Life is Tetris
boosted
Life is Tetris
boosted
Real long aggregation of Mastodon etiquette for birdsite expats
Some Mastodon thoughts, for bird-site expats (which include myself). I'm aggregating these from posts I've boosted before, so little of this is my own brain.
- There's no algorithm here. That means favoriting/liking doesn't do anything except communicate approval to the OP and others (which is still nice!).
- No algorithm means boosting ("retweeting") is the true method to increase a post's visibility. Do that more than you did on birdsite.
- There's no post-quoting here, and that's by design. Look at quote-tweets on the birdsite; it's a feature primarily used for toxicity.
- There's no direct word-search here either; that means you want to use hashtags to make posts more searchable. This is also intended, since word-searching posts was often used to harass/stalk on the birdsite and elsewhere, so that was left by the wayside here. This also means hashtags are much more a thing here than any of the algorithm-powered sites.
- It's encouraged to put in text descriptions when you post images; a lot of Mastodon users use screen-readers due to various disabilities, and getting an image description read out loud helps them immensely.
- Speaking of screen-readers: using capitalization in your hashtags allows the screen-readers to read them more easily, especially if you're smashing multiple words together. #rockmusic = unreadable. #RockMusic = readable.
- The best way to make threads is to make set your first post as public, but "unlist" all of your replies. This prevents your whole thread from clogging up feeds.
- Content Warnings should be used more liberally here. If you haven't gotten the impression yet, much of Mastodon was built and populated by marginalized groups who were harassed/bullied off of other platforms. This is the culture they built, to respect each other's mental health. It's not a rule, but it's well-appreciated.
- Consider chipping a few bucks towards whomever runs the server you're on; the strain is real, and most server admins were likely paying out of pocket before so don't have an existing donation base. The growth here has been extremely fast, and that means money's needed.
- DMs are just posts with privacy settings. So if you @ someone in a DM, you pull them into the thread. That could be embarrassing.
- Also, no, DMs aren't end-to-end encrypted, but they aren't on Twitter either. Don't use either if you want true privacy.
- Including your Mastodon handle in your birdsite profile will help people find you here; there's a tool (pruvisto.org/debirdify/ is one of them that's used) people can use to pull Mastodon handles from Twitter profile.
- Use the blocking and reporting features liberally, if needed. This should go without saying, but they work, and work well!
- If there's an entire Mastodon server you don't want to hear from, you can block the whole thing too.
- Preferences -> Appearance -> "Slow Mode": this can make larger "Local" feeds and any "Federated" feed much more readable.
I'll reply with some more as I see them, or reply here too. I've only been here 4 days but I'm loving it so far.
#TwitterMigration is on, to the #Fediverse . People may realize this network of services is federated (duh), but it may be worth mentioning that many of those services are #SelfGoverned and even #SelfHosted . It is something not even contemplated on other networks.
@mariusor #OpenID might be good (and #Hubzilla gave birth to #Nomad), but I was only asking about user registration in-protocol, like XMPP. Thanks for clarifying that #ActivityPub doesn't. I was only talking of social media apps that are multi-protocol (not a protocol that is versatile).
P.S: The more I learn about what got standardized as AP, the more it sounds like a grab-bag of features with consensus - like #CommonLisp. And some people complain about #XMPP, for fragmentation via XEP's?!
Life is Tetris
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@matslats you can also use the Bird Site browser extension to copy over from Mastodon to the other place.
Life is Tetris
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@coogie @katebevan I understand this is the world we live in, but employers should employ people for who they are. Assuming it is just a job. Its different if the employer works on a cause and employs people identifying with their cause.
Life is Tetris
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@didek @Psyklax @joel in the throes of #TwitterMigration people might be open to trying out multiple different services, so the way to get critical mass is to get them to try out all the open federated alternatives in parallel - it doesn't matter which one they stick with at the end, as long as it is not another silo!
#DeltaChat #WebXDC #XMPP #Movim #Libervia #Snikket #PeerTube #PixelFed
@didek @Psyklax @joel in the throes of #TwitterMigration people might be open to trying out multiple different services, so the way to get critical mass is to get them to try out all the open federated alternatives in parallel - it doesn't matter which one they stick with at the end, as long as it is not another silo!
#DeltaChat #WebXDC #XMPP #Movim #Libervia #Snikket #PeerTube #PixelFed
@coogie @katebevan I understand this is the world we live in, but employers should employ people for who they are. Assuming it is just a job. Its different if the employer works on a cause and employs people identifying with their cause.
Life is Tetris
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@katebevan sounds like a terrible work environment, tbh
Perhaps if your personal identity is so explicitly linked to your professional one, you should evaluate whether you need separate accounts - something that is easily achievable in the Fediverse
Life is Tetris
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@mpjgregoire @swansinflight @coogie @clacke Followers only see your replies in their home feed if they're following both you and the person you're replying to, yes. Note that it's JUST the person you're replying to, which means that it's possible for a "disembodied" reply - so to speak - to show up if you're replying to a followers-only post; your followers might be able to see your latest reply and the one before it but not any other posts in the thread (because they're by someone your follower doesn't follow).
@strypey if the people behind those clients are convinced by open federated services, maybe they should display an 'ad' for fediverse clients (with atleast #ActivityPub and #RSS) and nudge people to move?
Can any AP clients register a new account on an AP server? Like how Conversations or Quicksy does on #XMPP servers. Maybe even opening invite links in the client, like I guess #Snikket does.
@thezerobit prolog for game dev.?! Interesting.
@vinib
> the runtime feels like an entire OS
It apparently was effectively an embedded OS in its original domain, as a "control plane" for telephone switch hardware.
Erlang (and Smalltalk) users get the dividends of the architectural achievements that their VM's represent.
@ari@tech.lgbt
It also has value outside of dev.work, like editing rich text, LaTEX ... 'org-mode' as an organizer of information, its older alternative 'hyperbole' ... 'gnus' or 'notmuch' are praised for e-mail handling
The list has kept growing with its community!
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@ari@tech.lgbt emacs isn't as good an editor as it is an integrator of tools - it can be described as an integrating user env.
If you anyway use even one interactive tool like shell, gdb, Python/Ruby/Elixir/Erlang/Prolog, git, etc. #Emacs makes it possible to use them more effectively and that is the main value it has. For starters, see http://web.psung.name/emacstips/essential.html
Definitely the GUI version.
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@searcherEye if you'd rather use #Emacs key bindings, there are lightweight clones like mg, jmacs, zile. If you'd try vi key bindings on steroids, there is #Kakoune
@masakepic
> now I 'only' have an allotment
Wasn't it Chesterton who divided the land area of Britain by its population and wondered why each person doesn't have 3 acres of land 🙂
Life is Tetris
boosted
Small tip: if you use hashtags that are more than one word, use CamelCase for them. It gives screen readers some help in saying them.
