An Increasingly Less-Brief Guide to Mastodon

<p style="text-align:center;"><h1>DON'T PANIC.</h1></p>

Mastodon has several important differences from Twitter, but you'll get used to it. I've tried to mark all of the important differences with the :bangbang: emoji; forgive me if I missed some. It's been a while since I've been on Twitter!

I've done my best to make this understandable, but you're welcome to suggest changes! If you have a Github account, you can submit change requests directly; otherwise, feel free to contact me on Mastodon or by email at noelle AT noelle.codes.

When linking to this page, please use the link http://guidetomastodon.com, and please credit @Noelle@elekk.xyz. Thank you!

Table of Contents

• What is Mastodon?
• How is it like Twitter?
• How is it like email?
• How is it not like either of those; or, What are the Local and Federated Timelines?
• What is the Fediverse?
• How do I establish my brand's presence on Mastodon?
• How do I get verified on Mastodon?
• Okay, how do I let people know that I am who I say I am?
• HOW DO I PICK AN INSTANCE?
• I've found another instance I like better. Can I move my account?
• How can I change my username?
• How do I mention someone who's not on my instance?
• What are the rules?
• What if I see someone breaking the rules?
• What are the different kinds of posts?
• How do privacy settings work?
• How private is "Private"?
• What happens when someone follows me?
• So if I lock my account, only approved people can see my posts?
• What if someone's following or interacting with me and I don't want them to?
• How will I know if someone's muted or blocked me?
• What if I go over the character limit?
• What are hashtags?
• What does "CW" mean?
• I just attached a picture to my toot. What's with the new 'eye' icon?
• I just attached a picture to my toot. How can I add a caption to it?
• Why should I add a caption to my picture?
• How do I use my server's custom emoji?
• How come my friend on another instance can use this emoji, but I can't?
• Can I search for a specific word or phrase?
• Why can't I quote someone's toot, like a quote-tweet?
• The Mastodon culture seems pretty weird?
• What does mean?
• What's the generally-accepted Mastodon etiquette?
• I like mastodon but I prefer the way twitter looks.
• I like mastodon but I want to use it on my phone.
• How can I back up my Mastodon account?
• Can I use the keyboard to navigate Mastodon?
• How do favorites work on other server types?
• Weird, my server doesn't have a bunch of these features.
• Weird, my server has a bunch of extra features.
• I have other questions.
• How can I contribute to the Guide?

What is Mastodon?

Mastodon is a social networking software platform. It allows someone to run their own social media site (and let other people use it too, if they want), and each Mastodon site is capable of talking to all of the other Mastodon social media sites (as well as many others). It's like a cross between Twitter and email, but it's not exactly like either of those.

Mastodon is named after the heavy metal band, but themed after the extinct megafauna.

How is it like Twitter?

You post relatively-short status updates, and you can see a streaming list of your friends' status updates. You can keep notifications (replies, boosts, favorites, and DMs) in a separate column.

Mastodon's statuses are called "toots", like Twitter's are called "tweets". A toot can be up to 500 characters long - or more, depending on your server's settings.

Mastodon also supports hashtags, which are words prefixed by #, like "#gaming" or "#pineapple". You can click on a hashtag to search for other posts containing that tag.

How is it like email?

:bangbang: Each Mastodon instance is independent but networked, like email servers. If you sign up for an email account on gmail.com, you don't automatically have an account on hotmail.com or aol.com, but you can send and receive messages to and from users on hotmail.com and aol.com.

Likewise, if you sign up for an account on mastodon.social, that doesn't make an account for you on every other instance, but you can talk to users from other instances and they can talk to you.

You can make accounts on multiple instances if you want to talk about different things separately. You could have an account on https://hackers.town to talk about technology, an account on https://elekk.xyz to talk about gaming, and an account on https://mastodon.online for general chatter. You have to sign into each account separately and keep each open in a separate browser tab or window. (The various mobile apps all allow multiple accounts, too.)

Keep in mind that in general, when talking about Mastodon, "instance" and "server" mean the same thing.

How is it not like either of those; or, What are the Local and Federated Timelines?

:bangbang: Mastodon has timelines that you can view beyond what you might be familiar with from Twitter: the Local timeline and the Federated timeline.

Mastodon starts with your Home timeline, which is roughly equivalent to Twitter's "Latest Tweets" timeline. This contains posts that you've made, posts that the people you're following have made, posts that the people you're following have boosted, and posts from any hashtags you're following. It also has a Notifications timeline. By default, this shows you any time anyone's interacted with any of your posts at all; there's a slider button at the top of the column that you can use to curate which notifications (favorites, boosts, replies, etc.) you see in that column. You can also easily set it to just show mentions - any time someone uses your @handle in a post.

The Local timeline is every post with a public status posted by users on your instance, with the exception of replies. (A reply is any toot posted in response to another toot - NOT any toot that simply mentions another user!)

The Federated timeline is every post with a public status posted by any user that your instance knows about, even from other instances. Your instance knows about a remote user if at least one user on your instance has EVER followed them.

The Local and Federated timelines can turn into firehoses sometimes. Be careful!

Unless there's a server hiccup, all timelines in Mastodon are reverse-chronological. If you see posts out of order, it doesn't mean there's an algorithm at play; it means your server received the posts out of order.

What is the Fediverse?

~~Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Fediverse is~~

The Fediverse is the vast array of servers that communicate via the ActivityPub or OStatus protocols. (Generally speaking, unless you're making or editing software to interact with the fediverse, you don't need to know what those are.) There are lots of different kinds of server software on the fediverse, like Pixelfed, Pleroma, Misskey, or WriteFreely. Mastodon is one of the most popular of these, and it's what this guide is about. If you're using one of the others, this guide probably won't help you much.

How do I establish my brand's presence on Mastodon?

:bangbang: The short answer: Very carefully.

We've had fifteen years of Twitter, Facebook, and heaven knows how many other social media platforms becoming platforms for Search Engine Optimization, Brand Awareness, and Corporate Synergy, and I'll be blunt: most of us are really, really tired of it.

Mastodon isn't about leveraging followers into customers. It's not about SEO or brand loyalty. Mastodon is about people. Don't treat people like potential customers who might buy your stuff; treat them like people whom you might want to get to know.

If you're a person who makes or does something and you think someone might want to buy your product or use your ser