Day 1 on Mastodon and I already love that there's no algorithm screaming at me What should I know as a newbie?
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Two things:
There isn't any really good way to search as far as I can tell.
One aspect of the federated nature and lack of central control is that you won't see all toots that meet your criteria. You will see posts answering posts you can't see. Clicking on the three dots at the lower right and choosing "open original page" may help with that. But it may not.
Things to consider in a few months if you are still here:
If you can afford it, kick in some money to whoever is running your instance.
There are settings to automatically delete your old posts after X months, unless they meet conditions Y. Doing this makes things easier for your instance provider.
Note that one of the points of the system here is to make it easy to change to another instance if you aren't happy with yours.
(Your instance is mstdn.social, by the way.)
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Things to consider in a few months if you are still here:
If you can afford it, kick in some money to whoever is running your instance.
There are settings to automatically delete your old posts after X months, unless they meet conditions Y. Doing this makes things easier for your instance provider.
Note that one of the points of the system here is to make it easy to change to another instance if you aren't happy with yours.
(Your instance is mstdn.social, by the way.)
There is also a way to download all your old posts and stuff and archive them.
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@Katherinesalom A few more sobering ones:
* Some people get almost to the point of bullying... about how you 'must' use alt-text on images. (Yes, you prob. should for accessibility, but it's a time consuming thing, and demanding it is rude)
* Stay off the fedidrama hashtags, etc. - they'll just depress you (it's about drama between the admins, etc of the different instances)Other than those two? Welcome aboard. I hope you find lovely people to follow, etc.
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Welcome
If you like posting images & you want to reply to another thread with something posted on your timeline, you don't need to re-upload the same image twice.
Insert the URL link to the original post containing the image into your new reply to quote toot the image.
This coloring & pixel cleanup was produced by me via GNU image manipulation program on Debian/Linux and 2x upscayler @ 11th of March, 2025.
Take care & be well.
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@Katherinesalom Hello from Dublin
and welcome! 
I see that you have a cat, so you may be interested in the #Caturday hashtag.
(Others may already have mentioned this, but you can 'follow' hashtags here - so that any post using the hashtags you follow will appear in your timeline. Magic!)
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@Katherinesalom Hello from Dublin
and welcome! I see that you have a cat, so you may be interested in the #Caturday hashtag.
(Others may already have mentioned this, but you can 'follow' hashtags here - so that any post using the hashtags you follow will appear in your timeline. Magic!)
@clickhere Thanks For Your Suggestion Dublin I'll do what you've said right away
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Hi! Happy to have you
I highly recommend following @FediTips as well as @FediFollows for great recommendations -
@Katherinesalom Haha some of the replies here about alt text are goofy. It's good to use it because many of us are blind and can't participate fully if you don't, but it's also good for sighted people who have bad internet connections where images don't load well, or people with cognitive disabilities who need the additional context to understand what's in a photo, and many people find that once they start including it consistently, they enjoy the process of writing it. It can be an art form in itself. And if you don't have the spoons for it, the #alt4me hashtag can connect you with people who do and are willing to describe your photos for you. I think there might also be a bot you can mention that will do it, but I don't know what it is off the top of my head.
Basically there are a lot of benefits to alt text and resources for those who are unable to write it themselves, and not a lot of good reasons to leave it out. That's why people sometimes get spicy replies for failing to include it.
Aside from that, most of the tips have been covered. Follow people, boost a lot, check out the posters other people are boosting into your feed and follow them. Search hashtags that are relevant to your interests and follow those. Look at what's going on in your local timeline, where the other members of your server are posting publicly. Block and mute freely. Interact with people in replies.
Welcome to Mastodon! I hope you find your people.
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@Katherinesalom Oh! I've seen lists noted elsewhere, but the way I find them most useful is to have a "Personal" list -- i.e., a "I really know these people and would be very sad to miss updates from them".
Then, this is key for me: PIN IT on the deck view on the web client. So it's always column three for me, after the main feed and my notifications.
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@Katherinesalom my best tip is to follow @FediTips
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Welcome Katherine!
You can find lots of guides for new people on the website at https://fedi.tips and there's a section at the top of the front page marked "Quick Start" which has the most relevant guides for newbies.
Feel free to ask if you want help with anything specific, I'm trying to provide an unofficial support service on here
