5 ms·

Mastodon is a really great piece of software, at least from the point of view from a user like me, and I really wish more people would use it. There's so much c

by ue_ 9y ago

Mastodon is a really great piece of software, at least from the point of view from a user like me, and I really wish more people would use it. There's so much content out there, so many things to reply to and see, from different corners of the fediverse.

kevinb7 9y ago
I wish I could see what people are tooting about without having to create an account.
- lettergram 9y ago
  That's actually one of the reasons (I think) Twitter became popular. It was easy to quote a tweet, and you didn't need an account.
  - jszymborski 9y ago
    you can view feeds[0] and quote toots[1] w/o an account, but yah no public federated timeline as far as I know. [0] https://mastodon.club/@jszym https://mastodon.club/@jszym [1] https://mastodon.club/@jszym/1784533 https://mastodon.club/@jszym/1784533
- badosu 9y ago
  The API for viewing an instance timeline is public, there are some timeline viewers in the wild [0][1]. To view the local timeline for mathstodon.xyz one can use this link [2], even though [1] looks better (but can't use a direct link). [0] - http://www.unmung.com/mastoview http://www.unmung.com/mastoview [1] - https://m6n-view.hnle.tk/ https://m6n-view.hnle.tk/ [2] - http://www.unmung.com/mastoview?url=mathstodon.xyz&view=local http://www.unmung.com/mastoview?url=mathstodon.xyz&view=loca...
- smacktoward 9y ago
  You can get an Atom feed of any Mastodon user's toots, if you know the right URL format to ask for or have a feed reader that can do autodiscovery. To demonstrate, here's mine: https://octodon.social/users/jalefkowit.atom https://octodon.social/users/jalefkowit.atom This means that you can drop a Mastodon user into your feed reader and follow them the way you would follow any feed-enabled web site. No Mastodon account required; in fact, once you know the schema for feed URLs, all you need is their username and you don't need to touch a Mastodon site even once.
quadrature 9y ago
care to list some cool users/tags ?. I just got an account and have no idea where to look.
- j2kun 9y ago
  Some I've been using #proofinatoot: https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/proofinatoot https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/proofinatoot #blogideainatoot #algorithminatoot
- ue_ 9y ago
  Unfortunately I'm on an ideologically-bent and rather inactive instance, so I'm not sure if I would do much good here. mastodon.xyz seems to be the "canonical" way to get into the fediverse, though; you can look at the global timeline and then follow people you like from what you see there.
- smacktoward 9y ago
  I think I'm cool! :-D (Or at least my mom used to say I was) I'm jalefkowit@octodon.social, ping me anytime.
AlexMax 9y ago
I actually signed up for a mastodon and thought it was a pretty nice and funky environment for a week or so. Then, I realized the full ramifications of federation and I realized that Mastodon was likely to go the way of IRC if it ever "caught on" with the masses, in that open federation was doomed to outside abuse. I then realized that because of this, my account being on a friends' small instance that he put up on a whim was probably not a good idea. However, I had no idea which other instance to migrate to, considering that there are a billion of them and it was hard to get a flavor for what instances are like with no obvious way to get a public feed. Now it's months later, my friends' mastodon has been taken down from lack of use, and I still don't have a clear idea of what instance I should use instead. I really don't want to have to create an account on a half-dozen different servers just to find out.
- tenryuu 9y ago
  I waited for the 'run by the dev crew' mastodon.social to open registrations because I knew it would be kept the most up to date, and moderated in a consistent manner
- smacktoward 9y ago
  > Then, I realized the full ramifications of federation and I realized that Mastodon was likely to go the way of IRC if it ever "caught on" with the masses, in that open federation was doomed to outside abuse. They're working on ways to prevent this. Individual users can now mute both other individual users and entire instances, for example, which makes silencing abusers and other pests a matter of a couple of clicks the way we used to do on Usenet with a killfile (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file). I'm cautiously optimistic about the future of Mastodon; it has a lot of challenges ahead of it, but the developers and the community both take them seriously and are actively engaged in tackling them.
- michaelbarton 9y ago
  > that open federation was doomed to outside abuse. Could you expand on this? I haven't heard of this problem before and I'm curious to know more.
- 9y ago

by ue_ 9y ago

kevinb7 9y ago

I wish I could see what people are tooting about without having to create an account.

