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Lot of new people over past couple of days asking for help! Welcome 
I am an unofficial tech support account helping people use Mastodon and the Fediverse. If you want to ask anything at all about this place, feel free to mention or message me:
My website is full of beginner's guides:
I also run a site and account to help people discover who to follow:
If you have any questions, please ask!
If only there was some way to show this message to the new people! If I boost it, only followers will see it...
If you boost a post, it also helps it to trend on the trending posts list, and some of your followers might boost it too.
Because there isn't an algorithm here, it's what people share that matters 
Technically anything on a computer is an algorithm, but I don't think that's what most people mean by the word. 
The trending list on here is basically just the most shared recent posts, we can be sure of this because the server software is open source. It's not a complex opaque black box.
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services @Walrus@toot.wales I think what would help distinguish a traditional "algorithm" (in the social media sense) and just a set of rules is that fedi algorithms don’t have reinforcement learning. There’s no machine learning or complex pattern matching. It exists as very simple transparent filters. Putting a hashtag on the trending tab because it has been mentioned X times in T interval is still an algorithm but you know how the function works.
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services @Walrus@toot.wales There is no "has this hashtag been trending before?" or any other set of weights. The closest I have to "curating" the trending algorithm is simply adding hashtags to ignore. I cannot expose it to a bunch of hashtags and make it more likely one will enter the trending hashtags based off of a certain pattern of usage.
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services @Walrus@toot.wales and in this sense it's entirely possible to replicate. For other social media sites... even if youtube published the underlying code behind the youtube algorithm it has had what, a decade+ of data to train off of? if you were to copy that onto a different platform its behavior wouldn't exactly be deterministic
I assumed readers would know I was refering to the Twatter algorithm...
Ahh sorry! 
No apology needed, sir!
If you're on the official app just click the magnifying glass 
but don't enter anything in the search box.
If you're on third party apps they usually call it "trending" or something similar.
If you're using the website or web app click the 
Explore link on the right of the page.
@FediTips thank you!! Argh, so simple! Didn’t even occur to me to not type anything in the search box!
I try to point people to @FediTips (the account and the website) for every #introduction post I see.
I think I manage to do this for about 20-30% of those posts (other times I'm just to tired to do it) so hopefully there will be some effect.
Also then all the newbies like me because of work that someone else did. It's great for me. :)
@FediTips is the first account I point newcomers towards. A real help when starting out (and beyond!)
Yup, @FediTips is such a treasure trove of useful tips for beginners and seasoned Fediversers alike!
Buy them a coffee if you are able to and appreciate what they are doing:
Oh I do have one question -- I care about quality alt text for people using screen readers. Should I not boost posts without it or can I add it myself before boosting?
@MandyMay
@FediTips @FediFollows
I write my own text, for what it's worth. I do not boost posts with images and no Alt text.
A lot of people will simply not boost posts if they lack alt text.
However, some people will do a workaround where they reply with an alt text description along with the hashtag #Alt4You and then boost the post.
A third option is to do the #Alt4You reply and then boost that instead of the original post, and indicate in it that people should look at the post you're replying to.
@FediTips
Is there a resource to help someone who might want to set up their own instance? Actually I really am asking for a friend, lol! This person is not currently on the fediverse but is currently running a small, friendly community in a WordPress environment and it is becoming financially draining and unsustainable.
Yes, there is! I also run a site all about this at https://growyourown.services which encourages non-technical people to create their own online sites and services.
The account for the website is at @homegrown
@FediTips
Thank you! Forwarded.
@homegrown
@FediTips @FediFollows
I am so glad to see there are some serious Fediverse fanatic folk out there. !! 
Para todos los que estan llegando, el mejor blog y la mejor cuenta para entender todo este cuento del fediverso y como funciona
Si no fuera por Fedi.tips aun estaria mas perdido que vaca en grama sintetica
SUPER RECOMENDADO !!!
Gracias!
