{"id":26541,"date":"2022-12-29T19:11:12","date_gmt":"2022-12-29T19:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/29\/some-tricks-to-making-mastodon-way-more-useful\/"},"modified":"2022-12-29T19:11:12","modified_gmt":"2022-12-29T19:11:12","slug":"some-tricks-to-making-mastodon-way-more-useful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/29\/some-tricks-to-making-mastodon-way-more-useful\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Tricks To Making Mastodon Way More Useful"},"content":{"rendered":"

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from the a-non-beginners-guide<\/i> dept<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s been interesting to watch over the last few months as tons of people have migrated from Twitter<\/a> to Mastodon (or similar compatible ActivityPub-based social media platforms). I\u2019ve noticed, however, that some people keep running into the same issues and challenges as they discover that Mastodon is different<\/em> than what they\u2019re used to with Twitter. There are a few tips and tricks I\u2019ve been sharing with various people that seemed pretty broadly applicable, so I figured it was worth doing a post laying them out.<\/p>\n

A couple of quick things to note: these are unlikely to be universal. It\u2019s just a few of the things that I\u2019ve found that take the Mastodon experience to a new, better, more useful level. In other words, yes, this is highly subjective. Also, some of the tools I\u2019m discussing are relatively new, often developed by users who saw the need and decided to build something (again, this is something that\u2019s nice about the open platform that enables anyone to see something that they feel can be improved\u2026 and improve it). This also means that it\u2019s highly likely that there will be even more of these kinds of tools and add-ons from others in the near future, and they may surpass most of the suggestions here. This isn\u2019t meant to be a comprehensive list.<\/p>\n

Separately, there are a million \u201chow to get started with Mastodon\u201d posts and articles out there. If you\u2019re brand new to Mastodon, I highly recommend checking those out first to get the basics down. This post is more about taking your Mastodoning to a new level. Perhaps the most comprehensive guide is found at Fedi.tips<\/a>. A few other good beginner posts are Adam Field\u2019s post on Medium<\/a>, Dell Cameron\u2019s guide at Gizmodo<\/a>, Tamilore Oladipo\u2019s guide at Buffer<\/a>, Amanda Silberling\u2019s guide at TechCrunch<\/a>, and, finally, Noelle\u2019s wonderful GuideToMastodon.com<\/a>, which kicks off with the same advice I\u2019ve given tons of people: DON\u2019T PANIC. You\u2019ll figure it out. Lots of people have and so will you.<\/p>\n

All of those should give you a pretty good basis for understanding Mastodon, and (in particular) some of its differences from Twitter, which seem to be the things that trip people up the most. <\/p>\n

Finding people to follow<\/strong><\/p>\n

My biggest \u201cbeginner\u201d suggestion is to find and follow a few fairly active accounts, and then when they \u201cboost\u201d someone interesting, follow those people as well. If you\u2019re trying to \u201cmigrate\u201d from Twitter, there are a bunch of tools to try to find the people you follow there, including Fedifinder<\/a> and Debirdify<\/a>, but the one I found to have the cleanest interface, and the most useful (and allows one-click following) is Movetodon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking for new<\/em> people to follow around a particular subject, there are a variety of lists out there, including Trunk<\/a>, Fediverse.info<\/a>, Fedi.Directory<\/a>, and PressCheck.org<\/a> (which verifies journalists, specifically).<\/p>\n

A very cool tool I only recently discovered is Followgraph<\/a>. You put in your Mastodon handle, it looks up all the people you follow and<\/em> all the people they<\/em> follow, and then recommends to you the people who lots of your followers follow, but you don\u2019t\u2026 It\u2019s pretty useful in surfacing people I might want to follow (though it also surfaces some people I know about but deliberately don\u2019t want to follow).<\/p>\n

I also, generally, recommend not<\/em> cross posting between Twitter and Mastodon, but there are perfectly good reasons to ignore this suggestion. My thinking on it is that this is somewhere different, and you should learn to use it \u201cnatively.\u201d Also, it feels like many people set up a cross-poster and then go off and ignore Mastodon, so their accounts are sort of zombie accounts.<\/p>\n

