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Is there a non-niche general Mastodon instance that's really popular? That would be the easiest way for me personally to embrace it. I checked a few instances a

Is there a non-niche general Mastodon instance that's really popular? That would be the easiest way for me personally to embrace it. I checked a few instances and it's all very niche and very empty. (To clarify, I don't mind niche instances, just at this stage there isn't enough discussion or interesting profiles to follow.)

agentultra 4y ago
It’s also pretty easy to have alts. Most good clients can log onto and track several accounts. You can then flip between various communities; post about work stuff on one, alt for your hobbies or shitposting.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
mastodon.social is by far the largest, but the recommendation is generally to find the one that has interests & people on it you find interesting to start. you'll get content from people on mastodon.social anyways.
- augustuspolius 4y ago
  This looks great, definitely more active and offers a good variety of topics/profiles.
  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
    I went with indieweb.social. I think some people from hackernews might find a vibe they like generally there.
- _cenw 4y ago
  mastodon.social is silenced (no federated timelines) on quite a few instances, simply because there's a lot of volume that's not very high quality.
bkuehl 4y ago
You can be a part of a large or small instance and your consumption/conversation is not limited to users on that instance. You can follow people from other instances as well as scroll through a timeline that is posts/toots from across the fediverse (not just your local instance)
- augustuspolius 4y ago
  Got it. Does it make any difference where I register first? E.g. if that instance disappears overnight, will I be able to recover my account or not? I understand that I can access posts from all instances in the instance I use, but not sure how account handling/ownership works.
  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
    There are migration tools to move your followers and your followings between nodes. But no way to move your posts. And so, yes, your identity partially/kind-of doesn't move. But mostly sort of does? At first this bugged me, but then it was pointed out that if you could just move your posts you could also potentially violate the moderation rules of the host you were moving to. So it makes some sense.
    - augustuspolius 4y ago
      Thanks. I am more worried about the identity than the posts. If my identity belongs to the host, then in that sense this is no better than a centralized Twitter. Just theoretically speaking (I have not been banned from anything ever), if a mastodon.art user is banned from mastodon.art - everyone who followed them will have to find them on another instance and subscribe again? If exporting data is a process that depends on the host instance, when they ban you - that's it, your identity is not recoverable.
      - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
        The migration tool automatically moves your followers. It's a bit janky, it took an hour or two for it do its thing for me (there must be some batch component, I dunno). I don't know how it works between banned instances, or what your options are for when a server goes down fully. But all the of the follower/following data is available via CSV export any time, too. And there's obviously an open API as well. And honestly, you could also just run your own server if you're that concerned.

agentultra 4y ago

It’s also pretty easy to have alts. Most good clients can log onto and track several accounts. You can then flip between various communities; post about work stuff on one, alt for your hobbies or shitposting.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

mastodon.social is by far the largest, but the recommendation is generally to find the one that has interests & people on it you find interesting to start. you'll get content from people on mastodon.social anyways.

augustuspolius 4y ago
This looks great, definitely more active and offers a good variety of topics/profiles.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  I went with indieweb.social. I think some people from hackernews might find a vibe they like generally there.
_cenw 4y ago
mastodon.social is silenced (no federated timelines) on quite a few instances, simply because there's a lot of volume that's not very high quality.

bkuehl 4y ago

You can be a part of a large or small instance and your consumption/conversation is not limited to users on that instance. You can follow people from other instances as well as scroll through a timeline that is posts/toots from across the fediverse (not just your local instance)

augustuspolius 4y ago
Got it. Does it make any difference where I register first? E.g. if that instance disappears overnight, will I be able to recover my account or not? I understand that I can access posts from all instances in the instance I use, but not sure how account handling/ownership works.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  There are migration tools to move your followers and your followings between nodes. But no way to move your posts. And so, yes, your identity partially/kind-of doesn't move. But mostly sort of does? At first this bugged me, but then it was pointed out that if you could just move your posts you could also potentially violate the moderation rules of the host you were moving to. So it makes some sense.
  - augustuspolius 4y ago
    Thanks. I am more worried about the identity than the posts. If my identity belongs to the host, then in that sense this is no better than a centralized Twitter. Just theoretically speaking (I have not been banned from anything ever), if a mastodon.art user is banned from mastodon.art - everyone who followed them will have to find them on another instance and subscribe again? If exporting data is a process that depends on the host instance, when they ban you - that's it, your identity is not recoverable.
    - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
      The migration tool automatically moves your followers. It's a bit janky, it took an hour or two for it do its thing for me (there must be some batch component, I dunno). I don't know how it works between banned instances, or what your options are for when a server goes down fully. But all the of the follower/following data is available via CSV export any time, too. And there's obviously an open API as well. And honestly, you could also just run your own server if you're that concerned.