Post AP3xQnN7i2jipdNzLU by scottjenson@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by scottjenson@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AP3N3xQwXP4v1jz2C8 by grigs@toot.cafe
2022-10-29T05:11:59Z
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I know certain Mastodon servers have different focuses. Does that then mean people join different servers to talk about different things? Should I be settling up a different Mastodon account if I want to talk sports? Or politics (shudder)?
(DIR) Post #AP3N3yYQN4emVEUWUi by scottjenson@mastodon.social
2022-10-29T05:14:22Z
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@grigs That's the big question. I'm starting to think of instances (servers) more as SMTP hosts. You pick one that is well run and reliable. If it happens to have a bunch of people you like, great! But to pick the instance with the MOST people you like seems..... hard.
(DIR) Post #AP3N3z0mfdLFvBlAhM by ondra@social.unextro.net
2022-10-29T08:07:44Z
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@scottjenson @grigs I agree the email or phone number analogy is very useful. You can have more, some people do, usually to separate the private and public life for example. I haven't seen many accounts separating their personas by different topics such as sports or politics. I find it easier to just be who you are, people can filter out word or hashtags they are not interested in.
(DIR) Post #AP3Ng0JOHjiIxRaoQy by nolan@toot.cafe
2022-10-29T08:14:35Z
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@ondra @scottjenson @grigs That's correct, also there's a trust issue: you trust your instance admin (hi 👋) to be decent at handling moderation reports and to not read your private DMs. (Believe me that I don't know the SQL query and don't care. But yes it's a thing until Masto implements encrypted DMs.)
(DIR) Post #AP3mkPMnZSacg1NqAi by tkadlec@mastodon.social
2022-10-29T12:33:41Z
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@grigs I am completely baffled by the server thing, honesty. Like….it doesn’t seem to matter? At all? Or maybe I’m just not understanding yet.
(DIR) Post #AP3mkPqDo47q9H9L28 by ondra@social.unextro.net
2022-10-29T12:55:34Z
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@tkadlec The server has its admins who decide the rules of the server, moderate it and usually somehow finance the infrastructure it runs on. You are on the instance run by Mastodon's founder and main dev, so it's at least a safe bet it won't get suddenly shut down or something. @grigs
(DIR) Post #AP3u7edfefZ8NkJ6nY by grigs@toot.cafe
2022-10-29T14:18:11Z
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@tkadlec @ondra I think I got confused because the server I joined is mostly web community people and I had the impression that @nolan had hoped to keep the conversation somewhat focused on web tech. But I just reread the about page, and the server has a code of conduct, but also says you’re free to discuss whatever so long as you don’t violate the code of conduct.
(DIR) Post #AP3xQnN7i2jipdNzLU by scottjenson@mastodon.social
2022-10-29T14:24:32Z
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@grigs @tkadlec @ondra@unextro.net @nolan Tim, just think of the server like an SMTP server (Gmail, hotmail, etc) It's just your 'host' that you use. As @ondra points out, it really boils down to moderator (who can boot people) a code of conduct, and reliability
(DIR) Post #AP3xQnz3R14sjH8HT6 by ondra@social.unextro.net
2022-10-29T14:55:18Z
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@scottjenson @grigs @tkadlec @nolan Another thing affected by the underlying server is the amount of content you can see.Due to the federated nature, if you are for example on your own single-user server like me, it sees only the posts involving accounts I followed.So if you for example search for a hashtag on a bigger server, you see more posts than I do thanks to other users on the same server following other accounts using that hashtag in their posts.
(DIR) Post #AP4GAzQP1lm2i163Ky by nolan@toot.cafe
2022-10-29T18:25:17Z
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@ondra @scottjenson @grigs @tkadlec I didn't have any expectation that the conversation would be limited to web tech on this instance. But I did seem to attract that kind of crowd naturally. :)