So, seems mastodon is fragmented or segmented into many independent networks. Do those interact with each other in any way? I'd hate to join one and miss truly interesting content on another...is it possible to distill multiple into one on the user end? Just asking, as I've never tried it before and the concept seems a little confusing.
Yes, on mastodon you can follow @someone@anothermastodon.local even if you are on firstmastodon.local, and the server running your instance will phone out to anothermastodon.local to retrieve posts from the person you follow.
Beware, many instances will blacklist other instances simply based on rumor or clique, and it makes it impossible to follow or read users on those other instances via the first.
I recommend evaluating primarily based on the censorship policies of the instance operator. For example, the list of servers on joinmastodon is restricted to those who are actively engaged in censorship of legal speech (full uncensored instances are not indexed there) so you may be interested in searching for instances not shown there, depending on your attitude toward censorship.
While mastodon.social would ensure you are always on the latest branch of the mainline Mastodon server software as it's the 'flagship' maintained by Mastodon's main/original developer, its large size has caused an increasing number of instances to mute (still allowing their users to follow users on mastodon.social, but not to include its posts in their 'federated timeline'), or outright block the instance (meaning none of the posts on mastodon.social are accessible to the instance's users at all). Reasons for these decisions can include but are not limited to:
- the instance has grown too big and thus some consider it counter-productive towards the federated nature of the protocol
- disagreement with the direction its main developer / maintainer is taking Mastodon, such as intentionally hiding the local timeline from the official iPhone app
- some consider it under-moderated, or not responding quickly enough to reports
- disagreement over its content moderation guidelines
- in case of a mute, it could also be not wanting their federated timeline to be flooded with primarily mastodon.social posts
Lack of federation between these instances and mastodon.social could be a reason not to pick mastodon.social. (Similar situation applies to mastodon.online btw, which is a spin-off server of m.s.)
Another reason to pick a different instance could be not wanting to use mainline Mastodon software. For example because you want to run your own instance on limited hardware (Mastodon can get a bit resource intensive), don't like Ruby, miss certain features, don't like the front-end (though alternative external front-ends to Mastodon do exist), or some other reason.
Personally I've switched my primary use over to an account on an instance that runs Mastodon Glitch Edition, also known as Glitch-Soc (https://glitch-soc.github.io/docs/), which is a compatible fork of Mastodon which implements a bunch of nice features such as increased post character count (Mastodon defaults to 500 characters per post, Glitch-Soc supports increasing this in the server settings), Markdown support (though only instances that also support HTML-formatted posts will see your formatting; mainline Mastodon servers will serve a stripped down version of your post instead), and improved support for filters / content warnings / toot collapsing, optional warnings when posting uncaptioned media, and other additional features.
Another alternative Mastodon fork is Hometown (https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown) which focuses more on the local timeline (showing posts only from your own instance) with the addition of local-only posts, to nurture a tighter knit community.
Aside from Mastodon there are other implementations of ActivityPub which can still federate with Mastodon instances, such as:
- Pixelfed (https://pixelfed.org/) (which started as a sort of federated Instagram alternative) and more.
Fediverse.party (https://fediverse.party/) is a nice way to discover various protocols that make up the bigger Fediverse.
Instances.Social (https://instances.social/) can also be used as an alternative to find instances, though I believe it is limited to Mastodon-based instances.
Ain't a dumb question at all! It actually takes reading the ActivityPub specs to answer it, so no surprise if you didn't get it just from reading the landing page ;)
The answer is: it'll happen automatically. Just search for someone's handle, and your server will talk to that other server. When you follow that other users, your server will start federating with that other servers.
Note though that servers might block each other. For example, many Western servers block Japanese pawoo.net, since it allows posting lolicon. Western servers don't want this content in their timelines and caches, so they block it. If your server blocks another.social, you won't be able to follow anyone on there.
But your question also hints at a real problem with Fediverse (of which Mastodon is a part), which is: each instance only sees a subset of the Fediverse. Thus, searching by hashtag will only get you a subset of all posts that contain it. Full-text search is even more complicated.
Gotcha, thanks for the info. That does seem like a real problem, and I do see the complexity of the issue. Are there any current proposals for tackling it without adding centralization? Or do we just acknowledge/accept that that's a tradeoff?
As far as I can tell, Fediverse embraces this as a privacy feature. (It's more of a bump than a roadblock, but still.) I'm not aware of any projects to fix this (although I'm not very immersed into Fediverse development, so maybe check https://fediverse.party, they have a list of Fedi projects).
Theoretically you could layer something on top right? Something that consumes and publicizes everything. And then I guess you come full circle back to centralization but at least you could potentially view and search both a "local" and "global" feed.
It's self-contained by default and as you follow outside users it starts receiving their posts and so on. You don't have to participate in the whole fediverse.
Apologies, I should have worded that differently. As the server admin, can I configure it so that it's impossible to follow someone outside of that server and that server has no outbound network dependencies?
Thankyou. Yes I currently use Murmur/Mumble + UnrealIRCd + phpBB for friends. Just exploring options. The UI's of my existing choices are a little dated.
I am sorry, but I have to ask: why does "isolationists" sound like code for "people who are doing and sharing all types of illegal content and can not leak any info?"
I'm sure that is a thing, but my friends are not that exciting. We are just privacy lunatics and old fuddy duddies that study the behavior of corporations, governments and others. We postulate what countermeasures could be enacted to minimize the sprawling intrusive nature of the internet into our lives. We always seem to reach the same conclusion as Joshua. "The only winning move is not to play" [1]
I don't get a reply link for rglullis so will reply here.
I am the crazy bold one of the group and the canary in the coal mine. You won't see any of my friends interacting on this or any other social site. I on the other hand email and make phone calls to everyone at every level of government, C-levels in corporations, investors, military leaders, scientists, influencers, etc...
Ok, now I am wondering how you reconcile what you are saying with the fact that we are discussing in a forum that is maintained by venture capitalists who are not-so-indirectly shaping the minds and financing all these companies that are very focused on intrude even further on our lives.
The best example of how it works would be email. You can set up your own email server, and interact with other independent email servers seamlessly, or just find a provider you trust and get your email access from them.
You can "subscribe" to hashtags which allows you to follow them in a column ("timeline") as you would your followers, mixing hashtags into a single timeline if you wish.
There's also the option of adding "featured hashtags" to one's profile, allowing a user to search for users of a particular interest.
Along with the "Federated Timeline", which others have mentioned, and your follower's boosting posts (akin to retweeting) I've found it quite easy to find a diverse list of people to follow and interact with.
They're not fragmented or segmented at all. It's like email—just because you have an account on gmail.com doesn't mean that you can only email people who use GMail, you can email anyone who supports the same protocol. In the same way, users with an account on any Mastodon server can follow any other users who support the same protocol, whatever server they happen to be on. (Modulo moderation—many servers with lax moderation policies may find themselves blocked by other server administrators. Again, just like email)
