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The thing I never really see from these is about setting up on an existing instance vs running my own. And if I set up my own, does it need to be a community? A
by Pfhreak 8y ago
The thing I never really see from these is about setting up on an existing instance vs running my own. And if I set up my own, does it need to be a community? Am I shutting myself out of an experience by creating, say, a Mastodon instance for my family?
I'm bought in to the idea of Mastodon, but getting started is like being handed an atlas of the US and being told, "Please pick a neighborhood to live in."
- pat2man 8y agoOpen social operates somewhat like email, where you don't need to be on the same server as someone else, but it can make things easier. For the most part, if you are running your own email server for you family, it might make sense to run your own mastodon server. You can have control over your file storage, etc.
- Torwald 8y agoDifferent servers are linked to with the system of federation. If you set up your own, you also choose to what other servers you connect to. So, no, you are not shutting yourself out. But you have to manage your federalization.
- shakna 8y ago1. And if I set up my own, does it need to be a community? No. Mastadon and other compatible servers like GNUSocial do have single-user environments. [0] 2. Am I shutting myself out of an experience by creating, say, a Mastodon instance for my family? No. The entire thing is federated, users from all servers can speak to each other. [0] https://github.com/ummjackson/mastodon-guide/blob/master/single-user-mode.md https://github.com/ummjackson/mastodon-guide/blob/master/sin...
- ReverseCold 8y ago> 1. No. Mastadon and other compatible servers like... Well that's the easy answer. I run my own instance and it's near impossible to find interesting people to follow. I started making alternate accounts on various other servers and it was immediately much better. Also, (from my experience) people actually do pay attention to the local feed. People are more likely to find about (and talk to) you when they see you on their local feed. It's very hard for people to find you when you have your own instance. So for Mastodon, at least, you most likely will want a community server - not a single user one.
- shakna 8y agoI don't think any of the 20 odd people I find interesting enough to follow belong to my instance. Nor was I aware of a 'local feed'. I see all instances that interact with mine, and their feeds. It may be harder to find you on your own, unless you're reaching out to others... And frankly that just sounds like network effects. People are more likely to 'discover' you if you interact with celebrities on other social sites.
- robjan 8y agoI'm pretty sure the fediverse feed just shows all people from all instances who are followed by someone on your instance.
- derefr 8y agoIt’s exactly like email. You can have an email server @yourdomain that just has the one account, and interact with the rest of the email “network” just fine, right? Same with Mastodon.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ReverseCold 8y agoPeople discovery isn't necessary with email, but it is for a social networking system. I want to be able to find other people in the fediverse, and I also want people to find me. Having your own server excludes you from other people's local timelines (and vice versa), making discovery in both directions very challenging.
- tomjakubowski 8y ago> The thing I never really see from these is about setting up on an existing instance vs running my own. Mastodon instance admin have the power to block entire other instances. So if you care deeply about who is blocked or whether other instances are blocked at all, that might help to guide your decision.