is simply an internet protocol, and anyone can use it. But there are some server specific features. In addition to the timeline of all the people you follow (which is like Twitter’s old feed - before they started using an algorithm to predict what you wanted to read), each server also has a “local” feed. I honestly never use this, which is why the server doesn’t really matter much to me, but some people like to find a server where people share similar interests and read the local feed of everyone on the server, even if they don’t follow them individually. You can use Mastodon either way: like Twitter, or more like an old-time BBS. It is up to you!
- Servers can also vary in how tightly they protect users from bad actors on the internet, some servers are like gated communities, while most are rather open.
- Having said all that, I suggest just starting on on of the big popular servers and moving to something smaller later on if you are curious. (You can also have multiple accounts on different servers if you like.)
- Note: Do take a moment to read the community rules before joining a server. Some people pick a server at random and then are surprised when their account gets suspended or banned for violating some rule they didn’t know about. (e.g. some servers might not allow posts in languages the moderators don’t understand.)
- And if you do need to switch servers, here is a handy guide for how to migrate to another one without losing your connections: https://mastodon.nz/@zeborah/109288813225724956
And yes, Mastodon can be frustrating. A bit like switching from MacOS to Linux, but remember that this is because it is a free project maintained by volunteers without any corporate control or advertising. Considering that it works just fine once you get used to it - just don’t expect everything to be the same. Give yourself a little time to get used to it, and ask questions if you need to. A lot of longtime users are happy to help!

Apps

I prefer using https://pinafore.social/ for reading Mastodon on the web. It has a fast, clean, single column layout that is far less distracting than the default view.
I also like Metatext on iOS. It emphasizes nice clean distraction-free typography as well. Find out more at the developer website: https://metabolist.org/
There is a browser bookmarklet that makes sharing webpages to Mastodon easier: https://rknightuk.github.io/mastodon-toot-bookmarklet/

Finding people

Look for the Mastodon accounts of people you follow on Twitter with https://fedifinder.glitch.me/
Follow @MastodonMigrate on Twitter or @[email protected] on Mastodon.
Search for hashtags such as #anthropology or #taiwan to find people with similar interests.
There are some people putting lists together of scholars on Mastodon. A meta-list can be found here: https://github.com/nathanlesage/academics-on-mastodon
- So far there are lists for Sociology, STS, Geography, History, etc. but no Anthropology yet. However, there is an anthropology “group” which I created that you can follow. It is listed on this page as well.

Cross-posting

You can keep a foot in both worlds by automatically cross-posting from Twitter to Mastodon or the other way around. Here are some tools to help you do that. (Note that they are a bit overwhelmed right now, with all the new users, so it might take a long time for your cross posts to show up.)
- https://crossposter.masto.donte.com.br/
- https://moa.party/

Other Fediverse Tools

One of the cool things about Mastodon is that other tools can use the same protocol:

IG-like Mastodon based photo sharing at https://pixelfed.org/
Goodreads-like Mastodon based book reading at https://bookwyrm.social/
Youtube-like video sharing at https://joinpeertube.org/
Reddit-like link sharing at https://join-lemmy.org/
And many more… see the article: The many branches of the Fediverse

Learning to Toot

This is a useful guide to some of the local conventions: https://blog.djnavarro.net/posts/2022-11-03_what-i-know-about-mastodon/#how-can-i-make-threads

Find me

I’m on Mastodon at @[email protected]