Advanced view<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is probably the tip that is most well known and most commonly suggested for going from Mastodon beginner to expert. If you go into settings and click the box to \u201cenable advanced web interface\u201d then you end up with a multi-column interface.<\/p>\n

\"screenshot<\/figure>\n

For people who are familiar with Tweetdeck, the unfortunately long-neglected, multi-column Twitter app that initially made Twitter super useful, was purchased by Twitter, and then basically languished, that\u2019s what you effectively get with the advanced web interface. <\/p>\n

There are a few tricks to making this interface more useful as well. The left most column is for search (more on that in a bit) and posting. The right most column is basically the \u201cactive\u201d column. This takes a little getting used to, but once you figure it out it makes sense. It can be the \u201cgetting started\u201d menu (this is what it is when you first log in):<\/p>\n

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\"Mastodon's<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

However, if you click on a particular post to see a thread or replies or whatnot, the post you click on takes over this column. This is a bit different from Twitter\/Tweetdeck, but kinda makes sense once you get used to it, as it leaves your other columns in place. To get back to the menu, you can click the \u201chamburger\u201d menu button that is in the left-most column. It may be a little confusing to have to click something in the left-most column to get the right-most column to go back to the menu, but (again) if you think of the right-most column as the \u201cactive\u201d column, it makes sense.<\/p>\n

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\"Showing<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Make use of lists<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a useful feature whether or not you use the advanced view on Mastodon. If you follow enough people that there is a relatively active flow of new posts, I\u2019ve found that lists are a super useful way to focus in on more interesting stuff, without it becoming overwhelming. This is the same thing that I did with Twitter in the early days, creating a series of \u201clists\u201d of users, so I could narrow down what I\u2019m following for specific purposes. <\/p>\n

In my case, I\u2019ve created four lists: \u201cmust read,\u201d \u201cjournalism,\u201d \u201claw,\u201d and \u201ctech.\u201d These should be somewhat self-explanatory, but I put the accounts I want to make sure I don\u2019t miss into \u201cmust read\u201d and those are usually the first thing I\u2019ll check when checking in on Mastodon. Then I\u2019ll bounce between the other lists and the home feed (of everyone I follow). I do not use either the federated feed or the local feed, as they are (for me) firehoses of noise. On some smaller, more focused, servers, I think the local feed can be quite useful, but for most major servers, it\u2019s mostly useless.<\/p>\n

I have seen some new Mastodon users focus on the local and federated feeds, and then get frustrated. I think it\u2019s generally best to ignore the federated feed entirely, and only use the local feed on more tight-knit focused servers.<\/p>\n

In the advanced web view, lists are even more powerful, as you can pin them and see all of them next to each other. This is also a little<\/em> confusing at first, but if you create a list, and then access it (via the \u201cgetting started menu\u201d where you click on \u201clists\u201d and then the list of your choice), you then need to \u201cpin\u201d the list to have it show permanently in the advanced web view. You do this by clicking the slider settings button, followed by the \u201cpin\u201d button:<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Once \u201cpinned\u201d you can then move the column left or right in the advanced view with the arrow buttons:<\/p>\n

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The list interface in Mastodon isn\u2019t the best, and I highly<\/em> recommend the Mastodon List Manager<\/a> app, written by Andrew Beers. It has a somewhat simple interface, but it works so much better than the built in list interface. Beers\u2019 app shows all of the people you follow in a giant list, and then puts any list (and you can create new ones directly in the interface) as a kind of grid next to the names of those you follow. You can then check off what lists (if any) you want to put the people you follow onto. It\u2019s very simple, and it just works (for what it\u2019s worth, I ran into a few bugs with it, and Andrew was quite helpful in getting them sorted out and fixed).<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

This setup makes it super easy to create lists and assign people you follow to various lists. It\u2019s way easier than Mastodon\u2019s built in setup.<\/p>\n

