Found a beginner's guide to joining Mastodon.

[usonian]

https://medium.com/whither-news/on-joining-mastodon-d539eed5e41a
On Joining Mastodon --- From my vast experience of three weeks, a guide to diving in

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https://archive.ph/Uzsv6
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Some excerpts:

It will be a pleasure to welcome you to the new neighborhood. I’m quite liking it already. Once you arrive, you’ll find it familiar enough: You have a home timeline, a feed of just the people you follow, but with no algorithmic promotion, no ads. You can write posts (the verb to “toot” has, mercifully, become to “publish”) and boost others’ posts (AKA retweet) and reply to posts. You will receive notifications when people respond to you, boost your posts, and follow you. You cannot quote-tweet posts as of now because of the founder’s belief that this affordance leads to performative over conversational behavior. That contention is being contested

The two things that befuddle people getting started are how to pick an instance or server to join and then how to find folks. Mastodon is actually a few thousand servers — or instances, in the parlance — that each run versions of the same software and are all connected or federated in what is called the Fediverse, using an open-source protocol called ActivityPub. Every instance is independently run but can connect to any or all of the other instances, allowing you to connect with anyone on them. Not all of them are Mastodon; there are, for example, other servers for a photo-based social network called Pixelfed. No one owns this; no one can. That is the value of open source and federation. (Here is a post I wrote (archived here) that examines and explains some of the implications and opportunities of federation.)

It doesn’t greatly matter what server you join as in this federated ecosystem, you can follow and converse with anyone on any server (except those that your host blocks; for example, the far-right, noxious Gab is blocked by most). Each server has its own rules. I am on mastodon.social, which is the biggest and is run by Eugen (@gargron).

The only real implications of joining a particular server are (1) that you can view a “local” timeline populated with the posts of all the people from that server and you might find that useful , and (2) you want a responsible host who is going to block the bad guys and moderate wisely. If once on Mastodon you find the grass greener on someone else’s server, you can take your identity and your followers and go there — that portability and interoperability is a key benefit and differentiation of the federated vs. the corporate and centralized internet. Keep in mind that the content you create on your first server stays there.

Lots more at the link(s).

Remember: Mastodon is a protocol (ActivityPub) and other sites can participate in this protocol. I read that tumblr is making plans to do so post haste.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/21/tumblr-to-add-support-for-activitypub-the-social-protocol-powering-mastodon-and-other-apps/

And there are other alternatives to twitter. (for a future post)

[Wounded Bear]

1. K & R...nt

[hlthe2b]

2. I'm sure that will prove useful to several here, so K&R

[4now]

3. I am enjoying Mastodon

I just started and don't really know what I'm doing yet but I am already finding a lot of people to follow like
George Takei, Robert Reich, Molly Jong Fast, Julian and Joaquin Castro and more that I can't remember right now.
Raspberry Pi (computer) is already there and I found an account called CORVUSPHERE (all about ravens and crows).

[usonian]

5. I'll bet that lots of people are worried about Elon allowing antisemitism and who knows what else?

I wouldn't be in such company.

With a monopoly, you have no choice.

[msfiddlestix]

4. This feels like very useful information for those who get how that stuff works

This is probably an age gap sort of thing, I sort of get it, but mostly it's confusing.

I feel a learning curve might be just too long a stretch for me personally. On the other hand, I can also see other folks more social media savvy getting it easily.

I suppose a publsihed mastodon post can be reposted here. (?) Wonder what it will look like.

I feel for EarlG as he tries to embed a thingy to represent mastodon posts in the OP subject lines when launching DU4

And then there's all the other alternatives popping up.

Interesting times....

[usonian]

6. I am techie, but glad to help people more into the social stuff.

I follow DU and HackerNews, and have no time for anything else (besides hobbies and chores)
I post some of my photos here.

Diversity is good! but more work to deal with.

The original internet was intended to be a whole lot of individual sites, but a few turned that model inside out, so it's like the old "three TV networks" model.

[brooklynite]

7. I opened an account. So far I see no reason to use it.

It’s a clumsy format to access the types of posts I read on Twitter, and almost nobody I read has an account there.

Mastodon has to find a way to become relevant on its own. Being a refuge for people from Twitter will never be a successful approach.

[brooklynite]

8. "And there are other alternatives to Twitter"

Therein lies the problem. Twitter became a success because it brought together a wide range of voices to engage with. Thinking of sites as “an alternative to Twitter” means that the community is simply going to be dissipated with no critical mass.

[Rocknation]

9. Good band -- didn't know that someone had quit

Rocknation

[Dalton555]

10. I've had an account for a few weeks. Friendly and peaceful

I like the atmosphere. I am not being very political there because the culture is somewhat low in conflict, but I'm finding like-minded people and I'm loving it.

[BlackSkimmer]

11. Lol.

No.

Just like with twitter.

No.

[Crunchy Frog]

12. I'm having trouble even registering.

It keeps telling me that I'm not putting in my username correctly, and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I must be a real idiot.