mstdn.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
A general-purpose Mastodon server with a 500 character limit. All languages are welcome.

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FediTips has moved!

If you're just getting started on here, you may be wondering why this place has so many servers and apps. Why make it so complicated?

Click here to find out why:

➡️ fedi.tips/mastodon-and-the-fed

Twitter is all on one server (twitter.com). This made it VERY easy for Musk to buy it. Any centralised network can be bought out just like this.

The Fediverse is different: as long as we stay spread out on many servers, no one will ever be able to buy this network, not even the richest person in the world.

fedi.tipsMastodon and the Fediverse: Beginners Start Here | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the FediverseAn unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediverse
@feditips It's like a jigsaw puzzle if it were email

@feditips thank you for these posts and the tutorial on the website. i'm still settling in and trying to find out if this whole thing is for me, but you've helped me a lot ❤️ :blobcat:

@feditips I appreciate the efforts and I'll enjoy it while I can, but....am I the only person who remembers "embrace and extend"?

News like "tumblr is going to use ActivityPub" is not necessarily a good thing...

@davidr @feditips i don't think there's anything tumblr could do with activitypub to damage the rest of the fediverse

@nddragoon @feditips In other words, you don't remember "embrace and extend".

The way this works is that $EVILCORP adopts a standard. Great, no harm there, right? Then they add some extensions to the side of it. The userbase grows and begins to require the extensions. $EVILCORP is the only supplier of the extension.

Now $EVILCORP owns the standard.

"Well just don't..." you begin to splutter. Nope, it won't work like that. In general, people want features, not freedom.

@feditips is there something wrong with #Metatext? For the past 7 hours it’s just been a blank screen for me.

@ukaunz I was having the same problem. I tried deleting & reinstalling #metatext , & it seems to be working okay for me now.

@gorfram there was an update about to come out apparently, it’s working much better now 👍

@feditips In the long run, Mastodon really needs (1) A front end that enables new users to identify interests then signs them up to the relevant server behind the scenes; (2) Replace developer-centric "Home", "Local", "Federated" with labels that are clear to users; (3) mandate warning time before a server is taken down and provide one-click way to migrate to new server.

@Corb_The_Lesser @feditips the issue is that there is no central authority figure to push any of this really. No one controls who can start a server or what warnings they need to abide by. And there's no real central authority to determine who's server you go to. That lack of centralization has 'drawbacks' but I think the trade-off is worth it.

@Corb_The_Lesser @feditips seeing as the basis for the fediverse and mastodon as a whole is essentially the same as email. multiple providers all communicating within the same protocol, there really doesn't need to be an "easy to identify server of interest", since none of us are a sole niche, having a niche centric server is counter-intuitive, and in the end, it doesn't even matter.
home, local, federated is pretty obvious isn't it? it's the same as twitter with one service channel

@Corb_The_Lesser @feditips there's no authority that could mandate an advance warning. And there are plenty of things that could bring an instance offline without warning like the owner dying and their server crashing without someone to maintain it, a datacenter catching fire, etc

@feditips I loved finding out that Truth Social is on Mastodon software but has elected not to federate with the rest of us. Can we make that permanent?

@ThomEM @feditips my understanding is that "Truth" "Social" has decided for themselves not to federate with other instances. But if they do, users and instances can choose to block them.

@feditips

well, no, it most certainly is not. I can unequivocally say it is spread across HUNDREDS, if not THOUSANDS of actual servers, managed by a load-balancing service. But it is under centralized control and ownership.

It's the federation protocols, not the multiple servers

@video_manager @feditips eh, I think we're getting hung up on the meaning of "server." There's "server" as in "server/client". Twitter has one server in that sense. Yes, it runs on multiple machine servers, but I don't think that's important to the concept. Fediverse literally has multiple servers in both the physical sense and the relationship paradigm.

@pjhenry1216 @feditips

Hence the last line "It's the federation protocols, not the multiple servers".

This isn't twitter it helps to read the full post.

@video_manager @feditips no. It's not just protocols. It's literally that there's multiple servers. That's the most important part. Protocols just communicate between two points.

@video_manager @feditips I don't want to get into an argument, but protocols only do so much. The data needs to live somewhere. It either lives under one jurisdiction or multiple. Federation is an architecture. Protocols are only part of that. Twitter, you have one source *serving* data. Federated has multiple sources *serving* data. Your posts get sent to a different server than mine.

@video_manager @feditips how would federated instances communicate without an agreed-upon protocol?

ActivityPub is a standard managed by W3C, but anyone can build their own server that implements it. Without a federation protocol, you don't have any federation at all.

@kkeller @feditips

Hence the last line "it's the federation protocols, not the multiple servers"

@video_manager @feditips ...so, do you have a better idea for federated servers without an agreed upon protocol?

@kkeller @feditips

What a ridiculous Bad Faith Troll. Did you just come over from the birdsite?

@video_manager @feditips if you don't like what I have to say, feel free to block me instead of being needlessly argumentative.

@video_manager @feditips Yeah that's what I don't get by this. There's many different servers and stuff, but mastodon itself is still owned by someone and that could be bought by some really rich person, surely?

@feditips @stux Twitter being on "one" server has no bearing on how easily it can be purchased.

It had more to do with their obligations to investors as a publicly traded company.

Mastodon being open-source is a bigger hedge against centralized control than the actual platform itself being federated.

@feditips This is very helpful to this newly active Mastodon user. Thank you for this a please keep it up for all the Twitter refugees seeking asylum and a better online life here.

@feditips Thanks for sharing! Very helpful and interesting for someone like me who just discovered all of this. I’m wondering what happens to my profile if for some reason the server where I created it shuts down?

@feditips
Cool. I love it here.
Still got my training wheels on, but I'm sure I'll get better at finding my way around. It's fun learning 😊

@feditips There’s not any problem with the concept! There is, however a lot of room for improvement when it comes to initial user experience - that becomes incredibly clear when you keep hearing from people who felt too ‘lost’ or ‘confused’ to continue. Many will initially come looking for a general server. I scrolled for ages through server names that held no obvious relevance. It was only when I heard of ‘Universeodon’ (clever yet non-obvious name) that I felt I knew where to go.

@feditips Eg: rather than hitting them with a huge list of bizarre-looking server names, tabs which are self-explanatory but sometimes empty, & unfamiliar nomenclature, why not start with “We’d like to ask you a few questions so we can recommend some great places to hang out. You can always change or add more later!”. Ascertain if they like all/any of ‘general chat’, ‘politics’, ‘ music’ etc & then recommend a few servers they may like. Ease them in!

@feditips And rather than a list of servers that look like: gmr.glsgw.xyz … could we not have a list that prioritises a plain English name, and places the address/description second? For example: Glasgow Gamers Hangout [gmr.glsgw.xyz] - a place for Glaswegians to chat & play games. i.e. Something more humanly readable. I’m sure Mastodon will do well - because many will fight through complexities when needed, but why make them fight in the first place? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