Mastodon

[darkoshi]

I have signed up for a Mastodon account on the https://im-in.space/ instance. The "I'm in space" name seemed nicely amusing to me, and the site has a cute spinning spaceship gif too. More importantly, the instance still had open sign-ups available, which many of the other smaller instances I looked at didn't, due to spam or capacity issues.

I looked up the name before signing up, so I did realize that it (and the spaceship gif) are actually references to Portal 2, even though I've never played the game.

Trying to use Mastodon, I'm feeling sort of like I did when I started using Facebook. I've never had a Twitter account, so I'm a newbie in terms of micro-blogging sites too. Some things aren't very intuitive to me. Some things which I feel one surely ought to be able to customize, apparently can't be. Im-in.space is a GlitchSoc instance, so I'm not sure if that makes a difference to these things or not.

There's a page which shows the stuff I've posted: https://im-in.space/@darkoshi

There's a "dashboard"-style page: https://im-in.space/web/getting-started
with 4 columns:
1st column has a text box where I can post a message.
2nd column shows notifications
3rd column shows a feed of posts from the people I've followed.
4th column shows navigation options.

But what if I want the text box for writing posts to be larger, rather than in that narrow column?
What if I want to view the posts of the people I've followed on it's own page (like DW's reading page), rather than having it squeezed into less than 25% the width of my browser?
The only way I've seen to do that is to switch the layout to mobile view... which actually doesn't look that bad now. So, guess this is no longer an issue for me.

When I tried the mobile view on my laptop before, it looked different (dunno why), awful. Now it's ok, but I still wish the text would be centered, and take up say, 50 to 75% of the browser width (more like my DW page) rather than being left-adjusted on the page. And I don't see a way to customize the page colors.

The other thing that has been confusing me is how protected posts are handled between instances.

When I view my feed (on my instance), it includes the protected entries posted by the people I've followed on another instance. When I view their page (on their instance), it doesn't show the protected posts. That makes sense in retrospect, as the other site doesn't know who I am, as I'm logged into my instance, not their instance.

But there are some posts that I see when viewing the posts on the other instance, which I don't see in my feed. The reply button only shows up on posts in my feed, not when viewing the page on the other instance. So I can't reply to those mystery posts.
I think it has something to do with whether the entry was posted public vs unlisted vs followers-only, but I'm not sure. (I was thinking there was a way to post only to one's own instance? Maybe then it doesn't go out to followers on other instances?) Maybe it's a bug, but I'm not sure.

Comments

[randomdreams]

I'm active on diaspora. I hadn't previously had reason to do so but I'll try to figure out how to follow your mastodon feed.

[darkoshi]

Thanks, though I'm not sure if Diaspora and Mastodon are compatible - did a search now and it sounds like they aren't. I probably won't be posting much on Mastodon though; mainly wanted to follow some other people. I still like Dreamwidth's interface better.

[randomdreams]

My understanding is that hubzilla and friendica can crosspost to both, so in theory... (I also think I have a friend on diaspora who has crossposted. I'll ask.)

[nozomi604]

I sent you a follow request. Mastodon has a steep learning curve, and I still don't know how to really use it; on Twitter, you can click on a post and go straight to its thread, but on Mast the discussions don't seem to work like that. It could use a general search feature, too. But I'll give it a try and hope that people smarter than I am will work out the kinks.

[darkoshi]

Thanks, I followed you back. I see 2 posts on your page, but they aren't in my home feed as of now. Perhaps because you posted them before I followed you, but I'm not sure.

I've got 5 posts on my page: https://im-in.space/@darkoshi
1 of them I just posted now.
In case you can't see them there, or can't see all of them from your "home" page, let me know.. they are showing lock symbols which I didn't notice before, and I'm not sure what that means.

[darkoshi]

I found a Mastodon user guide, which helps explain a lot:
https://github.com/tootsuite/documentation/blob/master/Using-Mastodon/User-guide.md

The lock symbols by my user name means that my account is set as private/locked, ie. I can approve or deny when people want to follow me.

Based on something I read on another page, one doesn't normally see posts from before one started following someone. So that explains that part.

[nozomi604]

It's the same for me. I can see all 5 posts on your page, but my feed only shows your most recent one from today.

Maybe the lock means that you have to approve any followers?

[charcoalfeathers]

Quickly answering a few things...

Mastodon is based on an open protocol called Activity Pub, which is designed to act like federated Twitter. But a bunch of actual servers implement it (Mastodon, Pleroma, etc). The servers talk to each other to make the federation happen. At that time, follow lists are exchanged. So if you browse to the foreign instance, it has no idea who you are and won't show you followers only posts. If you view through your home instance, it's available. The posts are transferred to your home instance for viewing.

Follows also control who is shown where in the federated timeline. Since I follow you, weirder earth will show some of your public stuff in its global timeline.

Particular point of interest in all the above: if you send me a PM, or a followers only post that I receive, the admin of weirder earth could read it if he were unscrupulous, since it transfers. I mean, he's not, he's a cool guy. :) But something to be aware of.

[darkoshi]

Yes, the privacy aspect sounds like it has too many potential loopholes, to rely on it. But I'm not planning to post anything very private over there, at least for now.