p.s. CW = Content Warning, where the content of a post is hidden underneath a descriptive warning that you can click on to reveal the post.
This can be used for anything where people might be interested but they might not want to read it right now, for example something controversial or stressful or something spoiler-filled. Different people have different ideas of when their use is appropriate.
You can set CWs to always open automatically in your settings if you don't like seeing them.
@feditips It might be pointed out that "CW" can also be viewed as "Content Wrapper" enabling one to post a headline and hide the body from those not interested — e.g., a CW of "Interesting Go Problem" enables those with no knowledge of or interest in the (fascinating) game of Go to skip the post easily.
Fediverse = imagine if you could use your twitter account to talk to people on facebook and write comments on youtube. Yes, that's what we've had here on fediverse for some years now.
@feditips I saw on another instance that they recommending boosting instead of favoriting to help promote others content. I feel like I see more boosts than favs myself. But I do both anyway lol
Toot means ‘fart’ where I come from - to make children laugh. No way will I ever use that. However fancy it may sound, it’s a ‘post’, call it that.
“Why do people have to change the UI language and reinvent the wheel that people have spent the past 30 years getting themselves familiarized with? If it’s a server, call it a server. Don’t call it an instance. Instead of calling it a magazine, call it a sub or forum or something. Why reinvent the wheel? I am all for this decentralization movement, but as long as it’s led by people who have zero wisdom and sensitivity in UX, it’s gonna be a long while before new platforms can replace existing ones.”
It's just a bit of fun, and partly a pun based on the Mastodon mascot. You don't have to use it at all, I just wanted to explain it for people who might be wondering :)
"Instance" used to be the most common term on here, as "server" technically means something else, but server got officially adopted as a more familiar word for non-techies.
‘Instance’ is also confusing for those in tech. I also work in tech and I had to spend a good amount of time figure it out after watching that “What is Mastodon?” video - “Oh they call a ‘server’ or a ‘website’ an ‘instance’ here.” Now think of how confusing it might get for me to onboard my granny or family members to the Fediverse.
@feditips Hang on. Folks tell me the toot thing was to be deprecated. Some folks are embarrassed with the kiddy connotations, apparently. My instance replaced the "toot" button with a "publish" button, although my mobile app still uses toot. What gives?
The software deprecated the button label, but people are not software. People still talk about toots because that's what they were officially called on here for many years, and it's a fun little quirk :)
@feditips
I will forever use "toot" 💨. I don't care what anyone else say. Even if I were to be the only one left using "toot", I will still be using it to keep tooting alive!
Also another suggestion that I have seen pop up is Alien Site=Reddit
No, it's just one type. There are dozens of different server types on the Fediverse, but they talk to each other seamlessly with a common standard so you may not be aware of this when you interact with people.
For example @Iancylkowski is a Pixelfed account and isn't running Mastodon software at all, but you can follow it from Mastodon and interact with its posts.
You can use both terms, I'm just mentioning "toot" because it's more difficult to understand if you're new here :)
Officially it's not used on the current Mastodon software, but it's been used for years and is part of the culture here so it's still used frequently.
Also some third party apps use the term such as Toot! and Tooot and there's a desktop one called Toot (all three totally unconnected to each other 😁 ).
@feditips@MrClon I signed up in November when I expected Twitter to implode. Then it didn’t. I continued using Twitter and didn’t log in to Mastodon. I got email warning me my account would be closed if I didn’t log on. So I did. Then I got another email saying I hadn’t logged in since November and my account would be closed. So I logged in again. This time I’m trying to make really sure it knows I logged in.
I suspect there are many of us hitting that 7 month mark and getting similar emails.
@feditips One addendum: since favoriting something is visible to the person whose post you favorited, it is sometimes also used as "I have seen this and I agree/approve of the intent, but didn't want to spam you with a content-less "I agree!" reply.
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