8. If you're blind or partially sighted, there's a guide specifically for screen reader users at starshipchangeling.net/mastodo…

9. There is no overall owner of Mastodon, it's a collection of thousands of independent servers each with their own owner and set of rules.

10. There are no venture capitalists or cryptocurrencies or tokens or coins or web3 or NFTs or anything like that on Mastodon. Servers are entirely owned and paid for by their admins, and they rely on donations to keep going. Please be nice to them, they're doing you a favour by building this lovely corner of the internet.

Changeling’s Guide to Mastodon for screen Reader Users

What is This?   This is a page where you can find links to all of the currently published chapters of Changeling’s Guide to mastodon for Screen Reader Users. I was considering publishing…

^{The Starship Changeling}

@arth

Sorry, I didn't mean to dump work on you, meant to say it hadn't been just neglected for years!

There's a monthly fee, starting from about 6 euros or 6 US dollars for the smallest server. If you split that between a few users (you and some friends or family) and you're down to a dollar or two per person per month. On larger servers the costs are just tens of cents per user per month, it is not a huge amount.

Owning your own server means you control the server, you set the rules and no one is spying on you.

On Facebook, Twitter etc, it's "free" but they cover their own costs by spying on you.

There is already a bookmarks section! 👍

If you log in through your server's website, you'll see it in the "Bookmarks" link on the right (on the mobile website you need to press the three line menu icon to see Bookmarks).

The unofficial (aka "third party") apps also support bookmarks.

You can add a bookmark to a post by clicking on the "..." and then selecting "Bookmark" or clicking the bookmark icon 🔖 if there is one.

The official apps don't yet support bookmarks, but I assume that's because they only launched a few days/weeks ago. There are a lot of features missing from the official apps which are in the unofficial ones.

Believe me, it does get easier and will make sense if you stick with it 😁

Should also say the number of people joining Mastodon today is many times what it normally is, so timelines will be a bit wobbly anyway for the next few hours.

About your issue:

Every server on Mastodon is independent and has its own list of users. But the servers talk to each other and let their members interact across the entire network.

When you sign up on a server, you get an address that has two parts, your username and your server name.

The one you're posting from now is @ jeremydebose @ mstdn.social You can only use that account to sign in on mstdn.social, but once you're signed in you can interact with people from any server, including photog.social.

It's kind of like email: if you have a Gmail account you can communicate with Yahoo Mail addresses. You only need to sign up on one server in order to interact with other people on other servers.

Does this help? Feel free to say no 😆

It's also like telephones.

If you buy one phone from one provider, you can call anyone anywhere, regardless of which provider they use, even if they're in another country.

The server you join is the equivalent of your phone company. The other servers are like other phone companies.

Because Mastodon servers talk to each other, you only need to sign up on one server, and that is enough to give you access to the whole network.

Aahh ok...

If both of the accounts are on mstdn.social, the admin should be able to sort it out as they would have tools for altering user details etc.

DMing them would be the best course of action.

Mstdn.social is run by @stux, try messaging them. It may take a bit longer get a reply right now though, as there's an unprecedentedly large tidalwave of new members joining 😁

Honestly, it does make sense once you get used to it

The whole internet used to work like this, as did communications before it, because it is quite useful to be decentralised.

I did a little thread about this some time ago:

mstdn.social/@feditips/1070837…

FediTips (@feditips@mstdn.social)

If you're used to centralised networks like Facebook, you may be wondering why Mastodon and the Fediverse are spread across thousands of sites.

^{Mastodon 🐘}

If you're a techy person you can install Mastodon yourself using the official instructions at docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/pr…

An easier option is to use @yunohost to install it through the Yunohost operating system.

The easiest option though is to use managed hosting services for a fee.

The best starting point is probably:

joinmastodon.org/communities

There are thousands more servers out there, the above link is just a small selection of the most reliable ones.

("Servers", "instances" and "communities" are all the same thing.)

Choosing a community

^{joinmastodon.org}

Your account is only valid on the instance you signed up on.

Trying to log in on other instances would be like trying to sign in to Yahoo Mail with your Gmail account.

You don't need to join other Masto instances to interact with them, in the same way you don't need to sign up on Yahoo Mail to send emails to yahoo addresses.

For example, I'm on mstdn.social and you're on mastodon.social but we are able to interact here, because Mastodon instances talk to each other.

I hope this is clear, let me know if it's not, I know this is a lot to take in if you're new here! 😄

maaaaaybe!

So if I want to have a look at say @mas.to, to see if I like it and want to hang there, I need to create an @mas.to account?

I'd like to check out other instances to find a cool place to hang out, but can't see into any of them other than @mastodon.social.

@mastodon.social

No no, it's exactly the opposite. The instances aren't separate forums, they're more like ways into a single common forum.

I'm not on mastodon.social, but you can see me and I can see you. Mastodon servers talk to each other, so it doesn't really matter if people are on different servers, they can still interact.

Here's another analogy: with one single mobile phone, you can phone anyone, on any provider, in any country. This works because phone providers have connected their networks together.

Mastodon is the same, but for social media. Even if we sign up on different servers, we can interact and join in with discussions together because the servers are connected into a single network.

If you want to find interesting discussions the best way is to search for hashtags, follow interesting people, post public posts with hashtags. If you're logged in through the website there's an "Explore" section with popular posts from 24 hours.

Not at all, really glad if I can help!

There is no such thing as a silly question here, please do let me know if I can help more 👍

This is good except that, for me at least, most of the links don’t seem to work

(Some do, but it’s not clear how they are different)

You can't log into another server with your current server's details.

Servers are independent with their own member lists.

However, the servers talk to each other which means you can interact without having to join any other servers.

For example, I'm on mastodon.online while you're on mastodon.social. But we are able to interact as if we were on one network.

It's like email, you don't need a yahoo account to send mail to a yahoo address.

It's like telephones: if you wanted to call your friend, you wouldn't care what provider he uses, you'd just call him.

If you want to interact with someone on here, it doesn't matter what server they're on, you just interact with them.