3 ms·
>Are you able to "sign up once" and be able to log into every instance of Mastodon? In short, no. But this isn't a question that makes sense in context, it's l
by rolenthedeep 4y ago
>Are you able to "sign up once" and be able to log into every instance of Mastodon?
In short, no. But this isn't a question that makes sense in context, it's like asking if you can sign into Yahoo with your Gmail account.
Let's be clear up front: mastodon is not Twitter. They look similar at first glance, but that's as far as it goes. Try to keep an open mind and appreciate mastodon for what it is instead of what it isn't.
Each instance is an independent server. The software is often tweaked, custom interfaces, and each instance builds a unique community with their own rules. The trick is that they all speak the ActivityPub protocol, which allows any server to talk to any other.
You don't need to log into other instances because your instance already knows how to show you content from another. You can interact with any account on any instance which talks to yours. Those remote accounts don't even have to be mastodon accounts! You can follow accounts on pixelfed, peertube, pleroma, etc all from your one mastodon account.
It's often compared to email. Anyone anywhere can spin up a server and start sending email to Gmail, yahoo, outlook, etc. No two email servers have any relation to one another, but since everyone uses the same protocol, you can generally talk to anyone.
Additionally, you can move your account between servers. It will transfer your profile and followers, but not posts. There's a general sentiment that posts should be ephemeral, and you have settings in your account to delete posts after a period of time.
Mastodon is fundamentally different from how we've been doing social media, and I think that's a good thing. I've been using it for a couple of years, and I haven't had fun on social media like this since I became friends with Tom on MySpace.
It's new and scary, but if anyone is considering trying it out, I enthusiastically encourage you to give it a good solid try for a week or two. The big servers are fine, but you really want to fine a small server with a community of interests similar to yours. (avoid mastodon.social like the plague)
Through the last few waves of people jumping ship, almost everyone remarks that it's a better experience. You get more and more meaningful engagement on your posts, even with 1/100th the follower count. It's a much more fun and human experience than machine-fed algorithmic crap.
- oezi 4y agoGreat explanation! > It's a much more fun and human experience than machine-fed algorithmic crap. What happens when the bots show up?
- alx 4y agothey have their own instances: https://botsin.space/about/more https://botsin.space/about/more
- berkes 4y agoIn addition, its common courtesy to check the "this account is a bot" checkbox, when an account is a bot. And on the other side, it's a single checkbox to say "I want to filter any bots". It's neither perfect nor failsafe. But with enough humans to moderate, report and help out, I'm sure it works better than any centralized, algorithmic setup can ever work.
- rolenthedeep 4y agoThey just don't exist like they do on Twitter. We do get spam bots now and then, but users report and block them quickly. They usually give up before the admin gets around to banning them. Each server individually isn't a great target for spam, since the populations are low, and there isn't a good way to spam outside of your server, because the entire instance can block you. Not foolproof in the least, but I haven't seen anything more than a dozen individual spam bots in the last two years.
- appletrotter 4y agoTldr > You don't need to log into other instances because your instance already knows how to show you content from another. If it takes 9 paragraphs to explain this concept, I can see why Mastodon is so confusing for so many people.
- rolenthedeep 4y agoIt's one of those things that's tricky to explain, but simple to understand. But also I am bad at words and tend to over-explain.
- robswc 4y agoThanks for this explanation. I think I have the best understanding of it, that I've ever had. I think with this, I could even do a TL;DR for non tech people. I guess my only question now is, what if instance "collude" or you end up with powermods 2.0 from reddit? I remember I got banned by one mod on a powertrip in a local city sub and woke up with messages saying I was banned in half a dozen default subs (I never really visited either way though). Would it just completely block users from that instance? as if they didn't exist? Why not let the user make that call? This is probably like asking "what if you don't agree with the moderation policy of the central authority" so maybe it really is just a "trade off" at the end of the day.
- rolenthedeep 4y agoThis has happened before. It goes down something like this: Server admin starts harassing people for whatever reason Users from that server start calling them out (usually with a #fediblock tag) Any sympathetic users will block the entire instance where the abuse is happening (this is called de-federation) Any instance is basically a private space, and there is no external authority which can influence what happens there. Instead, that server gets blocked from interacting with other servers. A server in isolation isn't much fun, so those users tend to migrate elsewhere until the offending server is empty and shuts down. The beauty is that there is no central authority which could potentially abuse users, but there is also no central authority to protect them. So we protect each other, and let the toxic servers stew in their own juices away from everyone else.