p.p.s. I've just done a guide all about how to deal with scams and scammers on the Fediverse at:

️ https://fedi.tips/how-to-avoid-scammers-on-mastodon-and-the-fediverse

I've tried to cover all the known scams and questions people have about dealing with them. If I'm missing anything from this please let me know.

@lonelyboy1977

Feel free to ask if you have any other questions, I'm trying to provide unofficial tech support here

@sero_one @zleap

There are ways to say you don't give permission for it to be used, but the scrapers seem to just ignore them and scrape anything publicly visible

AI bots also scrape pirate sites, so they know they're using stuff without permission but don't care. And it's worse than piracy because they're removing the original creator's credit and pretending it's a new work generated by the AI.

@ruud

Okay, good to hear!

p.s. Another couple of scams to watch out for as well:

- Scammers saying you need to verify by clicking on a link. Admins will NEVER demand you verify. The verification system on Mastodon is optional and does not involve credit cards or any kind of payment.

- Scammers saying you need to temporarily change your account's email address. Admins will NEVER do this. This is done by scammers who want to take over your account, which is possible if you change your email to match theirs.

@EricBono

Yup, that's an older scam they've brought back it seems. I'll do a follow-up post about that as well.

No admin will ever demand you verify your account. The verification system on here is optional and works using websites and not links like that.

@kaveinthran @menelion @TheQuinbox

Servers are independent, there's no way for other servers to delete posts from your server. Other servers might block someone, but it wouldn't affect the original post on your server.

There are a couple of things that might make posts disappear:

One possibility is if the server's content retention period isn't blank, more info at https://fedi.tips/mastodon-admins-leave-the-content-cache-retention-period-blank

Another is if the user has switched on auto-delete for their posts, more info at https://fedi.tips/deleting-posts-automatically-in-mastodon-after-a-certain-time-period/

@OneInterestingFact

Are you seeing posts appear that have the word or phrase you filtered for, even when you've unticked whole word?

You can also add additional keywords to a filter if needed.

@EmrynVale @epp

Emryn, feel free to ask if you want help!

Also there are many guides for new people on the website at https://fedi.tips

@ailurocrat @lonelyboy1977

Hi Ian, sorry to hear about your feed.

There's a guide here about all the ways to discover accounts to follow: https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-find-accounts-to-follow-on-mastodon-and-the-fediverse-how-do-i-find-my-friends

Hopefully this helps

Also, if you're wanting to make your own account more discoverable by others, there's a guide for that too at https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-get-more-followers-on-mastodon-and-the-fediverse

@glamcode

Hi!

First of all please don't respond to the "Mastodon" and "Ro-bot helper" accounts below, they are scammers.

To answer your main question, you can quote posts in replies by doing the following:

1. Click ⋯ on the post you want to quote
2. Select "Copy link"
3. Paste the link into your reply, it will be quoted automatically

️ Scam warning: there are accounts posing as Mastodon admins claiming to offer "rewards" or "payments" or "partnerships".

These are scams. There are no reward or payment schemes on Mastodon. No genuine admin would ever send this kind of post or reply.

If you see scam posts like the ones in the screenshot below, report them by clicking ⋯ on the scam posts and then selecting "report".

#Mastodon

@AlsoPaisleyCat @leobrxd

Hello Leo, please feel free to ask if you want help using this place!

There's also lots of help for new people on the website at https://fedi.tips

Do you want to see more posts on specific topics in your timeline? If so, you might want to follow hashtags!

When you follow hashtags, posts with those tags will start showing up in your home timeline even if you're not following the person who made it. It's a really useful way to discover interesting posts and accounts.

Here's an easy-to-understand guide on how to follow hashtags, as well as answers to lots of common questions about hashtag following:

️ https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-follow-hashtags-on-mastodon-and-the-fediverse

#FediTips

@OneInterestingFact

Yup, unticking it widens the scope of the filter

@AlsoPaisleyCat @CarineMissiaen @luca @everton137

Carine, if you want any help with using this place please feel free to ask!

Also, there is lots of help on the website at https://fedi.tips

@zleap @sero_one

There's nothing on Mastodon itself scraping stuff, but anything you post with a public visibility will be visible to the entire internet and may be scraped by AI bots or other bots.

You can set your posts to have restricted visibility to make it more difficult for bots to see it. More info about post visibilities at https://fedi.tips/who-can-see-my-posts-in-mastodon-how-do-i-send-dms-in-mastodon/

@MelodicDinosaur @AlsoPaisleyCat

Welcome Melodic

If you want help with using this place please feel free to ask!

There is also lots of help for new people on the website at https://fedi.tips

@OneInterestingFact

Did you want help with filters?

Did you already see the guide at https://fedi.tips/filtering-your-timeline-to-hide-posts-on-mastodon ?

@WorldTravelerAll7 @fluffgar

If your friends have any questions or need any help with using this place, please feel free to ask!

There's also lots of help for new people on my other site https://fedi.tips