Sean, this article is really reaching.

• “#10 Mastodon doesn’t have algorithms” this is pedantry. Of course chronological sorting is technically an algorithm, but we don’t mean basic sorting when we say algorithm. When people refer to social algorithms they mean sorting based on algorithms that change the order from the chronological order based on any number of factors such as a post’s virality, who posted it, its topic, if someone’s paid for it to be boosted, and so on. So no, Mastodon’s main feeds do not have algorithms in the colloquial usage of the word.
• “Myth #6: Mastodon respects your privacy, and is ideal for secure communication” woah hold up, privacy and security are two very different things. Mastodon does respect my privacy in some ways far more than other social sites, in that my data and actions are not being tracked and monetised, but yes it’s not secure.
• “Myth #5: If you’re on a bad server, you can easily move to a good one” strongly agree with this one, but it also misses a major reason that this is a myth: you can’t migrate your post history.
• “Myth #4: Mastodon Federation basically works like email.” jesus, this is massive pedantry. Of course it doesn’t work the same on a technical level. All the email metaphor is for is telling people that you’re on one provider but you can talk to everybody on all other providers. The metaphor ends there. And “the metaphor is closer to Usenet groups than it is to the kind of email communication most people are familiar with”? Please don’t use Usenet as an example unless your audience is 40+ and techy. Barely anybody knows what that is.
• “Myth #3: Mastodon is so much nicer than other places! The problem is a confusion of cause and effect.” What? No. The cause is people, on average, in comparison to other major social sites, genuinely being nicer. There are plenty of other places on the internet just as nice as Mastodon, but Mastodon is far nicer in comparison to the other major social networks. People are generally comparing to Twitter when they make that comparison, and that comparison is 100% true.
• “Myth #1: Mastodon is Easy to Use!” lol this is not a myth, at all. I don’t think anybody using Mastodon is unaware of its UX and UI flaws.

I personally couldn’t give a crap about those kind of things, I definitely wouldn’t pay for it. Mona looks great and is already customisable enough for my liking. Some other apps have even more visual customisation.

If I wanted a custom theme in my web browser I’d run custom CSS, like how Bird UI works. Or just use a service like elk.zone and I wouldn’t have to faff around with custom themes/code/plugins.

But sure, I don’t see why you couldn’t do this. It’d be best done via plug-ins for Mastodon, not per-instance. Then people can off plug-ins in some kind of marketplace. You pay for the plug-in, it installs into Mastodon, and you can manage your current plugins from your Mastodon preferences.

Yeah, why not. If someone wants to build it then there’s no harm in it existing.

If I understand it correctly, I can join any server

Correct, you can join any server (if they are accepting new members).

but then I can search or follow users and hashtags across all of Mastodon?

Correct.

Does the server determine what posts/news I see without searching?

Your home feed will have the same boosts and posts no matter what server you’re on. You will, however, not see all posts from followed hashtags but rather only the hashtagged posts your server knows about.

So long story short, if you’re new you should probably join a big server because it helps discover more content. Once you’re settle you can move servers if you wish, to a community that’s more specific to your interests.

You’re browsing on the web, on desktop? It should have arrows you can click, and work with keyboard arrows. My server is running standard, latest version Mastodon and it has those.

https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/posting/#privacy this help at all for learning where toots go?

The other option is that these accounts all just happen to have set automated post deletion themselves.

https://preview.redd.it/0i95h3s1rwxb1.png?width=2366&format=png&auto=webp&s=92f8eaeedb9a51d064071bf54e7471f59a84c322

Rochko didn’t specify if or when lists might arrive on iOS (they’re already available on the web).

Man, I can’t imagine using the Mastodon app when it’s so far behind other apps, feature-wise. I did try it, but it’s just not good enough compared to, say, Mona or Woolly. A bit of me thinks the Mastodon team should stop putting their limited resources into the apps and focus only on the web versions (both desktop and mobile). But then we’d be reliant on mostly proprietary apps for mobile access, and that wouldn’t be cool.

4. Yes, hashtags override language settings. Or more accurately, language settings don’t apply to your home timeline, which is not a public timeline. Language settings only apply to public timelines, which is kinda a bug, IMO: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/20937.

5. You can see posts from hashtags in two places. One, they show up in your home timeline. Two, on the hashtag’s feed, e.g. https://[server address]/tags/wearos. You can navigate to a hashtag’s feed from multiple places - you can see your followed hashtags at https://[server address]/followed_tags, you can click on any hashtag in a post, or you can search a hashtag.

You only see the repos es that propagate to your instance.

Pretty sure that’s been mangled by autocorrect and is supposed to say “You only see the replies that propagate to your instance.”

That’s awesome, good stuff.

Yes, I get your points. All I’m saying is that working on ease of use for something that not everybody uses is not high priority. I’d much prefer the Mastodon team, with their limited resources, focus on improving existing features like following hashtags in lists, markdown support, supporting post migration during account migration, stuff like this.

I mean we do have native emoji support in posts, you just can’t use them as a reaction. I don’t need reaction emojis on posts, this isn’t Linkedin. Either you appreciate my post existing (favourite it) or you don’t, I don’t need to know if you’re ‘sad’ or ‘celebrate’ or ‘heart’. If you’ve got a thought about it then add a reply. Once again, this is just my personal opinion, I realise others differ.

I’ve also got gif on mobile because it’s built into the keyboard, so I don’t need Mastodon to implement it.

For my usage, I’m quite glad Mastodon doesn’t have emojis and gifs natively. I’m here for discourse, and honestly gif reactions add nothing, they’re just noise. gif reactions on Twitter always seem to be used by edgelords or trolls, they generally annoyed me.

I understand others might use them, I’m just saying that these are not some universal need.

Yeah elk.zone allows you to click on the alt text and it overlays it over the image. Should be copied in the default Mastodon UI.

Glad it works for you!

It’s a bit dumb that the only way you can view it is on mouseover. Would be good if you could click the image, or there was an alt text icon to click.

This is not the answer you probably want to hear but if you really want to copy the text, right-click on the image and select ‘inspect’ or ‘Inspect Accessibility Properties’. In both places you can find the alt text and copy it.

Upvoting because using alternative default UIs to the Mastodon default is a great idea. Because the Mastodon default UI is … dated.

If they’re that vulnerable, maybe exposing them to an open microblogging platform isn’t the best idea?

Yes, they are very similar. Are you familiar with Twitter? They all work basically the same, its only their interface that’s different.

(Anyone who wants to nitpick this I’m well aware of the feature differences between the platforms)