The Republic of Queerland welcomes you. Our republic is home to the majestic city of Howly, the quaint island town of Wolfville, and many loveable citizens.
Below is a summary of rules you need to follow if you want to have an account on this server of Mastodon:
"Cross-posting" is the automatic copying of posts from one platform to another.
If you use an app, like Twidere or PostyBirb, that lets you simultaneously post to both Twitter and Mastodon, that's completely fine.
But if you use an automated cross-poster, the following applies:
Cross-posting from this Mastodon instance to other platforms is fully permitted.
Cross-posting into this Mastodon instance from another platform is generally forbidden.
If you cross-post from here to Twitter and want to share tweets here with commentary that cross-posts effectively as quote retweets, that's completely fine though.
I simply do not want to see people having 95% of their posts here being cross-posts from Twitter, and then no interaction happening here.
This social networking website runs on a free and open-source software project named Mastodon. Mastodon is a decentralised federated alternative to platforms such as Twitter. Each Mastodon website is what's known as an instance, or a server.
You join one, and you can either just interact with the local community on that instance, or you can interact with a bigger community across a whole range of instances that together form what is known as the Fediverse.
Mastodon runs on the decentralised social networking protocol ActivityPub, along with a wide range of other free and open source software projects such as
Misskey,
PixelFed,
Akkoma (Pleroma fork),
Hubzilla,
Peertube,
Friendica,
GoToSocial,
Lemmy,
Bookwyrm,
Castopod,
OwnCast,
WriteFreely,
Plume & even an
ActivityPub WordPress plugin.
There also is GNU Social, though that consists of an outdated ActivityPub implementation apparently.
These projects all have different focuses and features. While Mastodon is similar to Twitter, PixelFed is similar to Instagram, Friendica is similar to Facebook, Peertube is similar to YouTube, Lemmy is similar to Reddit, Bookwyrm is similar to Goodreads, Castopod is for podcasts, OwnCast is similar to Twitch, and WriteFreely is a blogging platform that Write.as runs on.
Yet despite all these differences and focuses of each project, users on one are able to communicate with users on another. It's really clever.
Mainstream social networks are single centralised platforms ran by one company you are locked into. They don't offer a way to cross-communicate such as communicating with someone on Instagram from Twitter. You have to use the particular platform for that.
Decentralised ones on the other hand are not single platforms ran by one ruling party. They are ran by many different parties, on many different servers, with their own goals and rules in mind.
They sadly can and indeed do benefit from this decentralised design. Being banned from one instance doesn't stop someone from joining another, or hosting their own. The fediverse is a wild-west if instances don't moderate what other instances are allowed to interact with theirs.
But the saving grace here with the fediverse is that admins can mute or block other instances from interacting with their own, you can as a user block instance domains as well as individual users, and you are more likely to have a personal human connection to those running the instance you are on.
It can and does result in a much friendlier environment than a single platform with billions of accounts that are just impossible to moderate half decently. There are also some very nice privacy options that you don't get with mainstream social media.
Yes, with more freedom comes those that abuse it. But if that freedom provides the tools to block all of that out, then that freedom can offer a safe space that is just almost impossible on other platforms in today's climate.
It only adds to that when the developers and the hosts of many major instances prioritise being an inclusive and safe space for queer and neurodiverse people. It does make sense considering so much of the friendly fediverse community came about from Trump's rise to the spotlight on Twitter back in 2016/17.
Absolutely 1000s. It's always growing. I first came across Mstdn.social. I used to completely recommend this, and it's still an okay instance, but I'm not friends with Stux, the admin, anymore unfortunately. The main reason I'm hosting my own instance though rather than be settled on one ran by someone else such as Mstdn is because I wanted to be able to customise everything.
Stux also runs Mastodon.coffee if you would appreciate a smaller, quieter instance. Alternatively, if Misskey is more of your fancy, there's Misskey.ai, and Pixey.org for PixelFed.
There's the official Mastodon instances Mastodon.Social, Mastodon.Online and PixelFed instance PixelFed.social.
Be advised, moderation isn't so great on these instances due to their size, plus mastodon.online harbours 8chan founder Fredrick Brennan, so I'd steer clear of that shit.
There's Tech.lgbt, and Queer.Party, which are queer focused instances. Then there's Mastodon.Art for well... art.
Besides this, there's just far too much instances out there to list. Find one with good rules, that proactively blocks the wild west of the fediverse, that has a focus to what your interests are, and you hopefully will be opened to an amazing experience.
Don't feel you belong on one instance? Well there's so much other options out there. You can easily export your data, and transfer one account's followers to an account on another instance, at least with Mastodon. Whether you want to delete the old account or leave it up as a redirect is entirely up to you.
You will see across the fediverse that so much accounts have a blue tick in their display name. This is nothing more than a custom emoji that anyone can have. It is not a way to know if an account is legit.
If someone runs their own instance, make sure that the domain actually is real, works, and goes to that instance. If it doesn't, someone possibly is pretending to be that domain.
