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by abdullahkhalids 734 days ago
The average mastodon server has 1k users, and the median has likely much fewer [1]. All of these choices are immaterial for the median server.

Just set reasonable defaults so that local gym manager's son/daughter can set them up with the gym's server in a couple of hours. And then leave these instructions for the advanced users who want to pay money for large servers.

[1] https://mastodon-analytics.com/
1 comments
kstrauser 734 days ago
OK, what's your default mail settings at a minimum? You can't really run a server with users other than yourself without that.
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abdullahkhalids 734 days ago
That's a fair comment. For small servers, you can probably just get away with inputting the smtp details of any regular account.

But probably not a good idea, and you want to host your own mail server. There are also the domain name settings that you do have to put in. I don't know mastodon, but mailinabox has these settings [1] that took me a while to figure out.

My proposal is to write a software that is layer on top of popular domain name registrars' apis. The user just plugs in the api key into the software, and the software does the configuration on behalf of the user. The mastodon installer can then use this software to set up the mail and domain name settings.

I want to finish with one of my favorite facts: At it's peak LimeWire (a social media of sorts) was installed on 1/3rd of computers worldwide [2]. A dead simple installer that any grandma could follow ensured that it got there.

[1] https://mailinabox.email/guide.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LimeWire

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