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Write Freely is a minimalist blogging platform for the Fediverse, with a focus on the text itself. You can find out more on its website at:
You can follow the official account at:
There's an official list of Write Freely servers you can sign up on at https://writefreely.org/instances and there are many others out there which aren't on the list.
Yup, it's not a new trick on here either.
It seems to reappear every time there is a news story about a government somewhere demanding ID verification, the scammers are counting on people thinking it is now a requirement.
Hopefully they have given up!
However, there have been several previous waves of almost identical scams, so it's useful anyway to warn people against this.
I'm guessing they repeated this scam today because verification has been in the news today (due to France's ID decision), and this kind of news helps scammers gain credibility. Previous scam waves have happened when verification laws have been in the news too.
p.s. The scammers are apparently messaging people about "suspicious activity" and "guideline violations" claiming that the victim's Mastodon account will be deleted if they don't verify their identity within 24 hours.
This is a lie designed by the scammers to panic their victims into sending personal details without pausing to think.
Genuine Mastodon admins never ever send messages like that.
(Thanks again to @amministratore for the extra details!)
There's apparently scammers going round pretending to be Mastodon admins, demanding people "verify their identity".
Do not click on their links, do not give them any info. It is a scam. Genuine Mastodon server admins never demand verification like this.
Here's a guide to how to recognise and avoid various kinds of scams on Mastodon and the wider Fediverse:
️ https://fedi.tips/how-to-avoid-scammers-on-mastodon-and-the-fediverse
(Thanks to @amministratore for providing warning about the latest wave of scam posts.)
Not really, it's just an option at Preferences > Other > Group Boosts which you can switch off or on. You still see the same boosts either way, it just determines how often you see them 
Technically anything running on a computer is an algorithm, but most people don't use that meaning?
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
@masukomi @atarifrosch @jernej__s @hyc
These suggestions have already been made by many people (including myself) on the related issue at https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/18693 so the developers are aware of them.
I'm not sure why they are going with a simple number change, but guessing that this is quicker and easier to do (and possibly uses fewer server resources?).
Mastodon has a built-in system to prevent you seeing the same post boosted again and again. However, it allows boosts to reappear if 40 other posts have passed through your main timeline, and this is why you may see the same boost repeated.
As the Fediverse is now much busier, Mastodon's devs are raising this number to 80 other posts (technical details are at https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/39784). This should hopefully be in the next update.
(Thanks to @nitrml for pointing this out 
)
It's fine to use a single account for multiple purposes, if that server type supports what you want to do
There are some situations where alternative accounts might be better, e.g. if you are posting videos it's better to use a PeerTube account as it has more reliable and flexible video support than microblogging platforms. People on Mastodon can follow and interact with your PeerTube account.
There are many specialised Fediverse servers: https://fedi.tips/what-other-kinds-of-servers-are-on-the-fediverse/
Welcome Melaniart 
This guide might be useful, it describes all the methods for discovering accounts to follow on here: https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-find-accounts-to-follow-on-mastodon-and-the-fediverse-how-do-i-find-my-friends
It's a discussion group similar to email discussion groups that used to exist in the 1990s/2000s. Members send posts to the group, the group relays it to the rest of the group's followers.
If you're following/posting then it is available on every server.
If you're creating/managing then it does indeed require signing up on a specific server.
There's currently no direct way to do this, or for the poster to hide their self-replies.
Usually the best solution is for the person posting essays to use a server or platform that has extremely long character limits, which automatically hides most of the post in Mastodon.
If you are following Cory Doctorow, he has a workaround by using a specific phrase in each post of his self-replies. You can use Mastodon's Filters to detect this phrase (more info https://fedi.tips/filtering-your-timeline-to-hide-posts-on-mastodon/).
Welcome Insane_kid!
If you want help with anything specific, please feel free to ask! I am trying to be an unofficial support account
There is also lots of easy-to-understand help for new people on the website at https://fedi.tips
There are only four ways that posts can appear in your main Mastodon timeline:
- You follow the account that made the post
- You follow an account that shared the post
- You follow a hashtag that is included in the post
- You follow a group that shared the post
If you see a post in your main timeline that doesn't seem to fit into any of these categories, this guide might help you find out what is going on:
️ https://fedi.tips/why-is-a-post-appearing-in-my-mastodon-timeline-i-dont-understand-how-it-got-there
The nearest issue for this is https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/21632 and that mentions the Pachli third party app allows hiding self-boosts.
(BTW the description in the issue of why self-boosts happen is a bit misleading or at least incomplete. Usually self-boosts on the Fediverse are done due to the chronological timeline, so that people can reach followers in other time zones. Some followers may be asleep at the time of the original posting and never see them without self-boosts.)
1) This might answer your question about what the Fediverse is: https://fedi.tips/what-is-mastodon-what-is-the-fediverse
2) Yes, the idea of the Fediverse is to use a federated structure similar to the phone network or email. Whichever provider you use, you can seamlessly communicate and interact with people who use other providers.
3) You don't need to have accounts on other instances, for the same reason you don't need to have email accounts on other email providers, or SIMs from other phone providers.
Yup, first thing to do is the language filters, but that does depend on people posting with the correct settings (as autodetection is flaky for short amounts of text).
I see you're the only user on your instance? Are you using a general relay to fill your instance with content? General relays can send way too much stuff, you might want to use more specific keyword relays in your preferred languages?
Welcome Dream Walker, feel free to ask if you want help with anything specific