Mastodon has the ability to let you verify you are the owner of the links in your profile metadata. This consists of the linked website(s) containing a link back to your profile with a rel="me"
attribute. This can be a hidden link, and you can have multiple if you have multiple accounts. This is the only valid method of confirming an account is legit, as long as the domain, and/or website is in the right hands that is.
Running your own instance, that's using your own domain and is personalised to how you want it, is awesome. But before I recommend you run your own instance, here's safety reasons I recommend not to:
Hosting an instance, subscribing to relays and federating with the fediverse includes federating with the alt-right.
You can easily block these instances from federating with you, and it's extremely recommended to do so. But by blocking these instances who do know about your existence, they will know you have blocked them.
These instances create target lists and shout outs to their social circle of who block them. You should therefore be prepared for some abuse in your mentions by instances you've yet to block.
Blocking out abuse on the fediverse is so much easier than mainstream social media, due to being able to block entire instances instead of only individual users. This can generally result in you only needing to deal with abuse for a day or so compared to a couple weeks.
But this abuse, that can happen for simply just blocking, you are unlikely to receive as a regular user where you may be one among 100s or 1000s with your account unlisted from the instance's profile directory, aka public listing. The chances of these alt-right instances knowing of your existence is just extremely low and nothing like running your own instance.
Whenever you are receiving abuse, please simply block and try to refrain from giving them the satisfaction they crave that they are getting to you. They will just continue.
Ensure you report abuse too to your instance admin. Though if you can see the instance in question, that the abuse is coming from, is the abuser itself, forwarding the report to that instance may not be a good idea. Reports to other instances are anonymous, but if it's targeted abuse specifically to you, they may figure out who it is and be motivated to continue by using other instances.
Take advantage of the post privacy options offered by fediverse software if you want to alert on what's happening. But be warned, a malicuous instance can disregard the privacy and make any post public if a user of theirs is a recipent of said post. I cannot recommend it enough to have follow requests enabled on your account(s) to prevent bad actors from following. You can still post publicly despite this.
Things may sound doom and gloom from this. But the fediverse is generally a much friendlier place than mainstream social media, again due to the fact that you have more useful privacy and blocking options at your disposal. But running your own instance just simply isn't suitable, viable or safe for everyone. Do not blindly recommend and tell people it's easy and that anyone can do it. Remember, not everyone is tech savvy, or able to deal with the pressure involved that just wouldn't exist as a regular user staying under the radar.
If you are someone that wants to go ahead and run an instance though, you know what you're signing up to, then I highly recommend it. You can create a lovely personal, fun and safe space, and do much more being in control, such as customising the character limit of posts and bios, using a fork and whatever customisations you like.
There's just so much fun that can be had out of running your own instance with the software of your choice. But again, please don't underestimate how much shit is out there on the fediverse. As someone hosting, if you don't block, or at least reject media from, malicious instances, it could land you in legal trouble if anything illegal is in the database/cache due to these bad actors.
Have fun on the fedi, but be safe.
Thanks to Mastodon's open API, there are a wide range of apps available from third-party developers. On Android, Tusky is a clear favourite. On iOS, Metatext is a favourite. On mobile and web, Elk & Pinafore are two great choices.
Mastodon also has an official app for both iOS and Android but it is not listed here as it's not great and controversial choices have been made with it. Fedilab is a popular app also not listed here, as the devs made a bad move a few years back I can't support. Cuckoo+, a Google+ style web app, is not listed as it's tied to an instance notorious for CSAM. tooot is not listed either as it sends requests from your device to originating instances to get more complete reply threads and post info, bypassing instance blocks in the process which is unsafe. Mammoth and the former abandoned paid app Mast are not listed for the same reasons as tooot, same for Sengi too. Tusky, Metatext, Elk, & Pinafore are my recommendations.
Additional apps not listed above may be available here..
Many people on the fediverse are here to escape using privacy invading services. It's appreciated to at least also link to a privacy frontend instance when you create posts linking to said place if possible. See below a list of links you can use.
All these front-ends use the same URL path format as the service's normal domains, so all you need to change is the domain part.. Make sure it isn't a shortened link though such as with Tiktok share links.
There is sadly nothing that works any longer for Facebook or Insta as they're pains in the ass.
Disclaimer: these links are just wildcard redirects to public instances I use, but do not run. Use the original instance domains if you fancy, though if one goes down, I can easily update the redirect to another live instance with my links.
Signing up to this instance is by invite only. If you would like an invite and I know you, please contact me.
Besides what should be the obvious, such as bigotry, harassment, illegal content, and most things from this instance's rules, here are some reasons that will result in an instance suspension..
You may not agree with my reasons. But you have no entitlement in being in my space. I value protecting my space everyday over a random person I don't know.
I have multiple spreadsheets available with information on everything blocked, and that can be directly imported by regular users.
Detailed information and reasoning about everything that I'm blocking can be seen via this detailed spreadsheet file (.xlsx format).
For regular users, I have two CSV files available to import as instance blocks/mutes.
Be sure to check the domains of who you don't want to accidently block.
3D characters: Created with Zepeto.
2D characters: Created with Gacha Club.