@FediTips
I am a member of a large fb group and I directed the Admins Mastodon and you. I think they are looking to set up our own instance so we can get off fb.
That will turn a couple thousand folks onto the fedi! I'm excited for them to discover us.
Yay, good luck! 
Let me know if I can help!
I have a website for people setting up their own instances at https://growyourown.services/grow-your-own-social-network/
That's geat to hear, @Puck ! https://fediverse-governance.github.io/ is a very good resource on governence. And @iftas has a lot of good resources for moderators, as well as a chat room and forum - https://connect.iftas.org/
As you're setting up, something to keep in mind is that forks like Glitch and Hometown have features that are important to community that mainline Mastodon doesn't -- for example local-only posts, so that people can have some conversations just within the instance as well as others that go broader.
I just gave a newbie their first follow which was a follow-back.
I hope they read this.
@FediTips @FediFollows Do you know any Android mastodon client that could filter bots/automated accounts?
I hear botsin.space apparently went down or something and I feel there has been a bit of a flood in the local timeline of bot accounts. #tusky can show me an icon for these, but I can't find any option to filter such accounts away which I find puzzling 
Mas.to's admin offered to host good bots from botsin.space, that may be why you're seeing an unusually large number on your local timeline.
(A lot of the bots are extremely useful, some people depend on good bots for accessibility purposes, so that's probably why they host them.)
I don't know of any app that filters them out, perhaps because labelled bots are usually good bots. Bad bots don't label themselves as bots, so they would be hard to filter.
p.s. Having said that though, it's a fair point as some people don't want to see automated content at all. Perhaps you could ask Tusky if they can add such a feature?
@FediTips I see, thank you for the replies
There is a ticket for Tusky from 2020 about such a feature, but given how old it is I'm a bit pessimistic about it getting implemented any time soon
The bots that bother me are mostly just posting news articles probably off some RSS feeds, and well that legion of 100 or so bots posting day length info at sunset 
I wouldn't mind really, if not for the endless amount of different bots doing about the same thing and the lack of tools to manage it 
@FediTips @FediFollows
Hi. Hoping you can help.
Mastodon lets me load pics on my profile but I get a
oops! An unexpected error occurred
Pop up, when I try to insert pic to toot!
Using in browser on
Samsung A15 5G
DDG browser
Can't think of any other info
Hasn't REALLY bothered me till now but are times when I'd REALLY like to chuck in a pick
Not in any rush what so ever
How often has this been happening?
You are on mastodon.social which is pretty overcrowded, sometimes servers have trouble with uploads if too many people are using a server at once.
You might want to try a different server that isn't as crowded?
@FediTips @FediFollows
Ever since I joined a few days ago, everytime I've tried.
Kinda disappointing the fix is fuck off though
It's not quite "fuck off", the servers are all connected. You can still have the same follows and followers etc, but you would log in via a different server.
It's if your phone operator can't cope with the number of customers it has, you might switch to a different phone operator but you would still call the same people.
@FediTips @FediFollows
Yeah, sorry. I'm Australian! Didn't mean fuck off in a bad way
I meant the friendly fuck off
No worries, totally understand! That was how I took it
@FediTips @FediFollows
Other than content/interests, how do I decide what server is best for me?
It doesn't have to be a big thought process.
If you just want a general server similar to mastodon.social try (for example) https://mas.to or https://mstdn.social, they have been going reliably for years.
I also have a guide to servers at https://fedi.garden which goes into more detail and focuses on smaller servers which meet certain standards of safety and reliability.
The official Mastodon server list has similar standards at https://joinmastodon.org/servers
@FediTips
Thanks for time, help and links.
It's what I'm here for! Ask if you want help with anything!
By the way, normally if people move servers I'd advise them to move their account so that they can keep their followers. However, as you've only just started it would probably be easiest just to create a new account.
If you do ever want to move accounts though, there's a guide here:
https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server/