11–20 of 131 posts
* djsundog@toot-lab.reclaim.technology
* qrs@mastodon.social
* cypnk@mastodon.social
* mulander@bsd.network
* jk@mastodon.social
* tinker@infosec.exchange
In case anyone's vaguely interested I can be reached at stevelord@mastodon.social. I mostly post about hardware hacking and conferences.
I really want to get into Mastodon, but I cannot decide which one I would want to join. Is there one that's say best for.. gaming? Or one best for the arts? I tried to use their search but it's hard to tell which one I'd actually want to be part of.
What is Mastodon?
My favorite people to follow are:
@Chrishallbeck@mastodon.social (webcomics artist)
@lumen@mastodon.social (writes jokes)
@Gargron@mastodon.social (creator of mastodon)
@cwebber@octodon.social (author of ActivityPub)
And a few cool engineers:
@Valentin_NC@mastodon.cloud
@HerraBRE@mastodon.xyz
@markhughes@mastodon.social
@chrisBorg@mastodon.social
@surma@toot.cafe
@nolan@toot.cafe
Also come follow my account [5], I don't post often, but I tend to share updates on my projects, cool startup/webdev related stuff, and some digital art. I should get back on mastodon and post more stuff...
[1] https://mastodon.social/@hackernewsbot
[2] https://mastodon.social/@comedy
[3] https://mastodon.social/@webcomics
What is Mastodon?
Its a federated social network. It is like a cross between Twitter and email. Anyone can start a server and set their own community rules and guide lines. If you or someone on your server remotely follows someone they like on another server then your servers will federate and posts from both will be in the public timeline. Eventually you will have a full timeline of many servers. Though your admin can silence or outright block other instances. Most GS veteran admins prefer their users just block people, as full instance banning is an extreme measure and against the spirit of federation. This is also a future-proof approach to social networking because if your server and its admin are malicious you can either start your own or just move and you still can contribute to the same network of people as before.
Recently a guy named Eugen who goes by @gargon@mastodon.social made Mastodon and a patreon account to support its development.
It has a troubled history, as the early adopters of Mastodon were Twitter and Tumblr users from the far-left pro-censorship crowd. They didnt understand how federation worked but they were paying Eugen's bills so he focused on redundant administration tools instead of more critical fixes (its ok now tho). Many popular Mastodon servers for example cybre.space, witches.town(now dead), and others they maintained big instance block lists and they live mostly in a bubble as they did not agree with the hands off, self moderation (blocking individuals) approach of older GNU Social sites. This bubble is really small though and is not sustainable.
Now, even though Eugen and his audience might prefer Mastodon servers not federate with GNU social servers not every masto server uses a huge instance block list. Anyone can host a masto server same as GS.
Those famous outside of Mastodon: https://mastodon.technology/@brion (major MediaWiki contributor), https://mastodon.xyz/@johnonolan (Ghost.org founder), https://mstdn.io/@xahlee (of xahlee.info, which gets posted here a lot), and https://octodon.social/@pzmyers (PZ Myers, the blogger). Organizations: https://mastodon.technology/@kde , https://mastodon.social/@Purism , https://status.fsf.org/fsf , and https://mastodo…
- Michael W. Lucas, author: https://bsd.network/@mwlucas
- Amanda Rousseau, malware researcher: https://mastodon.social/@malwareunicorn
- Brendan Eich, creator of Javascript: https://mastodon.social/@BrendanEich
- John Scalzi, author: https://mastodon.social/@scalzi
- Jenn Schiffer, artist and dev at Glitch: https://toot.cafe/@jenn
Once you join an instance are you stuck on that instance for life? What happens if you want to participate on another instance? Can I reply to comments on other instances?