I have recently switched to Mastodon from Twitter (due to Mr Musk). I have to say I utterly love it. Mastodon truly isBrill.com for me.

Until the recent influx, the Mastodon community has been small and carefully curated — and mostly made up of hobbyists with a geekish bent. Because of this, interactions on Mastodon feel a bit different from those on Twitter. “Mastodon is really great for conversations, and it seems a lot more intimate,” says Catherine Flick, who researches computing and social responsibility at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK.

Should I join Mastodon? A scientists’ guide to Twitter’s rival, Nature

What is Mastodon?

Mastodon is free and open-source software for running self-hosted social networking services. It has microblogging features similar to the Twitter service, which are offered by a large number of independently run nodes, known as instances, each with its own code of conduct, terms of service, privacy options, and moderation policies.

Mastodon (software), Wikipedia

Here is a (YouTube) video that explains Mastodon

For reasons that escape me, this video can be a bit slow to appear. The isBrill.com cache is working as hard as it can but sometimes you just have to give it a minute. (If that’s too slow, there is a direct link at the bottom of the page).

Mastodon jargan & slang

I’m maintaining a glossary of jargon and slang from Mastodon.

Words you might want to look up include BirdSite, Toot, Instance, Boot, Favourite, and Bookmark. Knowing WTF these things are will make your first days on a Mastodon server much more enjoyable.

It can be found here.

Instance: Also called a server, this is where you call home. It is where your profile lives. Some instances have themes or topics so your fellow local users are likely all interested in the same stuff.

Mastodon Jargon & Slang, Mastodon.isBrill.com

Mastodon plays well with others

Mastodon servers run social networking software that is capable of communicating using W3C’s ActivityPub standard, which has been implemented since version 1.6. A Mastodon user can therefore interact with users on any other server in the Fediverse that supports ActivityPub.

Mastodon (software), Wikipedia

Help links and further reading

• Mastodon: a partial history
• What is Mastodon? All you need to know to switch from Twitter, Stuff
• Real long aggregation of Mastodon etiquette for birdsite expats
• What is Mastodon? (YouTube)

Nerd details

• Mastodon’s colour pallet in hex can be found here.

Don’t mind me.
Just getting the chairs out.
This page will be better soon.