Hello #Mastodon - I need advice

Gary Blosser

@rufustheduck Mostly for the local timeline and finding those with similar interests gathered together.

For example, I am on infosec.exchange because I work in computer security (Also known as information security or infosec) so being here means viewing the local timeline mostly shows me posts relevant to my interests, even for those I don't follow.

This lets me more easily find new people to follow or catch news in the field I may have otherwise missed in the floods on a large general server like mastodon.social (which is large enough they may have turned off the local timeline).

Oregon Pacifist :rg4:

@rufustheduck I just made a post regarding this topic

Oregon Pacifist :powerblade: (@Oregon_Pacifist@retro-gaiden.com)

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but the instance mastodon.social is 30% of the entire #Fediverse. If it ever goes down for any reason, a huge chunk of the Fediverse will go down. It defeats the purpose of having a fully decentralized network if most people pile into a single instance. :mastodon: #Activitypub #SocialMedia #Decentralization

Retro Gaiden (retro-gaiden.com)

Essentially, you'll want to find instances that closely align with what you want your Fediverse experience to be. For me, I wanted to create a small corner where we focus on retro stuff, nostalgia, and wholesome content.

There's nothing inherently wrong with mastodon.social. It's just that you're putting all of your eggs into a single basket which is not really what the Fediverse was designed for.

Stacey Cornelius 🇨🇦

@rufustheduck The general recommendation is for new folks to avoid the biggest instances to also avoid Mastodon becoming too centralized.

That aside, if you use your instance's local feed, that could influence where you set up your account.

I chose a small, science-friendly Canadian instance because it ticks a lot of boxes, but I only follow my own Home feed. I found people through hashtags and reposts, so that feed and instance work well for me.

There's some info about moving instances and why you might want to do it on the @FediTips website:

Transferring your Mastodon account to another server | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse

An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediverse

(fedi.tips)

I hope this is helpful. (Please give the beautiful Max a kiss on the forehead from me.)

Sebastiaan Ammerlaan 🇳🇱

@rufustheduck As with most things fedi, I can really recommend this article by @FediTips on this topic: https://fedi.tips/why-is-the-fediverse-on-so-many-separate-servers/

Myself, I just went with one of the larger Mastodon servers in my country, with a name that's easy to share with other people who don't know anything about the #fediverse

James

@rufustheduck I agree with people that moving away from mastodon.social is a good idea. It's a good place to start, but it's badly moderated and endangers the decentralisation aspect of the fediverse because it's so big. It draws in dangerous phishing bots and waves of spam accounts, so many smaller instances have muted or blocked mastodon.social.

As to where to move that's the harder question. There are instances for locations, interests, hobbies. Rule of thumb is - not too small as they're in danger of closing quicker. Check the moderation rules and see if they fit. All the better if they have an application process to manually weed out bots and spam accounts.

I know there are lists of active instances around, maybe @FediTips has some lying around

Or go through your followers and pick one with a cool name to check out first 🤭

jz.tusk

@rufustheduck

People here loooove to criticize other people's way of using Mastodon. So the first thing to learn is to generally ignore that.

But here are two valid points:

- If you are here for some specific interest, getting on a server dedicated to that means you can view the entire server feed with hopes of seeing stuff that interests you. Me, I'm also on the huge mastodon.social server, and the server feed is ... (cont'd)

RalfMaximus

@ticho @rufustheduck

^^This. Also, there's nothing stopping you from creating additional accounts on other instances, for special interests or redundancy.

🦋 social butterfly 🦋

@rufustheduck wherever you land, offer to give your admin a few dollars. running these things is expensive lol

jz.tusk

@rufustheduck

... mostly useless to me - too much, not in my languages, or not my interests. I've "groomed my feed" by finding good hashtags and accounts to follow.

- For the overall health of the ecosystem, it's better that no one server dominates. If you decide that's important to you, you could find a smaller server and switch to that, and pay a bit to its admin as support. Though small server do occasionally shut down, which can be a pain.

P.S. Such a pretty cat!

Annelies Kamran, Ph.D.

