David Sterry @weex@c4.social

@liaizon The site's user metrics say 146,855, see https://netops.counter.social/d/c0feK4F7k/countersocial-user-metrics?orgId=1&refresh=1h

Great news, @internetarchive is now the official Internet Archive Mastodon account. Accept no substitutes! We also have @brewsterkahle , the ever-fascinating founder of the place, and more coming soon. Hop on!

Let’s try this again. Where you at #fediverse? Boosts welcome so we can get the best sample size.

Beautiful Martian vista taken by the Curiosity Rover's Mastcam on sol 3646

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

#Mars #NASA #Science #Space

The #MuskBumps
graphic by @estebanmoro

Some Mastodon thoughts, for bird-site expats (which include myself). I'm aggregating these from posts I've boosted before, so little of this is my own brain.

- There's no algorithm here. That means favoriting/liking doesn't do anything except communicate approval to the OP and others (which is still nice!).

- No algorithm means boosting ("retweeting") is the true method to increase a post's visibility. Do that more than you did on birdsite.

- There's no post-quoting here, and that's by design. Look at quote-tweets on the birdsite; it's a feature primarily used for toxicity.

- There's no direct word-search here either; that means you want to use hashtags to make posts more searchable. This is also intended, since word-searching posts was often used to harass/stalk on the birdsite and elsewhere, so that was left by the wayside here. This also means hashtags are much more a thing here than any of the algorithm-powered sites.

- It's encouraged to put in text descriptions when you post images; a lot of Mastodon users use screen-readers due to various disabilities, and getting an image description read out loud helps them immensely.

- Speaking of screen-readers: using capitalization in your hashtags allows the screen-readers to read them more easily, especially if you're smashing multiple words together. #rockmusic = unreadable. #RockMusic = readable.

- The best way to make threads is to make set your first post as public, but "unlist" all of your replies. This prevents your whole thread from clogging up feeds.

- Content Warnings should be used more liberally here. If you haven't gotten the impression yet, much of Mastodon was built and populated by marginalized groups who were harassed/bullied off of other platforms. This is the culture they built, to respect each other's mental health. It's not a rule, but it's well-appreciated.

- Consider chipping a few bucks towards whomever runs the server you're on; the strain is real, and most server admins were likely paying out of pocket before so don't have an existing donation base. The growth here has been extremely fast, and that means money's needed.

- DMs are just posts with privacy settings. So if you @ someone in a DM, you pull them into the thread. That could be embarrassing.

- Also, no, DMs aren't end-to-end encrypted, but they aren't on Twitter either. Don't use either if you want true privacy.

- Including your Mastodon handle in your birdsite profile will help people find you here; there's a tool (pruvisto.org/debirdify/ is one of them that's used) people can use to pull Mastodon handles from Twitter profile.

- Use the blocking and reporting features liberally, if needed. This should go without saying, but they work, and work well!

- If there's an entire Mastodon server you don't want to hear from, you can block the whole thing too.

- Preferences -> Appearance -> "Slow Mode": this can make larger "Local" feeds and any "Federated" feed much more readable.

I'll reply with some more as I see them, or reply here too. I've only been here 4 days but I'm loving it so far.

Hullo. So this is Mastodon, eh? Well, I'm here. And to celebrate, here's a photo I took yesterday in Kingston NY of Good Omens director Douglas directing An Unnamed Actor (on the other side of the glass) in Episode 2 of Good Omens Season 2 (Coming Next Summer).

Because twit.social doesn't use relays, our Federated timeline consists only of toots from people our members follow.

In other words, it's the Friends of Your Friends timeline.I prefer it that way because you good people tend to follow other good people.

It's not, however, a firehose à la Twitter. There isn't really anything like that. But as long as we keep looking for interesting people to follow on other instances the Federated Timeline should also grow and enliven.

I've seen platforms that implement #a11y slightly better. I have never seen a platform so vocal and inviting of accessible best practices. #AltText #CamelCase hashtags, #ContentWarnings #captions and #subtitles, #transcripts and so much more. Mastodon actually gives a shit about being #inclusive and this is exactly the kind of mindset the entirety of the internet needs. Being a professional in the field of #a11y this is what I work for and hope for!

So if any server admin types are interested, it should be pretty easy* to run an instance of my RSS to ActivityPub converter as a nice bonus for your users. It lets people with a login on your Mastodon or Hometown server create ActivityPub accounts that are mirrors of RSS feeds (process pictured in attachments). ONLY people with a login to your server can use it, because you don't want to moderate this service for randos

https://github.com/dariusk/rss-to-activitypub

*easy for linux server administration, huge lmao

New piece from @lhn https://www.wired.com/story/secret-ballot-voter-intimidation-2022-us-midterms/

I hope this platform has staying power because even with all its glitches and quirks it’s better than what’s going on rn on Twitter

After 1 week on #Mastodon, the biggest difference I notice compared to #Twitter is the way each network makes me feel.

Twitter:
Open, scroll…
“Why are people so horrible to each other?”

Mastodon:
Open, scroll…
“Wow! There are so many interesting people in the world! I want to know more of them.”

I sense being here is changing my perspective of social media. #TwitterMigration

So I’m understanding now that people are organizing instances by academic disciplines/topic interest etc. What if one wants to follow topics in multiple instances?

@FlyingSaucer good question!

I haven't read thru it all the way but I have seen a number of folks recommend https://github.com/joyeusenoelle/GuideToMastodon/ which has some sections on culture and etiquette you might find useful

the main thing I disagree with from that guide is that it recommends mastodon.social; nowadays I strongly recommend moving to a smaller instance once you find your sea legs; that one has so many signups that the moderators are overwhelmed, which has caused many other servers to block them

The G4G Charity Fundraiser Auction takes place the week of October 23-30, 2022.

There is a preview NOW ...

https://www.gathering4gardner.org/auction2022/