A new community can seem intimidating but with this guide, you will be tooting with the best of them in no time. At least I hope so. I am pretty new here myself. Words in bold have their own definitions.
A
- ActivityPub
- A protocol for decentralized social networks and platforms supported by Mastodon. This means that many other similar federated microblogging sites can interact with Mastodon too.
- Administrator(s)
- The person or persons in charge of keeping your instance up and running. Odds are they pay for this out of their own pocket. Consider buying them a coffee or making a donation.
- Algorithm
- There is no algorithm on Mastodon. You get whatever content you followed. If you want a toot (post) to be seen by more people you can boost it.
B
- Birdsite
- A term often used for Twitter
- Block or blocking
- Something you can do on a per-user basis or for entire instances if you want. Mastodon blocking is significantly more effective than on birdsite.
- Bookmark
- As you might expect, a way to save something for later.
- Boost
- Something like share or reblog in other settings. This is how you make sure your followers see the toots you like.
C
- CW:
- Shorthand for Content Warning.
- Camel Case
- Words without spaces but with capitalised first letters to keep them readable. The community favours hashtags with each word capitalised as this makes it easier to read. For example #ThisExampleIsBrill.
- Content Warning
- A method of hiding things such as spoilers, hot takes on politics or triggering material in your toots. There is no rule on what you should or should not content warned about but doing so on potentially intrusive content is considered polite. CW content is hidden until a user presses “show”.
- Content Wrapper
- Also known as Content Warning. (see also CW)
F
- Favourite
- Lets the toot author know that you appreciated what they shared and/or that you agree. It does not do anything else. (see also: algorithm)
- Federated
- It means that it is spread out but still works as if it were one bigger thing (without being one bigger thing).
- Federated timeline
- This is the feed of everything that has been pulled to your instance (server) from other instances because local users have subscribed to them.
- Fediverse
- The universe of federated stuff. Using various standards, Mastodon servers can interact with and share to and from other types of sites.
- Followers
- People that want to see your updates. This is pretty much exactly what you think it is.
- Friendica
- Friendica is a distributed social network which part of the Fediverse. Friendica users can integrate contacts from Twitter, Diaspora, Pump.io, StatusNet, Mastodon, Pleroma, and Pixelfedinto their ‘newsfeed’. Largely thanks to ActivityPub.
H
- Hashtag
- One or more words prefixed with the hash (sometimes called pound) character. This is a way to make content discoverable by people who do not follow you. #LikeThis (see also Camel Case)
I
- 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.
L
- Local or Local Timeline
- Users (and toots) on the same place you call home. For example mastodon.social or extra.niche.stuff.org – that sort of thing.
M
- Microblogging
- A term meaning sharing short (usually text stuff) both Twitter and Mastodon are microblogging systems.
N
- No post-quoting
- Quoted retweets are specifically not a thing on Mastodon. This was a choice to make harassment harder. The community prefers to boot and/or comment instead.
P
- PeerTube
- If YouTube ran on the Mastodon model it might be like PeerTube. PeerTube is a free and open-source, decentralized, ActivityPub federated video platform powered by WebTorrent, that uses peer-to-peer technology to reduce the load on individual servers when viewing videos.
- Privacy
- Levels of privacy for your toots are: public, unlisted, followers only, and mentioned people only. You should probably refrain from sharing highly sensitive data anyway
S
- Server
- The host for your account and your fellow local users – also called an instance
- Spoilers
- Information or content that will spoil programs or events you have yet to watch. You can use CW to hide spoilers so people who are not as up-to-date on a series you both enjoy can read your toot without fear of it ruining a plot point or event.
T
- Toot
- The update that you post, boost, favourite, or bookmark – much like a tweet on Twitter (see also: birdsite)
This is probably not complete. Please feel free to contact me about omissions or corrections. My details are in the Brill Roll (sidebar).