lettergram 9y ago
That's actually one of the reasons (I think) Twitter became popular. It was easy to quote a tweet, and you didn't need an account.
- jszymborski 9y ago
  you can view feeds[0] and quote toots[1] w/o an account, but yah no public federated timeline as far as I know. [0] https://mastodon.club/@jszym https://mastodon.club/@jszym [1] https://mastodon.club/@jszym/1784533 https://mastodon.club/@jszym/1784533
badosu 9y ago
The API for viewing an instance timeline is public, there are some timeline viewers in the wild [0][1]. To view the local timeline for mathstodon.xyz one can use this link [2], even though [1] looks better (but can't use a direct link). [0] - http://www.unmung.com/mastoview http://www.unmung.com/mastoview [1] - https://m6n-view.hnle.tk/ https://m6n-view.hnle.tk/ [2] - http://www.unmung.com/mastoview?url=mathstodon.xyz&view=local http://www.unmung.com/mastoview?url=mathstodon.xyz&view=loca...
smacktoward 9y ago
You can get an Atom feed of any Mastodon user's toots, if you know the right URL format to ask for or have a feed reader that can do autodiscovery. To demonstrate, here's mine: https://octodon.social/users/jalefkowit.atom https://octodon.social/users/jalefkowit.atom This means that you can drop a Mastodon user into your feed reader and follow them the way you would follow any feed-enabled web site. No Mastodon account required; in fact, once you know the schema for feed URLs, all you need is their username and you don't need to touch a Mastodon site even once.

quadrature 9y ago

care to list some cool users/tags ?. I just got an account and have no idea where to look.

j2kun 9y ago
Some I've been using #proofinatoot: https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/proofinatoot https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/proofinatoot #blogideainatoot #algorithminatoot
ue_ 9y ago
Unfortunately I'm on an ideologically-bent and rather inactive instance, so I'm not sure if I would do much good here. mastodon.xyz seems to be the "canonical" way to get into the fediverse, though; you can look at the global timeline and then follow people you like from what you see there.
smacktoward 9y ago
I think I'm cool! :-D (Or at least my mom used to say I was) I'm jalefkowit@octodon.social, ping me anytime.

AlexMax 9y ago

I actually signed up for a mastodon and thought it was a pretty nice and funky environment for a week or so. Then, I realized the full ramifications of federation and I realized that Mastodon was likely to go the way of IRC if it ever "caught on" with the masses, in that open federation was doomed to outside abuse. I then realized that because of this, my account being on a friends' small instance that he put up on a whim was probably not a good idea. However, I had no idea which other instance to migrate to, considering that there are a billion of them and it was hard to get a flavor for what instances are like with no obvious way to get a public feed. Now it's months later, my friends' mastodon has been taken down from lack of use, and I still don't have a clear idea of what instance I should use instead. I really don't want to have to create an account on a half-dozen different servers just to find out.

tenryuu 9y ago
I waited for the 'run by the dev crew' mastodon.social to open registrations because I knew it would be kept the most up to date, and moderated in a consistent manner
smacktoward 9y ago
> Then, I realized the full ramifications of federation and I realized that Mastodon was likely to go the way of IRC if it ever "caught on" with the masses, in that open federation was doomed to outside abuse. They're working on ways to prevent this. Individual users can now mute both other individual users and entire instances, for example, which makes silencing abusers and other pests a matter of a couple of clicks the way we used to do on Usenet with a killfile (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file). I'm cautiously optimistic about the future of Mastodon; it has a lot of challenges ahead of it, but the developers and the community both take them seriously and are actively engaged in tackling them.
michaelbarton 9y ago
> that open federation was doomed to outside abuse. Could you expand on this? I haven't heard of this problem before and I'm curious to know more.
9y ago