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Mastodon is something I want to like but it honestly find it complicated and annoying to use. Do I need a new account for each instance being the main question?

Mastodon is something I want to like but it honestly find it complicated and annoying to use. Do I need a new account for each instance being the main question? If so that just sounds tedious. It's one the main benefits of Reddit, needing one account to interact with many "forums." Also, generally speaking, I found a lot of people on Mastodon are the type of people that were banned from Twitter. It's like Reddit and Voat.

throwanem 5y ago
Well, you don't need an account on each instance you want to interact with, but you might need multiple accounts (but it's not clear where) if the instance you choose has defederated (or defederates in future from) another instance for reasons which may be known only to the moderators of your instance, who are not bound to share those reasons or even the instances from which they've defederated or in future choose to defederate. "Defederation" is like blocking on Twitter, except it's more like a Twitter block list, except block lists and the automated propagation thereof are actually a hugely divisive issue within the community of fediverse users, oh and speaking of which it's more correct to call it "the fediverse" instead of "Mastodon" because Mastodon is really just the most widely known implementation of the underlying ActivityPub protocol, and this is also divisive because... [three hours later] ...and that's the short intro to what's important to know about the fediverse! Now, let's get you an - wait where'd you go? Most folks I know who still believe in the value of any of this for its own sake have moved on to considering that this kind of refractory opacity is actually good because it prevents entry by anyone who isn't likewise invested. Ironically, those who preach the value of investment are also almost universally those who don't need to worry about leveraging a social media presence into any form of income or, y'know, social life. Almost everyone who does care about these things has likewise moved on - in this case, back to Twitter.
- rapnie 5y ago
  > Ironically, those who preach the value of investment are also almost universally those who don't need to worry about leveraging a social media presence into any form of income or, y'know, social life Also ironically, social life existed before social media, and no one earned a living from it then. But in your case you might separate social life from professional career. Use Mastodon for the first and Twitter, Insta, what-have-you for the latter.
  - throwanem 5y ago
    People have been earning a living from social life as long as social life has existed. How else do you explain Oscar Wilde? But Mastodon, or the fediverse, or whatever we choose to call it, is pretty clearly past its peak, and absent a significant change in its fortunes looks to continue its slow slide into - well, further into irrelevance. I do think that's a pity; I've been banging a drum about the hazards, moral and otherwise, of monolithic social media for what by now must be most of a decade, and I would like there to be an alternative that achieves traction without being beholden to the profit motive which in my analysis lies at the root of all those hazards. Mastodon had a real shot at that, and it was a fun place to be for a while there, besides. I hate to see it fail, but I'd be a fool not to acknowledge the plainly obvious fact that it is failing, at this point an also-ran at best, and unlikely to change that trajectory.
riffic 5y ago
> Do I need a new account for each instance being the main question? This is a very common question, and no you absolutely do not. The system works like email - you have interoperability and can pass messages along between servers. You don't need to join both gmail.com and hotmail.com to send a message from your gmail address to a hotmail user.
- QuikAccount 5y ago
  If this is a very common question, Mastodon could probably use some sort of FAQ on their site if they are hoping to reach the unwashed masses like myself.
- xigoi 5y ago
  I joined a server and tried to interact with a post on a different server, but couldn't find it.

throwanem 5y ago

Well, you don't need an account on each instance you want to interact with, but you might need multiple accounts (but it's not clear where) if the instance you choose has defederated (or defederates in future from) another instance for reasons which may be known only to the moderators of your instance, who are not bound to share those reasons or even the instances from which they've defederated or in future choose to defederate. "Defederation" is like blocking on Twitter, except it's more like a Twitter block list, except block lists and the automated propagation thereof are actually a hugely divisive issue within the community of fediverse users, oh and speaking of which it's more correct to call it "the fediverse" instead of "Mastodon" because Mastodon is really just the most widely known implementation of the underlying ActivityPub protocol, and this is also divisive because... [three hours later] ...and that's the short intro to what's important to know about the fediverse! Now, let's get you an - wait where'd you go? Most folks I know who still believe in the value of any of this for its own sake have moved on to considering that this kind of refractory opacity is actually good because it prevents entry by anyone who isn't likewise invested. Ironically, those who preach the value of investment are also almost universally those who don't need to worry about leveraging a social media presence into any form of income or, y'know, social life. Almost everyone who does care about these things has likewise moved on - in this case, back to Twitter.

rapnie 5y ago
> Ironically, those who preach the value of investment are also almost universally those who don't need to worry about leveraging a social media presence into any form of income or, y'know, social life Also ironically, social life existed before social media, and no one earned a living from it then. But in your case you might separate social life from professional career. Use Mastodon for the first and Twitter, Insta, what-have-you for the latter.
- throwanem 5y ago
  People have been earning a living from social life as long as social life has existed. How else do you explain Oscar Wilde? But Mastodon, or the fediverse, or whatever we choose to call it, is pretty clearly past its peak, and absent a significant change in its fortunes looks to continue its slow slide into - well, further into irrelevance. I do think that's a pity; I've been banging a drum about the hazards, moral and otherwise, of monolithic social media for what by now must be most of a decade, and I would like there to be an alternative that achieves traction without being beholden to the profit motive which in my analysis lies at the root of all those hazards. Mastodon had a real shot at that, and it was a fun place to be for a while there, besides. I hate to see it fail, but I'd be a fool not to acknowledge the plainly obvious fact that it is failing, at this point an also-ran at best, and unlikely to change that trajectory.

riffic 5y ago

> Do I need a new account for each instance being the main question? This is a very common question, and no you absolutely do not. The system works like email - you have interoperability and can pass messages along between servers. You don't need to join both gmail.com and hotmail.com to send a message from your gmail address to a hotmail user.

QuikAccount 5y ago
If this is a very common question, Mastodon could probably use some sort of FAQ on their site if they are hoping to reach the unwashed masses like myself.
xigoi 5y ago
I joined a server and tried to interact with a post on a different server, but couldn't find it.