If you have any questions about using Mastodon or the wider Fediverse, please post them in the replies and I'll try to find you some answers.
-
@FediTips hmm... when I go to "explore" it just seems to be a repeat of my 'home' feed...
Are you viewing it through the website?
At least when I've tried it with a mastodon.social account it shows trends?
-
How are you trying to add it? Is it an option in a mobile app?
If you're using the "add text from image", that just copies text in the image, it doesn't provide a description.
(Manual descriptions tend to be better anyway as the person posting understands the point of an image and doesn't bother with irrelevant details.)
Ahh, that solves it then. I thought the "add text from image" meant it would create alt txt from the image. Now I know, so thank you
-
Ahh okay, yeah it does seem to have a lot of features
Some server types do go down the "lots of features" route, Friendica is another one.
However, what usually happens is that each feature isn't as good as it is on a specialised platform. For example PeerTube is dedicated to video so it has much better features for hosting long videos, livestreaming, doing playlists, sharing bandwidth etc.
So, it's always a trade-off when developing features.
Thanks for the info
-
If you have any questions about using Mastodon or the wider Fediverse, please post them in the replies and I'll try to find you some answers.
It would be especially nice to hear from new people and people who aren't confident about technical matters. There is absolutely no such thing as a silly question!
@FediTips Is there a consolidated guide anywhere about how the different Fediverse platforms interact with each other? Like I know I can browse PieFed or Lemmy communities from a Mastodon server by looking at the boosts, but how can I browse Mastodon from PieFed or Lemmy? How can I view Mastodon posts from Pixelfed? What does a favorite from Mastodon translate to on another platform?
That's been my primary question about the federated platforms.
-
@FediTips Is there a consolidated guide anywhere about how the different Fediverse platforms interact with each other? Like I know I can browse PieFed or Lemmy communities from a Mastodon server by looking at the boosts, but how can I browse Mastodon from PieFed or Lemmy? How can I view Mastodon posts from Pixelfed? What does a favorite from Mastodon translate to on another platform?
That's been my primary question about the federated platforms.
As far as I know there's no complete guide anywhere, probably because there are so many platforms and they are constantly changing so it would be quite labour-intensive for a volunteer to create and maintain.
Favourites on Mastodon generally translate to the equivalent of likes on other platforms (e.g. on PeerTube a Mastodon favourite becomes a thumbs up).
Pixelfed lets you view Mastodon posts by following Mastodon accounts, but by default it only shows posts with images or videos.
-
Are you viewing it through the website?
At least when I've tried it with a mastodon.social account it shows trends?
I can still see trending posts on the mastodon.social server
I don't know how you would access it but here's a link:
https://mastodon.social/explore
cc: @FediTips
-
If you have any questions about using Mastodon or the wider Fediverse, please post them in the replies and I'll try to find you some answers.
It would be especially nice to hear from new people and people who aren't confident about technical matters. There is absolutely no such thing as a silly question!
@FediTips Why is it that when a user posts multiple related messages (e.g., a poem posted stanza by stanza [for why I don’t know]), I see them in reverse order. And sometime interlarded w unrelated posts)?
-
I'm not sure, its profile isn't visible, but from the name it sounds like it's there to help federate the posts of certain accounts onto its server.
-
If you have any questions about using Mastodon or the wider Fediverse, please post them in the replies and I'll try to find you some answers.
It would be especially nice to hear from new people and people who aren't confident about technical matters. There is absolutely no such thing as a silly question!
-
If you have any questions about using Mastodon or the wider Fediverse, please post them in the replies and I'll try to find you some answers.
It would be especially nice to hear from new people and people who aren't confident about technical matters. There is absolutely no such thing as a silly question!
@FediTips How come c.im no longer has translate option? Is there a work-around?
-
If you have any questions about using Mastodon or the wider Fediverse, please post them in the replies and I'll try to find you some answers.
It would be especially nice to hear from new people and people who aren't confident about technical matters. There is absolutely no such thing as a silly question!
@FediTips I’ll volunteer the first stupid question! I’d like to respond to this post, but only to FediTips and not have the rest of the Fediverse read it. Many times I’ve wanted to respond directly and individually to a post but don’t see how to do that. I’m used to other platforms where it’s clearer. How do I do that?
