New to Mastodon? Here's All You Need to Know as a Beginner
What is Mastodon?
Mastodon is a social media app (other popular social media apps are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.)
Mastodon is different from other social media apps in its design and operation.
Unlike apps like Facebook or Instagram, Mastodon is not owned by a single company.
i.e., Facebook is a social media app owned by Meta. Meta hosts the server, stores our login credentials in its database, and stores all the data that we post on the platform.
Mastodon, on the other hand, is a collection of hosts. When you create an account on Mastodon, you don’t get to create a username/password for Mastodon directly. Instead, you will create an account with one of the hosts — this host is called the server.
Think of Mastodon as a collection of such servers. Creating an account with any one of the servers gives you access to follow accounts on any other server.
It might all sound a little confusing initially, but once onboard, the app works like any other app you would have used previously.
So, here I would list the onboarding process to Mastodon step by step.
Step 1
To create an account, select the server you want to create an account with and send them a request. Check the official list of available servers here — https://joinmastodon.org/servers
Note that there are more servers available out there than are included in the official list, and if you trust a server that’s not included in the official list, you could send a request to create an account with them.
Like I created my account with the Foojay server on Mastodon— https://foojay.social/. Foojay is the community for “Friends of OpenJDK.”
Step 2
Wait to get accepted by one of the servers.
Step 3
Once your request is accepted, use the link sent to your email to login. Next, update your profile information.
Also, to see a better layout, choose the setting — “Enable advanced web interface.”
Note that the Mastodon profile id comes with a suffix that shows the server your account is associated with.
For example, my id is @Rubyshiv@foojay.social where @foojay.social is the server name.
You will need the full id while searching for known accounts on Mastodon.
Step 4:
Follow familiar accounts and post your first post.
You could also boost a post or make it a favorite.
Note that the Favorite ⭐️ option is similar to the like feature on Twitter, and boost is the equivalent of the retweet.
Recommended Resources
Here are a few brilliant articles on how Mastodon works and its various features and servers.
Java folks, check this article on the Foojay server
Hope to see you on Mastodon soon 😃