[timmytokyo]

I was a huge Mastodon skeptic, but I made the switch a few weeks ago and it's been pretty nice, honestly. The community feels so much less toxic, and it's growing. I only hope with growth it doesn't start to replicate the rotten aspects of Twitter.

[chickenimprint]

The difference in user experience reflects the difference in incentives. The lack of an obsequious welcome is as much a feature as the uncurated timeline. Mastodon is infrastructure, a tool, not a skinner box duct taped to a monstrous data combine harvester, like every other site with a profit motive has become.

[Someone1234]

I don't really grasp the whole instance thing. Which Mastodon instance are we meant to move for a generic experience? I typically used Twitter to @Companies.

[mixedmath]

When you read "instance", think "email provider". Does it really matter if you use gmail or yahoo or protonmail or anything else? In some ways yes, but in many ways no. You can read emails from any other email provider. And if you don't like one, you can move to another.

[wnevets]

From what I can tell your instance choice only really matters when looking at the "local" timeline. Besides that its kind of like email, you can send and receive email from anyone that uses email if they know your address. I use the Gmail instance but I can still get and send email to Hotmail users.

[csomar]

I'm still confused. Which instance should I use to create my account? Does that have any future repercussions? (says, if the server stops/is offline)?

[timmytokyo]

If you're in doubt, try mastodon.social or masto.ai. Those are pretty "generic".

Your choice does have some consequences. Each Mastodon instance has its own tailored block list, which determines which other instances are blocked in your feed. Instances also have their own codes of conduct. You can view an instance's block list and CoC by clicking the "About" link on the bottom left of the instance home page. (See https://mastodon.social/about for example.)

[csomar]

I'm still confused about where my account exists. In the Server? As a public/private key combination?

[simonw]

It exists in the server, but it's possible to move to another server and keep your followers later.

[toofy]

i would use one of the large such as mastodon.social and move on with your life. once you get a hands on understanding, you’ll probably still want to stay on a larger instance, but if you want to move to a niche, you can.

the way i did it was:

1) signed up on a large instance. found a few hundred of the people i followed on twitter.

2) found that a large percentage of them were on a specific instance (infosec.exchange)

3) i didn’t have to move to that instance, at all. i could interact with them all day everyday just the same as any other other social site. i did however ultimately end up moving there because i like the admin.

compared to every other social network on the planet, moving to a different server is easy. i didn’t lose any followers (people who follow you just automatically follow the new account), and importing the entire list of who i followed was super simple.

most people would never ever notice the difference between servers, but if you were to for some reason need a more niche environment, there are plenty of guides out there which will hold your hand and walk you through migrating to a different server.

[fragmede]

That's the problem with federation. It's the same thing as choosing Gmail for your email address. You pick a server and you're bound to whatever they choose to do. You then have to spend an inordinate amount of time to find one that aligns with your ideals. Or just stay on Twitter.

[9wzYQbTYsAIc]

I’d suggest looking at the server list on https://joinmastodon.org, select a few servers of interest, and then peruse what shows up as local to that server to find a good fit.

Also, look for indicators of active moderation and participation in the Mastodon Server Covenant if you want to avoid toxicity.

Some popular instances have been highlighted here.

Finally, dont be afraid to use a throwaway email and hide behind vpn to create a temporary account on a server or two, just to check it out.

Be kind to the server owners by deleting your temporary accounts, though.

[wnevets]

From what I can tell that is like asking which email host to sign up for but if every single email host had the same feature set. Some servers seem faster than others but I just picked a popular one from the mastodon homepage

[Tomte]

I can take my domain name to a new mail provider.

Can I have a handle like @[e-mail] at the usual Mastodon providers? (I honestly don't know)

[lokedhs]

No. The domain part is the instance. When you migrate, your old account is set to point to the new one, and a notification is automatically sent to your followers so they can automatically follow you on the new instance.

[culi]

mastodon.social seems to be the closest to a "default" (though it's kinda ideologically opposed to admitting that explicitly)

[rvz]

> Which Mastodon instance are we meant to move for a generic experience? I typically used Twitter to @Companies.

That's the problem. If you're already asking which instance to join then Mastodon is not the "replacement" you are looking for; even when discovery and moderation is worse than Twitter.

If the main instance (mastodon.social) was accepting sign-ups, then that is the obvious go to. Clearly that is not the case and only I see tech people here screaming about Twitter's imminent collapse, etc, moving to whatever instance that is accepting sign ups with the majority of the 200M+ users still sitting on Twitter as they didn't bother to move to something worse.

Federated echo-chambers isn't the answer for better content moderation as clearly seen by the issue with journa.host [0]. Unfortunately, centralization is the realistic approach to this which businesses and companies and hundreds of millions of (non-tech) users will continue to stick with and the platform for this is Twitter.

[0] https://twitter.com/ajaromano/status/1594432548222152705

[1270018080]

I couldn't figure out how to find people to follow and had to quit. I was so close to ditching twitter.

[toofy]

there are quite a few tools to help find people you follow on twitter.

for example, right now, when i run one called fedifinder[0], it finds 473 of the people i follow on twitter. when i import that list into mastodon, im now following all of their mastodon accounts.

[0] https://fedifinder.glitch.me/