There are some limitations to lists. Currently, (unlike Twitter) there really isn\u2019t a way to make your list \u201cpublic\u201d or to share it. You can export the list as a CSV and in theory share that, but it\u2019s much more complicated than Twitter\u2019s ability to make a list public and have other people follow it. Also, I\u2019ve seen a number of people complain that (again, unlike Twitter) you can\u2019t add users to lists who you don\u2019t follow. I\u2019ve never used that feature on Twitter myself as the people I put on lists are always people I already follow, but some people like to do that to keep tabs on certain people\/topics without having to \u201cfollow\u201d them in their main feed.<\/p>\n

Better UI<\/strong> options<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even as useful and helpful as the advanced web UI is, there are alternative interfaces as well. Most<\/em> of the really unique efforts are on mobile, and not with the \u201cofficial\u201d Mastodon apps. I highly recommend checking out a few such apps to figure out what works for you. I use Tusky on Android and find that it works for me, but I hear good things about many other options. And, it sounds as though a bunch of developers are working on even nicer iOS apps as well (the folks who made the popular Tweetbot for Twitter are working on one called Ivory<\/a> that lots of people are talking about).<\/p>\n

However, for regular desktop use there are some additional options as well. I\u2019ve played around with Sengi<\/a>, Whalebird<\/a>, TheDesk<\/a>, and Hyperspace<\/a>, and none of them really did much for me, to be honest. The advanced web interface struck me as better for me, personally, than any of those apps.<\/p>\n

However, there is one other interface that I really like: Pinafore.social<\/a>. It is not<\/em> a downloadable desktop client like those above, rather it\u2019s simply an alternative web interface for your existing Mastodon account, that is very clean, and very simple. It has a Twitter-like feel to it, and the site is quick and responsive. If you like a very clean interface better than a more cluttered one, you may like Pinafore quite a lot. Here\u2019s a screenshot of what it looks like on my account:<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

You can access your notifications or your lists (via the \u201cCommunity\u201d tab) and it\u2019s all quite nice. I use it probably 30% of the time, though I still use the advanced web interface more of the time. However, when that gets overwhelming, sometimes it\u2019s nice to just switch over to Pinafore and have the cleaner interface.<\/p>\n

In an ideal world, I\u2019d love to see what Pinafore\u2019s developer, Nolan Lawson, would do if he created an \u201cadvanced web view\u201d version of Pinafore, but on the site he claims it\u2019s not on the roadmap to create a multi-column view version (though I still wish someone else might take the idea and run with it).<\/p>\n

This is another area that I\u2019m hoping we\u2019ll see a lot more development in over the next few months, as it\u2019s a wide open space, and the nice thing about such an open system is that anyone can design an interface or app for it.<\/p>\n

Extensions<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are some really useful browser extensions that make Mastodon much more useful. I know that some people shy away from browser extensions, especially as they may represent a security risk. But if you\u2019re okay with it (and the main one I\u2019m recommending makes its source code available for people to review), they make things quite useful.<\/p>\n

The main extension I recommend is FediAct<\/a>. One complaint I\u2019ve seen from some users is that if you end up on a Mastodon post on a different server, it\u2019s a little bit complicated to interact with it. This is where the nature of federation feels a little complicated, though it\u2019s not that difficult once you understand it. If you view content from other servers through your own server, you can easily interact with it, because that content has effectively been copied over to your server, and your interactions link back with the original.<\/p>\n

However, if you end up on a different server entirely, that server doesn\u2019t know you\u2019re logged into a different federated server, and therefore can\u2019t interact directly. Instead, you have a couple of choices on how to interact, with the most basic one being that when you click to do something, it will ask you to indicate your own Mastodon instance address before effectively moving you over to interact with it on your own server. It\u2019s clunky and a little bit of a nuisance.<\/p>\n

Apparently, there was a period of time where Mastodon had built in tools to get around that, but people quickly realized that\u2019s a pretty big security problem, as you\u2019re effectively opening up a cross site scripting hole.<\/p>\n

FediAct, however, allows you to do this while controlling it directly in your browser, and making Mastodon work the way most people think<\/em> it should work. You plug your own instance into the extension, and then if you end up on a different server, you can still like and boost posts just like you could on your own server. It works and is nice and solves one of the bigger headaches people have with Mastodon\u2019s federated setup.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a separate extension called Roam<\/a> that some people have recommended, which does some of the same things as FediAct regarding interacting with people on other servers. It also has a bunch of other features, including making it easier to post to Mastodon from anywhere, and to schedule posts to show up at a later date. It\u2019s got a very clean interface and looks nice, but I haven\u2019t really done much with it so far.<\/p>\n

