Every now and then I wonder about alternatives to Google+. I hardly go back to Twitter because I don’t know what I want from it. My following strategy has resulted in my feed being full of journalists and politicians, which ended up making it an unpleasant and exhausting experience. There are some friendly nicks I recognise, but really the thing I like about G+ is that I managed to get a feed full of conversation about role-playing games. This is great.
But there are all these weird changes to the user interface. And today I learned about yet another Twitter alternative. Mastodon.
If you want to jump ahead, take a look at the Mastodon User's Guide.
I like the creation story: “Eugen Rochko was annoyed with Twitter. The company had made a series of changes that he thought eroded the value of the service: limiting how big third-party applications could grow, for example, and implementing an algorithm-driven timeline that made Twitter feel uncomfortably similar to Facebook.” – Mastodon.social is an open-source Twitter competitor that’s growing like crazy
Mastodon.social is an open-source Twitter competitor that’s growing like crazy
There are also some people that like how it is federated, allowing each server to use it’s own rules. Some people like this very much. “In fact, mastodon.social bans Nazis. Not even implicitly, but explicitly.” – Mastodon Is Like Twitter Without Nazis, So Why Are We Not Using It?
Mastodon Is Like Twitter Without Nazis, So Why Are We Not Using It?
Other people don’t like how federation means that user names are not unique. Personally, I like that. I find it incredible how we keep implementing global names. This won’t scale for the next ten thousand years. Eventually, at some point in time, global names don’t make sense. First users get cool names like alexschroeder, everybody else gets awkwardnames like alexschroeder.1; federation helps. But not everybody likes it. See Taking A Ride On Mastodon.
Anyway, I created an account on Octodon, which is one of the servers running the software. I picked it from a list because it had a lot of users, and had an A+ for it’s HTTPS, and it was far up on the list. See Mastodon instances.
Also, the About page says: “Seriously though: It should be similar to mastodon.social. NSFW/any legal porn is allowed, but tag it as NSFW or make it unlisted or less. Trolls are only allowed if they’re quiet; you can shitpost but not harass someone, and my threshold is pretty low. I’m not Twitter, I’ll fuck up nazis and bullies for fun, and get an AI to do it if I get bored. I’m your nice cyberpunk queen and I intend to keep this place decent and safe for everyone.” – Octodon: More. I like her title.
Anyway, giving this a try using the following account:
https://octodon.social/@kensanata
Politics of Mastodon, I guess? What is GNU Social and is Mastodon Social a Twitter Clone?
What is GNU Social and is Mastodon Social a Twitter Clone?
Recommended reading: What I wish I knew before joining Mastodon. “Words in toots aren’t searchable yet, but hashtags are.” Users are also searchable, e.g. “@qinaliu@mastodon.social”.
What I wish I knew before joining Mastodon
For now, my multiple accounts on different instances are separate entities, like different email accounts. The fact that they belong to the same person is a property stored in contact databases of the people I know, or not. Which is as it should be. I might want to have a client that allows me to easily switch identities.
A FAQ of sorts, with interwoven comments, by “Dr. Edward Morbius”.
And some thoughts for the future: Mastodon Systemic Sustainability.
Mastodon Systemic Sustainability
Thoughts about the project’s history: Mourning Mastodon.
#Social Media #Mastodon
(Please contact me if you want to remove your comment.)
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Now that I’ve been on Octodon for a bit, I feel like the local timeline is not at all what I typically care about, so perhaps that means it is time to look for greener pastures elsewhere? And of course there is no way to check a local time line unless you sign up, and once you decide to move, there is no way to delete your account.
– AlexSchroeder 2017-04-13 05:34 UTC
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Is there a “how to use micro blogging?” I think there isn’t. Or none that I know of. Ideally, you signed up to an instance that is sort of into something you are interested in, and then you look at the local timeline and reply to random people, and follow them if what they say is interesting enough for you to want more. And if that doesn’t bring you joy after a day, then short form blogging like Twitter, Mastodon, or GNU Social just isn’t for you in 2017?
– AlexSchroeder 2017-04-13 20:43 UTC
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The reason I think about the “right” instance is because I think a local timeline with folks that share a common interest makes it easier to find new people to follow. That’s harder to do if the local timeline is in a different language, or people who don’t share my interests. And since the locals decide which toots get imported from other instances the federated timeline is similarly affected. Picking the right instance is important.
– AlexSchroeder 2017-04-14 20:14 UTC
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Preview local and federated timelines of Mastodon instances without signing up, by Kevin Marks.
Preview local and federated timelines of Mastodon instances without signing up
Now go through the complete list??
– AlexSchroeder 2017-04-15 20:10 UTC
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Interesting tootstorm by Edward Morbius.
– AlexSchroeder 2017-04-17 16:37 UTC
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Mastodon, Twitter and publics 2017-04-24 by Kevin Marks.
Mastodon, Twitter and publics 2017-04-24
– AlexSchroeder 2017-04-24 16:14 UTC
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If you want to run a game on Mastodon: Have the referee make a new account. Then, if I’m participating in that game, I just start my post by @’ing the referee. Then, unless you also follow the referee, you won’t see it. ¹
Note that the referee account always has to come first!
Hashtags won’t work because some clients like Amaroq don’t support it. On the web, click on the “sliders” button on the top right of the home timeline. Put `#rp\b"` in the regular expression filter, in the “Advaced” section. Filtering multiple topics, use `(weather|dogs|#rp\b|green)` The `\b` means “end of the word”, in order to filter out `#rp`, while sparing `#rpg`. ²
– Alex Schroeder 2017-04-24 20:12 UTC