Are you on Mastodon?

We’ve heard that a lot of people are moving to Mastodon. If you have moved to Mastodon, we’re curious about how you’re finding it and which instances are good places for operators to join?

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@beasts@social.mythic-beasts.com, we run our own instance (on a Raspberry Pi in our Raspberry PI cloud).

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I jumped on one of the major instances to get started but might move over to my own one. It doesn’t really matter because it is all federated and even if RIPE (NCC) where to start their own instance (which I think would help with authenticity) people from other instances following you would let the “toots” end up in de so called “federated timeline”.

Also no permanent favourites and I think Twitter is nearing its best before use date under the current leadership…

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“I don’t support the current thing” and can be found on IRC and mailinglists. Works. No need to change.
Why all this fragmentation?

:clown_face:

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Yes, becha@v.st

  • please connect with me there is you are using it too!
  • drop your handle so I can find you there
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I went “local” and use @wtremmel@hessen.social - for people living in the state of Hessen, Germany. Not sure if I stay there, but at the moment the place to follow me.

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I also have been on the fediverse for some time . We have got some network operators running some instances here and there, and the community (ripe, hackers, operators and more) is gathering there. Find me and add me : @PorCus@hostux.social .

However, remember that most operators are also still hanging out on IRC, oldie but goodie. It’s not about replacing, it’s all about diversity :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Will

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while everybody of course can use whatever they want, I strongly support that the RIPE NCC sets up their own instance for “official” toots…

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It’s good fun! I setup my own instance for vanity and learning reasons. @andyd@andyd.uk

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I’m @job@bsd.network

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I’m @alarig@hostux.social

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I’m @5SpeedFun@aus.social I keep my account locked on twitter & no longer reply or like.

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Both @julf@social.secret-wg.org and @Julf@mastodon.social, redundancy is a good thing…

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Thanks everyone - I’m also curious about the difference between having an account and hosting your own instance. Any good tips on that?

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I’d be very wary of running your own instance unless you’re happy to deal with all the headaches of moderating content, keeping it up to date etc.,
Of course when you join a public server you’re at the mercy of their IT team (assuming they even have one) and how well they’re funded etc.,

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You can find me at Hans Petter Holen (@hph@infosec.exchange) - Infosec Exchange as @hph@infosec.exchange
and Hans Petter Holen (@hph@oslo.town) - Ditt lokale sosiale nettverk — oslo.town as @hph@oslo.town

Here is a short description on how to get started: A Twitter Off Ramp | Patricia Aas - Programmer

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Mastodon is not safe to use because it is decentralized structure poses secuirty challenges, risk facing its users are same face people using twitter or any other social media site or even open source software.

this is very productive information.

Responding because this got linked in my Mastodon feed. (Content spreads very quickly to the people who want to see it on Mastodon: the right content can be more viral than Twitter)

With Mastodon, you can do a few different things. I, personally, have several accounts on different servers, so I can maintain somewhat separate feeds of content. For instance, my techhub.social account is for representing myself as a tech professional. Different servers specialize in different content. By default, you can post on any server with an account from any other server, but individual servers can maintain their own lists of other servers with which they can do anything from having the content relayed to them as if it was in-server, setting it so content from that server won’t appear in the timeline, to blocking all interaction with that server entirely. This is very useful for stopping the flow of toxicity, but also just curating a feed of content that people want to see while filtering out things they don’t.

If you start your own server, you can do all sorts of things, like linking it to your forum profiles so that the accounts are the same, making it private so that people you don’t know don’t start using it (which fixes most of the moderation concern I saw). You can customize it however you want, even block other servers you don’t want content from (most servers block Gab, the libertarian one, and Truth.Social, the Trump one). Conversely, you could also go talk to one of the server admins for Hachyderm or something, and work out some sort of situation on their server… Actually, I would recommend you go talk to one of them on Mastodon, because that will probably give you better insight than you will get in this thread.

Mastodon is also open source, meaning not only are features constantly added, but various servers have made their own patches with non-standard features, which you can also do. Someone said there was a security risk, and it needs to be stated, Mastodon is a mature open source project, meaning anyone can report and patch a security risk, so, in that sense, security support is comparable to Linux: any vulnerability that skilled hackers have seen has been patched.

Anyway, personally, I think Mastodon is the best social network I’ve ever used. It’s fun, it’s insightful, it’s got plenty of options, and there’s less toxicity than most other groups, and you don’t have to worry about some billionaire buying it up and creating chaos, or even it ever shutting down, because the protocol is open and all of the servers are independent. I’d recommend every organization get involved there, because it’s absolutely taking off.

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I’m so grateful you saw my Mastodon post - and thank you for such detailed & thoughtful response!

(and I agree with many of the features you point out: open source, decentralisation, advantages of running own server, linking forum (in NCC case SSO) profiles to own accounts…)

Cheers, and see you in the Fediverse!

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