Hello #Mastodon - I need advice

GinkelKarin 🇪🇺 🇺🇦🟥

@rufustheduck there's no right or wrong, as far as I'm concerned.

# got me started fine, and @FediTips

Erik L. Midtsveen 🏴🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸

@rufustheduck hi!

@FediTips have a great article on this, witch you can find here:

️ https://fedi.tips/its-a-really-bad-idea-to-join-a-big-server/

️ https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server/

Sparrows

@rufustheduck So, when email first started out, everyone used different servers, sometimes from their school, their job, their internet company, a dedicated email company, what have you.

Now everyone uses Gmail, and if you don't want to put all your eggs in one (heavily surveilled, monetized) basket, you avoid it personally. But you're going to be messaging people who are on Gmail most of the time, so you've gained little.

The advice to move is to preempt mastodon.social becoming that basket.

Sparrows

@rufustheduck That's the generic, big picture why.

Benefits of being on mastodon.social for you:

Biggest view of the fediverse, developers very much focused on your server, unlikely to shutdown, a 'little bit of everything' experience.

Downsides of staying:

Too big for thoughtful moderation, no particular relevance to any specific hobby or interest, too large for the local timeline to be anything other than a firehose of random conversation fragments.

fulanigirl

@rufustheduck The size of the server doesn't matter and it doesn't limit who you can interact with. But if you are feeling uncomfortable on it, check out fedi.tips, https://fedi.tips/, they have great guides for using Mastodon.

The Goddess Anoia

@fulanigirl @rufustheduck you say that but some servers have blocked others and some people block whole servers so it can do. But in the main with nice servers with good moderation you'll be fine. I have 4 accounts. You don't need to have multiple but there's nothing to stop you

jz.tusk

@KerryMitchell @zombie042 @rufustheduck

Thank you for posting this! I've been saying that I would love to browse the feeds of other servers, but I'd never found a way to do so. Maybe it's because I'm usually on my app (Tusky)?

Do you know if this /public/local is a standard feature of server's web interfaces?

James

@caiocgo *butts in* mastodon.social has a ton of problems exactly because it's the biggest server that is also barely moderated. It's twitter 3.0 and the source of many headaches for many admins because it's open sign-up and spouts endless russian bots, phishing attacks and spam accounts that rivals X. If you hear about spam and phishing problems on mastodon there's a 110% chance it comes from that instance. Rampant racism on top of everything. Many smaller instances decide to block it, restrict access to it or mute it. Which means a lot of the fediverse is shut out, which makes mastodon.social one of the least federated instances. It literally is a counter point to the whole idea of federating and the fediverse. Make of that what you will *sees myself out* @rufustheduck

Gary Blosser

@jztusk @KerryMitchell @rufustheduck The live feed can be shut off by the server owner but it is usually a default option left on. I'm unsure if servers allow those without a local account to view their public feed as I have never tried.

On my server's web interface it is under 'Live feeds' on the right-hand side and, as you noted, the usual URL is servername/public/local/

Note that there is also public/remote/ (posts that come from other servers) and just plain public/ for both local and remote posts.

Remote posts are -not- all posts from other servers though! It is only the posts someone on the server have subscribed to or been mentioned in and receive. So, for example, if someone on your server followed me then my public posts would show in your servers remote feeds (and it must be a public post, quiet public like this post do not hit the full public feeds).

🔞Anissa🔞

@rufustheduck
Your kitty is adorable 🥰

Caio C. G. Oliveira

@DrJLecter @rufustheduck hey Rufus, our colleague James has a very strong point here. I was not aware of other instances blocking mastodon.social

In my opinion blocking the largest instance sounds counterproductive. But hey, I am not an admin of a smaller instance and I am not aware of the issues related to being connected to mastodon.social.

So there it is.

For my part, I am really satisfied with social.vivaldi.net
It is a nice neighborhood.

contrasocial

@rufustheduck Think of instances like little territories, and they all have telephone lines connecting them. Each territory can be a different size and has its own admin and mods, and those admins can choose to close the phone lines to other instances if they don't like how they're run.

I haven't seen many issues on mastodon.social and I've seen no racism, but I do think some other instance owners/mods get upset because they have less influence, but also can't cut it off because of its size.

James

@caiocgo I love the Vivaldi browser and if I hadn't already joined a nice instance I probably would have gone to Vivaldi @rufustheduck

jz.tusk

@zombie042 @KerryMitchell @rufustheduck

I'll have to try it out if/when I switch.

And I hope most admins keep it on for the public. I can understand the security risks for those servers that aim for a bit more privacy, but for the people who say "you gotta pick a small server", I want to to at least take a peek at what the traffic there looks like before I put my account there.

✝️Aesthetic Femboy

@Oregon_Pacifist @rufustheduck exactly, if everyone is on mastodon.social and if it goes down for whatever reason its just like being on a centralized platform, the point of decentralization is so there can be many instances of the fediverse run by different communities and individuals so that if .social goes down or closes up shop there will still be others instances out there catering to different communities and making up the ecosystem if the fediverse

Lukewarm Skywalker 🇨🇦🇧🇧🇲🇽🇬🇱

@rufustheduck
We can't answer that without knowing your interests.

✝️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

Wandering Adventure Party

Hello #Mastodon - I need advice

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