-
If you have any questions about using Mastodon or the wider Fediverse, please post them in the replies and I'll try to find you some answers.
It would be especially nice to hear from new people and people who aren't confident about technical matters. There is absolutely no such thing as a silly question!
@FediTips i have one - why did mastodon change the format?
-
@FediTips i have one - why did mastodon change the format?
The format of the website interface?
They did a post about their reasons at https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/10/5.0-a-closer-look/
-
@FediTips I’ll volunteer the first stupid question! I’d like to respond to this post, but only to FediTips and not have the rest of the Fediverse read it. Many times I’ve wanted to respond directly and individually to a post but don’t see how to do that. I’m used to other platforms where it’s clearer. How do I do that?
Not a stupid question at all!
You can change who sees posts or replies by adjusting their "visibility setting".
The visibility setting is visible above your post or reply and looks like "
️ Public" or something similar. Click on this, then change it to "Private mention" or "Only people I mention", then save the setting.You can also set a particular visibility to be your default, if you prefer not to use public by default.
More info about all of this at https://fedi.tips/who-can-see-my-posts-in-mastodon-how-do-i-send-dms-in-mastodon/
-
@FediTips How come c.im no longer has translate option? Is there a work-around?
"Translate" is there if the admin has paid for a translation service, but this costs them money every month and there is a limit on queries per month so this option may sometimes disappear.
Ask your server admin if you want to find out the exact situation on your serrver.
A workaround would be copy-pasting the text into a different translation app or site.
-
@MuhammadFreeSoftware @vnikolov
If one person follows an account, all of that account's posts from that moment onward will appear on that person's server.
So, if a server has a bot following good accounts, those good accounts' posts will start being visible to everyone on that server.
The reason it works like this is to keep server running costs low enough so that any person or group can afford to start their own.
-
@FediTips Why is it that when a user posts multiple related messages (e.g., a poem posted stanza by stanza [for why I don’t know]), I see them in reverse order. And sometime interlarded w unrelated posts)?
If you're looking at your normal "Home" timeline you see the latest posts at the top, so the related messages (also called a "thread") appear to be in reverse order. The unrelated posts are from other accounts you follow which have posted at around the same time.
If you click on any one of these related messages, you will see the entire thread in the correct order instead, plus all of its replies below the thread. The unrelated posts will disappear while viewing a thread.
-
If you have any questions about using Mastodon or the wider Fediverse, please post them in the replies and I'll try to find you some answers.
It would be especially nice to hear from new people and people who aren't confident about technical matters. There is absolutely no such thing as a silly question!
@FediTips
Thanks, just thought of a question. FYI, I'm using Mastodon web interface, not an app.Does anyone know why some posts (not content warning posts) have a blurred image with the message "Preview not available, click to open"?
If I click the image then a new tab opens with clear image but there's no way to see alt text. My workaround is select "open original message" from the menu.
I wonder what cases this? It does not matter whether it's someone I follow or not.
-
@FediTips
Thanks, just thought of a question. FYI, I'm using Mastodon web interface, not an app.Does anyone know why some posts (not content warning posts) have a blurred image with the message "Preview not available, click to open"?
If I click the image then a new tab opens with clear image but there's no way to see alt text. My workaround is select "open original message" from the menu.
I wonder what cases this? It does not matter whether it's someone I follow or not.
That looks like it might be an image for which there's no cached version stored on your server, that's why it works when you view it on its original server.
Servers may restrict how long they store images from other servers, in order to reduce their storage costs. Most old posts are never viewed again, so most of the time people don't notice if the image isn't stored.
Normally if you view an old post it fetches the image again, but sometimes it shows "preview not available".
-
That looks like it might be an image for which there's no cached version stored on your server, that's why it works when you view it on its original server.
Servers may restrict how long they store images from other servers, in order to reduce their storage costs. Most old posts are never viewed again, so most of the time people don't notice if the image isn't stored.
Normally if you view an old post it fetches the image again, but sometimes it shows "preview not available".
Would this also happen on brand new posts, not old posts?
I see it on posts from people I follow, on posts from our server's trending list, and also posts that show up in my feed because I follow a hashtag. I think whenever I see this it is on relatively new posts - could be anywhere from 5 minutes to a few hours.
I just went back and found the post I used as an example (it's from about 2 hours ago) and now it is showing up.
Maybe it's a delay?
