Mastodon - a free, open-source decentralized social network server

[alex73630]

Created by Eugen Rochko (@Gargron) because he was annoyed with Twitter and it's series of change, Mastodon is a "Twitter like" social network (with a TweetDeck inspired design) that anyone can host on his dedicated server but instead having separated websites with no link or only one big website, every Mastodon Server (called instances) can be linked with another simply by following another person from another instance.

 

The initial launch was 6 months ago but this week, an important french community joined this project, creating their own instances and their accounts. This created an overload on the official Mastodon server, Mastodon.social, that forced his admin and creator to close (temporarily?) registrations. In 48h, more than 30 000 users registered on the main server, causing huge slowdowns and crashes. Hopefully, because of the decentralized structure, anyone have been able to register on another instance and still see every Toots (Tweet equivalent) from Mastodon.social.

 

To easily find another Mastodon instance, @TheKinrar, the hoster of the 2nd most used instance Mastodon.xyz, created a tool, Instances.Mastodon.xyz, that shows a list of instances with useful infos like how many users are registered, if it's opened to registrations, uptime, HTTPS security level and IPv6 support.

 

This have been covered by a lot of french medias like Le Monde, 20Minutes.fr, Numerama, Korben.info and also by The Verge.

 

Unfortunately, Mastodon is not quite user-friendly because of it's unusual "way to do things". That's why another user @Fawn created a helping guide called MastoGuide.info that explains a lot of things specific to Mastodon like instances, how to mention a user that is not on your instance...

 

Mastodon have a lot of functionalities and it would take too much time (and lines) to explain so you can read the official user guide on GitHub and MastoGuide.info.

 

Sources: GitHub Repo The Verge Le Monde 20Minutes.fr Numerama Korben.info

 

Side note: Because I'm French, my English is not perfect. So if you see some typos, let me know !

[ARikozuM]

Not called Mamoswine, not caring. 

[N3v3r3nding_N3wb]

This is definitely an interesting idea.  If I didn't despise social media, I might join.

[alex73630]

14 minutes ago, N3v3r3nding_N3wb said:

This is definitely an interesting idea.  If I didn't despise social media, I might join.

This is the biggest launch of an alternative and open-source social network (as far as I know) so it shows that people are interested. But I keep in mind that it could be a trend for some weeks/months and then disappears as fast as it came.

[HarryNyquist]

Cool idea, but it won't ever be accepted by the ideal user (former/current users of twitter). I would expect this to quietly disappear into the background soon.

[vorticalbox]

40 minutes ago, HarryNyquist said:

Cool idea, but it won't ever be accepted by the ideal user (former/current users of twitter). I would expect this to quietly disappear into the background soon.

i agree, the idea of not having one place for a thing isn't one most people can understand and accept. Try explain bitcoins to your parents.

[HarryNyquist]

Just now, vorticalbox said:

i agree, the idea of not having one place for a thing isn't one most people can understand and accept. Try explain bitcoins to your parents.

My parents can't understand that they don't have to close the entire Chrome to open a new website. I'd never be able to explain imaginary encrypted money to them.

[alex73630]

Just now, vorticalbox said:

i agree, the idea of not having one place for a thing isn't one most people can understand and accept. Try explain bitcoins to your parents.

Actually, the easiest way we found is to compare Mastodon as a Mail server, you can have your account on @gmail.com and still communicate with someone at @hotmail.com

[matrix07012]

I like it, but looks too complicated for the average Joe. Minds is much simpler, but the main advantage of this is that it's not centralized.

Edited April 8, 2017 by matrix07012
grammar

[Misanthrope]

Wasn't a thread about this previously locked? Are you personally affiliated with this company? If so that'd be against the CoC to basically advertise here.

[xAcid9]

I thought Mastodon latest album is free..  

[themctipers]

going to become like one of reddit's 'competitors'

dead and unused, lonely forever. 

[Jade]

20 minutes ago, themctipers said:

going to become like one of reddit's 'competitors'

dead and unused, lonely forever. 

It's intended to compete with Twitter, not Reddit.

[themctipers]

Just now, Jade said:

It's intended to compete with Twitter, not Reddit.

reread what i wrote