The third in our blog post series is by @haubles - sharing our work and ideas around how to grow and nurture the community, for everyone.
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The third in our blog post series is by @haubles - sharing our work and ideas around how to grow and nurture the community, for everyone. #Mastodon #Fediverse #SocialWeb
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/02/mastodon-is-for-the-people/
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@haubles to Twitter, not studies in higher science of decentralisation.
I'm exaggerating (I was on Mastodon already in the beginnings, had left then, came back), but that's how it is for most people who test if they stay here.* with the first login, just a button.
I don't mind if you critique my work! Your feedback makes the work better. I'm listening to everything you all are sharing with me, and we'll update what we've done and use it to help shape what comes next.
I'm in some meetings right now, but I'll respond more fully in a bit when I'm free.
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I don't mind if you critique my work! Your feedback makes the work better. I'm listening to everything you all are sharing with me, and we'll update what we've done and use it to help shape what comes next.
I'm in some meetings right now, but I'll respond more fully in a bit when I'm free.
@haubles Thank you!
And take all the time you need!
@pixelcats @FediTips @Mastodon -
@haubles Thank you!
And take all the time you need!
@pixelcats @FediTips @Mastodon@haubles When you start building your new system of static help articles, make sure you make it translatable so that people who use Mastodon with a UI language other than English can use it more easily.
Maybe you could even reuse the translations from Mastodon and the Mastodon Apps themselves to translate referenced UI elements to ensure consistency?
@NatureMC @pixelcats @FediTips @Mastodon -
@Mastodon @haubles All good ideas!
Some note: why do you set up a help center for mastodon.social only? (While saying you want to open up for other instances) Can't you collaborate (if they want) with @FediTips who wrote a perfect #guide for the *whole* #Mastodon, in a clear language on the point and easy to understand for non-techies/newcomers? You don't have to reinvent the wheel for everything.
And thanks for the warning that mastodon.online will become an experimentation field.
@NatureMC This is mostly because we have an easy way to do it for mastodon.social using our help desk software, but this can not be contributed to by the community.
We plan to transform this into a community-based help center but this will need some time for us to build this new website in the open.
@Mastodon @haubles @FediTips -
@haubles When you start building your new system of static help articles, make sure you make it translatable so that people who use Mastodon with a UI language other than English can use it more easily.
Maybe you could even reuse the translations from Mastodon and the Mastodon Apps themselves to translate referenced UI elements to ensure consistency?
@NatureMC @pixelcats @FediTips @MastodonThanks for pointing this out - we definitely will! Like Renaud said, the application we use for our help desk came with this mini-site feature, and it was a "good enough" way to get these published so the community could react. (It's also helpful to have them hosted in the same app so support can send them easily.) But it's definitely not their forever home! Moving them will unlock lots of ways the community can contribute in ways like translations and proposing changes to or adding new content
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Thanks for pointing this out - we definitely will! Like Renaud said, the application we use for our help desk came with this mini-site feature, and it was a "good enough" way to get these published so the community could react. (It's also helpful to have them hosted in the same app so support can send them easily.) But it's definitely not their forever home! Moving them will unlock lots of ways the community can contribute in ways like translations and proposing changes to or adding new content
@haubles That's good to hear. Having to move to a different tool twice because you overlooked something would suck big time.
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@haubles That's good to hear. Having to move to a different tool twice because you overlooked something would suck big time.
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@haubles Thank you!
And take all the time you need!
@pixelcats @FediTips @Mastodon```
most people from large platforms are not techies, speak a different language, and are looking for specific centralised* help quickly. Otherwise, they'll leave again.
```Agreed, and we do not intend for the Help Centre to become an overall centralised guide to the fediverse. You all are right - we already have that. I just added a link to fedi.tips to the fediquette guide.
```
For more reading about all things fediverse:
— Fedi.tips is an unofficial non-technical guide to using Mastodon and the wider Fediverse.
```
What else should we add?
And - Mastodon.org needs to do more to help non-techies get onboard and up to speed with our software. We launched it as a mastodon.social resource because it's so deeply integrated with our helpdesk and we can't really provide support to anyone not using our servers/ default Mastodon-OSS. But! We expect it is useful to others running default Mastodon-OSS now, and it will become more useful to them as we continue developing it.
Like you said, people need help quickly. To achieve that for Mastodon-OSS, we want to apply just-in-time learning principles. Practically, that means the the support articles will be linked from within the software, and even _built in_ to the software in some places, so people get the help they need exactly when they need it.
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Not at all! I love @FediTips, I boost their posts and send links to their work often. Our Help Centre is specifically geared towards Mastodon.social users, and the #fediquette guide is intended as a quick primer to help people get up to speed on our cultural norms.
When it comes to getting the word out about the #Fediverse, and educating people about how to have a good time here, I generally take the attitude more better!
@MastodonYeah, to make clear, Hannah has been great at responding to queries and listening patiently to criticism! I think that comes through in this thread for example?
And yes it's good to have more than one source of tech support. I encourage people to do their own support sites and/or use my text as a basis if they want to as it's available under CC-By-SA. I don't want to end up as a single point of failure on a site encouraging decentralisation
