Who out there can give good tips as to how to best utilize the features of this universe? It’s strange and unwieldy to me. Thanks to those of you who’ve migrated here to follow me. As I said on Twitter, I’m not ceding that ground (yet) but I wanted to try cultivating a new spot here as well.
Tip 1: Use hashtags. There's no algorithm to suggest followers or shove posts into your feed in the hopes you follow someone.
Tip 2: Boost (re-post) toots liberally. *You* are the algorithm.
Tip 3: Use CW (content warnings / content wrappers) to discuss politics, the meta.
Tip 4: To create "threads", make the first post public and each reply "unlisted" to prevent clogging up your instance's feed.
Tip 5: Provide text descriptions, even just basic ones, when attaching photos or media.
Tip 6: Use the "report" features for moderating trolls so your admins can take action.
Great tips, Tamitha!
I also found that https://fedi.tips hosts a great Q&A on Fedirverse and https://fedi.directory is a good way to find other accounts to follow by topics.
Welcome!
@tamitha @albinokid Thank you for this. There are some important behaviours to align to here, especially for ex-Twitter people. Content Warnings are going to have a huge impact on positive user experience here.
@tamitha @albinokid In addition: don’t dump screenshots of tweets/toots/bits of a blog if you can link to the source; reading text from an image is not as accessible as just reading text.
@max @tamitha @albinokid I used to do this with links, and also quote tweets, but I gather this latter thing is not possible here. Is there an alternatieve?
@ADHD_Cyborg @tamitha @max @albinokid no. Not that I’m aware of. Quote Tweets became a facilitator of hate on Twitter. Someone sees something stupid and jumps on the bandwagon QTing it with even more venom than the original poster.
Not everybody but enough to make them something to avoid.
Instead Mastodon is focused on sharing original ideas and opinion via your own posts and boosting the posts of others without adding opinion.
@del @ADHD_Cyborg @tamitha @max I understand and appreciate that quote tweets sometimes turned into a tool for hate and ridicule. I tended to use them a lot to amplify voices and subjects that I wanted to highlight. I appreciated the opportunity to add context via quote tweets.
@albinokid @tamitha @max @ADHD_Cyborg Fair. Context is important. I wonder how best to facilitate that here.
Welcome to Mastodon btw. Love your work on Discovery.
Some excellent tips there.
#KeepDiscovering
@tamitha @albinokid
Thank you. Tip 4 looks particularly important for super-threaders @DreadShips
@tamitha please forgive if this seems a silly question but re tip 3 - what do you mean when you refer to ."the meta"? I can think of a couple of possibilities but neither seem relevant in the context of CWs
@tamitha @albinokid oh wow thanks so much for 4 I had no idea & need to work out how to do that in my UI!
@tamitha @albinokid this is a brilliant post. Thank you.
@tamitha @albinokid thanks. Tip 4 esp handy.
@tamitha @albinokid excellent advice! Thank you for posting
@tamitha @albinokid - Thanks. That was very useful
@tamitha @albinokid Thanks for this! Any good idea about how to emulate something akin to twttr's 'quote' function?
@tamitha @albinokid hello. I didn't understand why publishing the second and plus messages of a thread as unlisted actually avoid clogging the instance. Would you please explain le? Thank you veeeery much
@PoisChiche @tamitha @albinokid Only the first post of the thread will be displayed and boosted on the local notification list. Otherwise each individual toot of the thread will pop up in the list. This is actually a pretty clever trick.
I was just lost at first because unlisted is not an option on the official iOS client. So I guess I'll rather use the webapp until I find a client that implement all mastodon features.
@tamitha Much appreciated!
@tamitha @albinokid Thanks! Tip 4 was a new idea to me, but obviously a very considerate way to do it! Great tip, thanks.
@tamitha love the 4th, didn't know the feature (using right now)
@tamitha @albinokid I like it that text description is considered the norm. It likely creates good mental habits and attitudes regarding accessibility, that users will take with them into other parts of life.
@tamitha @albinokid Especially politics should never be marked with a CW: There is no attitude more political as claiming to be unpolitical.
@tamitha @albinokid
Tip 4 should be a default
@tamitha @albinokid around number 4... It seems like it would be great if clients could do that automatically, and/or hide "self replies" in the timeline. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see a way to that with the Mastodon or Tusky apps.
@tamitha @albinokid - Nice, succinct advice. Thank you
@tamitha thanks for the list!! Absolutely in favor of blocking trolls and bigots I am stuck with nr 1.. can you explain how hashtags work in fediverse? I seem to not be able to search through all fediverse when clicking on them? How do I find what I am interested in and how do I make my own stuff on specific topics visible outside of my instance?
@tamitha @albinokid THANK YOU! I have been wondering what CW is. All this abbreviating is driving me crazy! Seems like each day someone else is talking about HW or GQ or BP or XQY and other people keep discussing it like they know what that means and I feel like an idiot because its seems like everyone is in on the joke expect me. Its very frustrating.
@tamitha @albinokid
Thanks, really helpful
@tamitha didnt understand any of this
Oh, the "threads" tip is good.