Sven Slootweg @joepie91@pixie.town

accessibility/etiquette
7) in addition to formatting your hashtags, add an image description to your media.

8) we use content warning to hide sensitive topics. we also use them to hide long posts and make question/answer type posts though. you'll notice CW of politics, common phobias and sometimes even fediverse related discussions like this (a lot of it happens) is also common. also different servers will have different rules

...

algorithm (there is none)

3) your home timeline is not curated. this means favorite/boost counts of your posts (or the links on them doesn't matter)

4) boosts however carry posts, consider boosting.

5) more importantly consider engaging in meaningful dialogues with people. not fly by comments but engaging in discussions.

6) hashtags are your friend. (use camelCaseToMakeThemScreenReadable for blind users)

because I have so many new users coming #mastodonTips #mastodon

discovery/discoverability

1) in addition to a bio, consider also making an #introduction / #introduction post also check this tag to find people who are also new and their interests

2) https://communitywiki.org/trunk is a wonderful place to find people who are active. it is human moderated. if you decide to stick around and have the bandwidth to do so, consider joining a list to welcome others as well.

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so I'm gonna boost any info I think is useful, but the main thing I would say to any newcomers is to take your time with it all

it's a confusing place to get your head around at first and ESPECIALLY when everyone is posting their advice and opinions on how you should and shouldn't use the site. if you try and take it all in at once you'll probably be bamboozled

instances can be changed later. you don't have to form your opinions on fediverse etiquette or jump into discourse straightaway. and if it feels like too much you can turn off the computer

It highly depends on your server, but you're blessed with 500c or more here.

Adding a CW when you're threading means you can at a glance show people what it's about, where the conversation changes etc.
You can view it as a subject line, if that helps.

And people can open the entire thread and expand it with the click of a button.

We still read it, we just appreciate to be able to opt in.

And again, it also makes filtering easier when the words are in the CW.

(ty @CaribenxMarciaX for mentioning this)

Hi. Pretty please use the CWs for musk & Twitter.

A lot of us are here because we want to get away from both Twitter and especially Elon Musk and all the talk about it.

Heck back in the day no one even said the T word here, only birdsite or hellbird.

CWs allow us to opt in. And it can make filtering easier too.

I will continue to repost content with a CW instead of boosting.

Please be mindful of your neighbors 🙏

Birbcam is up!

https://birbcam.online

Come watch birbs, it's relaxing :)

New action figure dropped.

I've had lots of thoughts lately about bounded versus unbounded systems.

A book is bounded; the global library system is unbounded. A CD is bounded; Spotify is unbounded. The world is effectively unbounded, and networked computer systems tend to be unbounded too.

Many things are bigger than a human can experience, or changing faster than a human can keep up with. Many curious explorers and tinkerers are drawn to these unbounded things because they are vast, unknowable, and therefore exciting.

But what finite, bounded things are worth exploring and tinkering with?

About the only tip I have for people landing here post-birdsite is the habit of defensively misspelling/obfuscating terms is not just unnecessary here but harmful.

Search is harder to do due to the federated nature, being a search-botting reply-guy is harder to do. However a lot of people can and do mute hot-button words for their own health.

If you think you need to obfuscate to prevent discovery there's probably a better privacy tool to deploy.

Assorted recs for new accounts:
@plants — plants from the gardens of various fedifriends! (and other topics: https://a.gup.pe/ )

@glitchbot — a bot that glitches photos you give it

The hashtags #cats and #florespondence
@quasihaiku and @poem_exe — haiku bots (quasi avoids latin’s fifth glyph)

@alt_text — reminds you if you’ve forgotten to describe your images

Accounts by topic from the trunk: https://communitywiki.org/trunk

by way of #introduction hi i'm andie sophia. i'm news editor at the reykjavík grapevine. i'm a nonbinary trans woman, a communist, and i will never not favorite pics of possums, cats or ravens. my presence here will be a mix of trans stuff, politics, and humor. happy to follow back likeminded folks. hope the days are kind to you all!

#introduction for those who don’t know me: i’m a cool as hell dutch gay nerd who loves programming (NEVER finishing anything i start on ever), typography and mario kart

#FediTip if you get a link to a post or profile and want to interact with it, put it in your search box.

Twitter has algorithms to get you engaged. Mastodon does not. So in order to enjoy Mastodon you have to take some time to reach out and find content and follow folks that you enjoy. Don't expect Mastodon to send you random popular posts to keep you engaged, you have to curate your own feed. But this is good! It gives you control.

#NewHere