Hello #Mastodon - I need advice

✝️Aesthetic Femboy

@Oregon_Pacifist @rufustheduck plus if you want to switch instances I think there are ways to export your data such as who you're following so that you can quickly follow back everyone you were following before when you start over on a new instance, not sure if there is an option for other stuff like posts but you'd have to check that

Lukewarm Skywalker 🇨🇦🇧🇧🇲🇽🇬🇱

@rufustheduck
For instance. I'm autistic, I have an account on autistics.life. I also am a Linux podcaster and have an account on hostux.social. some of my friends are non-binary or trans and have accounts at beige.party. Cat lovers are on meow.social.
If you pick an instance that fits your interests, you are likely to more easily find people like you.

Mudlark :verified_trans:

@rufustheduck if you’re happy with where you are and there’s not another server you’re looking at and going ‘I wish I was on that one’ then you probably don’t need to change.

The recommendations you’re getting to move are probably a mastodon culture thing, I’ll explain as much as I understand from just being around:

Likely people suggesting you move are referring to the mastodon.social being sort of infamous across mastodon. Mastodon.social keep their numbers up by leaving no-approval-needed signup open, so they are quite large - but their moderation is worse as a result. I want to clarify that their mods and admin are generally good, no shade on them because they do good work - but they have so many users and new joins that they cannot moderate as well as other servers (just by the numbers)

Usually servers are fairly strict about other servers they can connect with. If there’s a server with a lot of bots trying to scam or manipulate people, it usually gets blocked pretty quick. Mastodon.social is tolerated despite this, because of how many users they have (you wouldn’t want to cut off that many other users from your own users)

Is that a reason to move off the server? Not to me personally, but everybody is different. I think you should only move to another if you really want to be there instead (‘Moving to’ rather than ‘moving away from’)

Andy

@rufustheduck I had a similar experience to you after joining mastodon.social a while back. At this point I will probably only move if:

1. I have actual real problems with mastodon.social (other than feeling like I'm on the lame normie server),

2. I find another community that feels like it's absolutely the right fit

Mike

@rufustheduck I started a new one because my first one kept cutting out for days. I made a typo in my handle, so I had to begin again

Nigel

@rufustheduck

Loads of great advice/info already so I'm just here to say that Max is fabulous

Sablebadger

@rufustheduck I like Max.

Giamedin

@anakin78z @rufustheduck

This was my major concern. Who does the admin for my chosen instance federate with. There are some nasty instances out there.

Willem Atsma

@rufustheduck nice cat!

Martin

@rufustheduck Meh, not much, except perhaps responsiveness. If you choose an instance with lots of users, it will go slower. If you're happy where you are, then just stay. I moved exactly because of responsiveness. Some people move to instances because of the topic. something like. hobbies.social knitters.social, ETC.

MrGrumpyMonkey

@rufustheduck My opinion doesn't inherently matter, butt, [with 2 t's] there's nothing wrong with this default instance. It's the easiest option for those less technical. Other instances allow for more text, higher quality photos, longer videos, etc... At this point, it's your choice. The only thing to remember is this isn't a 'free' corporate sponsored service. So, if you do use a different instance, be sure to support them financially to keep that instance running. Good luck out here.

ℂ𝕖𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕖 :verified_trans:

@DrJLecter @caiocgo @rufustheduck
️️️️️️
T H I S !

Joining "specialized instances" allows you to roughly pre-filter the communities you wanna interact with, so you end up in a kind of safe space.

mastodon.social is indeed a Twitter x.0 since it provides the same unfiltered breeding ground for a**holes as Twitter back then (it's gotten worse in the age of X). The lack of proper moderation and the free sign up turned this place into an undesirable pit for me.

Solarbird :flag_cascadia:

@mandy @rufustheduck This right here.

I really understand the worries around mastodon.social getting too big, but at the same time, it _is_ a good place to start to get a big overview. Once you have the big overview for a while, if you spot an instance where you really like the vibe there in general (and you use the local timeline to find local things), _then_ consider moving.

mastodon.social makes a fine generic first home here, and it may be where you stay for good and that's fine.

But you may decide you want to be somewhere less generic, and you _can_, and that's fine too.

Also, your cat has very good cat vibes and I like them.

scrottie (he/him/them)

@rufustheduck Hi Rufus! If you do move (think of moving as re-pointing your followers to another account on another server... maybe some day it'll be more than that but that's essentially what it is, and your posts not moving over is a big part of the downside), take your time, and you can create alt accounts on other servers and spend time checking out the local scene before making the leap. Different people habitate other instances for different reasons. Having the local timeline (one of the links on the right in the web view) reflect your interests is one reason. I joined here (bsd.network) to keep up with things and people related to the BSD Unix like operating system. Also people I knew from before I came here invited me here. For some people, their server is part of their identity. For example, you might tech.lgbt if that was a really good summary of you as a person and you wanted to hype that about yourself. People join one server or another because they like the admin and/or moderators there. It can be a friendly community affair kind of like you a bunch of people are hanging out someone else's place, but virtual. You don't need to do that to find community... you're doing fine there But that's one reason other people do. You might join an instance because you agree with the moderation decisions it makes. If you're on an instance that blocks a lot of other instances and people related to something you're interested in, you might not ever notice that unless you get off of there. A lot of people don't agree with a lot of the moderation decisions mastodon.social makes. I don't. But that's an individual decision and there are instances with worse moderation (by my standards and likely yours too). Any instance is kind of part of a subnetwork of instances that tend to block similar other instances. Like 4D space, your view can change radically depending on where you're standing. mastodon.social has on and off been the source for a lot of spam. Being the "default" instance, some other instances also just cloister themselves from it, preferring to interact with people who likewise took efforts to diversify...

scrottie (he/him/them)

@rufustheduck You might think of it as logging in to Everquest or something, if you've ever played any of those, and landing in the default town that all new users log in to. That's exciting and there's always a lot going on there and it's fine, but a lot of people eventually just get the itch to go somewhere else
Anyway, again, take your time. Pay attention to where other people you like are from. Check out the main webpage of interesting places and see what they have to say about themselves. Don't even think about moving to start with, just learn about different instances. Oh, and different server software is another reason. Other flavors of ActivityPub server have neat and useful features or just make life better for the moderators and admins and that in turn makes the community there better. If you get the itch, dabble with an alt somewhere. One thing at a time

Xandowsk

@GlitchGhost @Oregon_Pacifist @rufustheduck My 2 cents. When I joined around 4 years ago, I didn’t think any other instance was exactly what I wanted, so I joined the main one and that is totally fine. I know the code is open source but they ARE the ones actually maintaining it. I don’t think any other instance is safer. I of course understand and appreciate federation. That’s exactly what makes Mastodon cool.

That said, this “shaming” on whomever is on .social is really pointless.

Rufus

@Irishmasms I did. Not sure he understood the nuances of your message, but he got the gist

Wandering Adventure Party

Hello #Mastodon - I need advice