A How-To Guide for Mastodon!
What is Mastodon? - It is a social network that is decentralized and part of the Fedivese.
Okay, but what's the Fediverse? - The fediverse is an ensemble of federated (i.e. interconnected) servers that are used for web publishing (i.e. social networking, microblogging, blogging, or websites) and file hosting, but which, while independently hosted, can communicate with each other.
Essentially, what "decentralized" means, is that each server in Mastodon (called "instances") is interconnected to be able to talk to each other on any instance but also each instance is a sort of micro-community of similar interests and/or values that can be managed as a smaller community within the Fediverse.
So, how do I use this? It sounds complicated! - It honestly does sound complicated and it's easy to get overwhelmed at first, but what new technology doesn't when you first look at it?
Let's take a look at signing up first! (long post I'm sorry, but I try to break things down as understandable as possible with pictures!)
*Note - this information is up-to-date for 4.0 version on Tuesday, November 15, 2022
So, first thing you might see when searching up how to join Mastodon is that there's tons of instances (or, servers) that you can create an account with. I'd recommend first looking at the official server page found here to see what kind of options you have! The biggest thing to keep in mind is that this list is absolutely NOT exhaustive and there are many, many more options than are listed. Ones that are even more exclusive to interests or cultures or other groups! You can search up your special interests in Google to see if there's a Mastodon server that is currently taking applications or are open to all account creations. Alternatively, you can use something like this instance helper in order to find an instance that is more geared towards your values and interests. Once you choose your instance and go to sign up, it'll look similar to this. As you can see, there's two links under the normal boxes for username and passwords and such.
Most, if not every, instance (worth their salt, I might add) has a list of rules and TOS that must be agreed to when you sign up. Please make sure you read these carefully as these instances are very serious about moderation.
Let me show you an example of what the rules list and terms look like from my instance (mastadon.lol)
This is all located on mastodon.lol About page. While your instance won't look exactly like this it may appear similar with the dropdown and explanation of everything you might need to know.
Now that you've read all the TOS and Rules, you're ready to click the "I agree" checkbox and create your account!
Now that we've created the account which is, arguably the hardest part, let's jump to see what your home page looks like and what all the buttons do!
Down the center of the page is your "home feed", in which anyone you are following, their posts will show up there, also anything that people you follow have boosted (boosted, in this case, means "reblogged" or "retweeted"). One of the biggest differences between Mastodon and other socials is that your Favourites (which are akin to "Likes") will never show up on other people's pages and do not affect any type of algorithm. It's just for you to Fav and the writer will see the notif you Faved their Toot (which is what we call the posts and yes, we know it's silly, but calling posts on Twitter "tweets" was also silly) and that's it (well, plus the little feel-goods that someone saw and liked it enough to favourite it!)
On the top left is the Search bar. That's one of the best ways to find people and topics you're interested in! Mastodon relies on a generous use of hashtags in your toots. You can also use the search in order to find people directly by their @ and server name!
Under the search bar, it's your handle and a quick dropdown under the three dots to ceartain pages (such as follower requests or editing your profile or muted words, etc).
Finally the last spot on the top left is box where you write your toots. Going clockwise from top left, there's where you start your toot, then ou've got your emoji picker on the top right of the box (including special, server-specific added emojis), bottom right is your character count which updates in realtime so you see how much more you can write, and then there's a slew of buttons on the bottom left: (from right to left as is clockwise) Language picker, Content Warning (creates a bar above your toot that you can explain what cw's there are), privacy levels (Public, Unlisted, Followers Only, and Mentioned People Only), Poll maker, and finally the Upload for pics/gifs/vids.
Now we focus on the right side of the screen:
We'll focus on the top portion in a minute.
At the bottom are the top 3 hashtags trending and roughly how many people (only in your instance) are talking about it.
Just above the trending section is your "Preferences" button. That will take you to your Preferences & Settings page which will have all the sliders and bells and whistles to customize your Mastodon experience to your liking. That might become another post but it is too much for this guide which is just an introduction.
Now we focus on the part that really seems to confuse people (including me when I started) - the whole top right section
(idk why it's not centering I'm sorry)
So at the top, is your Home button, as previously stated, this is the feed in which you'll see everything from people you follow and whatever toots they boost.
Underneath we have your Notifications tab where you can see who follows you, who favourites your toots, who boosts them, and any replies or mentions of you.
Then we have the Explore tab, as indicated by the little picture to the left of the word, this is where you can see what is going on. There are 4 tabs at the top of the page when you click it
Posts is all trending posts and boosted posts that are gaining traction on your instance. The Hashtags tab is similar but more like a top 10 of trending hashtags from all over Mastodon. News is what is being talked about by people on this and other servers of the decentralized network right now (kinda like Google News page which links to official news sources and websites). Finally, the For You is just a list of people who you might potentially want to check out and see if you want to follow!
Next we're going to talk about the following two tabs: Local and Federated. The Local tab will show you posts from just your instance you are on, it's a slightly more isolated feed of just people who share your interests. The Federated tab is a bit more of a free-for-all because it shows posts from all over the Fediverse, all different Mastodon servers will throw up posts as fast as it can (but don't worry, somewhere in preferences is an option for "slow mode", though with how many people are on Mastodon now, slow might still be too fast for some people).
Direct Message tab is pretty straight forward. It's where your private messages between other users go.
Favourites, Bookmarks, and Lists; all important all do different things. Favourites is the place where any post that you like goes to, as said before, it doesn't do anything to the algorithm, it doesn't mean your post will get shown to others when they get favourited, it's just a nice feel-good moment that someone showed appreciation to your post, that they vibe with you in that moment. Bookmarks are very different in that no one will ever be alerted when you bookmark a toot, they are there for you to refer back to when you need to so I would recommend being more selective about what you bookmark and periodically clean up your bookmarks tab. Lists are super important in that you can create lists for different categories of topics or users that you want to see at a given moment: have a Twitch list, an Art/Artist list, a Sex Worker list, etc! Lists will allow you to scroll through those feeds individually so you won't have things that don't pertain to what you want to check out at that moment.
AND THAT'S IT!
I have a whole slew of tips to give out but this post has gone long enough. I hope that this helped you and anyone you chose to share this with understand one of the biggest growing new social media on the internet right now.
You can always find me at this Tumblr, or on Mastodon at https://mastodon.lol/@bonitalissa or on Twitter (for however long it's around) @BonitaLissaTTV
Thank you for taking the time to read this!