@StaceyCornelius @rufustheduck @FediTips seconding this. My first foray into Mastodon was on a different server. I still have that account (I use it for quasi-professional stuff), but my main account is here where I've built a good Home feed. I like this instance's moderation policies in particular, and I contribute monthly.

Lily Star

@rufustheduck

Henrik Pauli

@rufustheduck You're fine with staying where you are. It is usually recommended to avoid Mastodon.Social because it is already too large and too generic — this can be a good or a bad thing, depends. A smaller instance may have a more useful local timeline for you to peruse, a more specific-to-your-interests one might even contain people you're more likely to mingle with.

With full migration not yet being implemented, moving is not really a good idea if you care about your posts.

Sloth

@rufustheduck
The benefit of moving is mostly community. You're on the largest instance right now, so there's a wide demographic of people and interests. That's great for general stuff, but your local timeline is probably very crowded and hard to sift through.

I reignited a strong interest in Pokémon recently, so I moved to a server themed around that to be around people who like the same things I do. When looking for somewhere new to go, ask yourself:

- Who is this server for, and what are their rules?
- Who is the admin, and can they be trusted to not disappear on you?

Both of these questions can be answered by looking at the server's about page. You can also use the server's local timeline to see what folks are generally like. Any server on the official list is probably a safe bet! https://joinmastodon.org/servers

Henrik Pauli

@rufustheduck I saw a few posts on the topic of "does the instance matter" and community the other day, might be interesting to read:
https://maho.dev/2026/01/the-forkiverse-experiment-and-why-instance-choice-matters/ and
https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/115962043884062629

Taran Rampersad

@rufustheduck everyone has strong opinions of how they use Mastodon, some feel like telling others how others should use Mastodon.

If they give advice you agree with, take it. If you ain't sure, do what you did - ask.

The rest, I have found, is cheap kindling.

Nice cat.

Cassian

@rufustheduck People who spend too much time on here are a bit snobby. If you're happy where you are, there is no need to move. That's the whole point of the Fediverse.

Natouille 🍷 🥃 🍾

@rufustheduck @FediTips @StaceyCornelius
Same as Stacey, the smaller the better.
And it's easier to move early while you dont have much content.
Here is a (small) list of servers. Pick one according to a specific topic, the moderation rules, etc.
https://joinmastodon.org/servers

Crystal

@rufustheduck when I came to mastodon, also, I knew almost nothing about server differences. You should make your own decision, but I'll tell you how I am handling my own choice. I am still on the first server where I started because I have found no reason to complain about it and because I have no trouble finding interesting posted writings and lovely photographs to follow from various servers. If ever I find a cultural or moral rift between me and the server management, then I would reconsider my place in this space.

I like your cat.

Stefan Bohacek

@phl Thank you for sharing!

Hi @rufustheduck, welcome to the fediverse!

I'm not sure that particular article of mine will be too helpful (I do recommend checking out the first one, for sure!)

I touched a bit on the server selection here, if you're interested:

How to join Mastodon (and the fediverse) | Stefan Bohacek

A guide for newcomers.

(stefanbohacek.com)

My own recommendation would be to keep interacting with people and see if you notice any servers in their usernames coming up more often than others -- that might be your crowd!

This might also be fun/useful: https://data.stefanbohacek.com/projects/fediverse

Luca Sironi (fantasma edition)

@rufustheduck

First of all, welcome to the #fediverse

If you knew already 3 or 4 people, using the same server, they would have suggested you their server and they would have made a point.

Being you just arrived, out of curiosity, there is absolute no reason to move until you find a very good reason for doing.
You're just arrived, try to discover content using #hashtag and following people that seems interesting to you.
You'll end up following #pixelfed photographers, or blogs, #peertube channels, #lemmy forums, or #owncast alerts on starting streaming.

Wandering Adventure Party

Hello #Mastodon - I need advice

Oregon Pacifist :powerblade: (@Oregon_Pacifist@retro-gaiden.com)

Transferring your Mastodon account to another server | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse

Transferring your Mastodon account to another server | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse

Transferring your Mastodon account to another server | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse

How to join Mastodon (and the fediverse) | Stefan Bohacek