Ask HN: Who are your favourite people to follow on Mastodon?

Post by ColinWright » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 7:54 PM UTC

gvurrdon wrote: post #121

rainbowmverse wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mastodon generates an RSS feed for every user. Check out their web profile pages and look in the HTML header. Most popular RSS readers will just pick it up if you paste the profile URL in.

That could be rather useful - many thanks. As an aside, I used to follow various organisations' RSS feeds from Facebook, before that was shut down. It was a great way to keep up with their activities.

Post by ColinWright » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 8:51 PM UTC

rainbowmverse wrote: post #123

ColinWright wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think technically it's an "atom" feed, and I'm not hip enough to know the exact difference, but there is certainly come kind of feed there. /users/ .atom" rel="nofollow">https:// /users/ .atom

Atom was Google's answer to RSS back when they cared about an open web. As far as I can tell, everything that handles RSS also handles Atom, and they're exposed in the header in the same way. Firefox users can right click on the browser chrome, go to Customize, and add a subscribe button that lights up when a page has a feed. It's not as snug a fit as what used to go in the address bar, but it still works.

Post by ColinWright » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

rainbowmverse wrote: post #125

ColinWright wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what this means: > Firefox users can right click on the browser chrome, ... ... but I've made a note of your comment, and when I get time I'll go hunting to find out how it works. It seems to me that RSS/Atom/Subscription is going to make a comeback. Technical people are moving off other platforms and putting their output on their own sites, so some sort of subscription management is the way to go. Maybe…

I should have linked to the help page: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-firefox-contr...

Post by rocky1138 » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

jaequery wrote: post #82

I think people will assume their data is safer with Mastadon. But in a way, your data might even be more insecure, as you have no idea what and who the Instance owner is, and what they will do with the data. Also, now the responsibility of securing the platform is in the hands of the instance owner, whom you have no idea how they have their platform setup. FYI, an open source project called Drupal, was recently affec…

Post by rocky1138 » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

BadassFractal wrote: post #6

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.