What is Mastodon?
Official
Website: joinmastodon
Official instances: mastodon.social
mastodon.online
List of instances: joinmastodon/communities
Forum: discourse joinmastodon
Mastodon is a microblogging platform and one of the Fediverse's replacement for Twitter.
What does Mastodon feel like?
What are some advantages over Twitter?
| Mastodon | ||
|---|---|---|
| character limit | 280 | 500 |
| feed | algorithmic | chronological |
| reach | far | familiar |
What are some limitations?
With all the advantages, like Twitter, Mastodon still has some limitations.
Some things that are fixed and the admins can't change for their instances:
- character limit (500)
- poll options (4)
- profile fields (4)
- max number of pinned posts (5)
- ...
What are Mastodon forks and why use them?
A fork is a derivative software. So Mastodon forks are software based on Mastodon.
They look and feel mostly like Mastodon, but usually have some extra features that e.g. address some of the limitations mentioned above.
Ecko
Main artilce: What is Ecko?
Ecko is a Mastodon fork that has a lot of cool features.
Admins can change the limits on post characters, poll options & profile fields.
So on an Ecko instance you might e.g. have a 5000 character limit for posts and can create polls with 10 options.
Furthermore local posts are possible. Meaning posts only other users of the same instance can see. This might strengthen the community spirit.
Further Reading
Mastodon - the advanced page on Mastodon
External Links
Guides
What is Mastodon (video)
Getting started with Mastodon
Guide to Mastodon
Mastodon: Friendly Microblogging