Hashtags<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the things people often remind newbies on Mastodon about is that there is no text search: just users and hashtags. Some people find this frustrating (perhaps for good reason), but it does encourage people to make better use of hashtags (something I often still forget to do). That said, there is a nice (relatively new) feature on Mastodon: the ability to follow hashtags. If you find a hashtag that you want to follow, you can follow it just like you would follow a person:<\/p>\n

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\"menu<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

This can be useful if you want to follow a particular topic more than just a few individuals who tweet about that topic. Unfortunately, it appears you cannot yet add hashtags to lists, which would be really helpful and hopefully will be an upgrade at some point soon.<\/p>\n

Alternative platforms<\/strong><\/p>\n

As lots of people will remind you, Mastodon is just one implementation for ActivityPub, and there are lots of others. Some of those are designed to create totally different services (like PeerTube and PixelFed), but some of them are just alternative, but usually compatible, takes on creating a microblogging setup. Some of these are forks of Mastodon\u2019s open source code, whereas others appear to be built separately from the ground up, but still made compatible (somewhat) with Mastodon, so you can still follow and communicate with the folks rushing to Mastodon while potentially actually not using Mastodon at all.<\/p>\n

There are some forks that are more minor changes to Mastodon, like Hometown<\/a> and Glitch<\/a>. Hometown makes very minor changes to Mastodon with things like better list management and better rendering of rich text. Glitch adds a lot more like, better formatting tools, hiding follower counts, a better threaded mode and more.<\/p>\n

Then there are just generally alternative takes on microblogging that either are built on or cooperate with ActivityPub. Some of these are more lightweight than Mastodon, and many have more features. This includes things like Pleroma<\/a>, friendi.ca<\/a>, and Misskey<\/a> (which also has forks like Calckey<\/a> and FoundKey<\/a>). There are a bunch of other ones as well, and each has some different features, including some features or UI options that people feel are missing from Mastodon.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re finding that Mastodon just isn\u2019t doing it for you, it might be worth looking at the feature sets and UIs of these other platforms to see if they\u2019re more your speed. For the most part, you\u2019ll still be able to communicate with everyone on Mastodon\u2026 just via a non-Mastodon server (though sometimes they still call themselves Mastodon, just because).<\/p>\n

There are, also, instances that have changed the feature set directly. For example, while the default Mastodon post is limited to 500 characters, there are a bunch of servers that have expanded that. For example, I\u2019m pretty sure that infosec.exchange<\/a> (a popular instance for the infosec crowd, obviously, that I believe is running the Glitch fork) allows for posts up to 11,000 characters. Or there\u2019s qoto.org<\/a>, which basically would let you post a novella with a limit of 65,535 characters. It has also implemented quote tweet functionality (all of the \u201ckey\u201d forks have this as well), rich text, and actual full text search.<\/p>\n

In short, even if there are features you think are missing from Mastodon itself, there may be other instances that have already implemented them, or if you\u2019re technically proficient, you may explore setting up your own alternative instance.<\/p>\n

One thing to note: there are (reasonable) complaints from people on smaller instances that some of those may not function as well, as the federated nature of Mastodon means that certain content is effectively excluded from those servers. This creates some problems, and while there are some attempts to solve them (with things like relays<\/a>) there definitely are some downsides to joining a tiny instance. Of course there are some downsides to joining a giant instance as well. Once again, hopefully these are solvable problems, but did want to flag it for people rushing off to join different instances.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Again, this is not intended to be a comprehensive list, but it does show a bunch of tools, features, and services that I\u2019ve found useful in getting around some of the limitations of Matodon that seem to frustrate some users, and to make this open, federated, social network much more useful.<\/p>\n

\nFiled Under: activitypub<\/a>, guide<\/a>, mastodon<\/a>, tips and tricks<\/a>, tools<\/a>
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