How to see other people’s posts
(In Mastodon, the equivalent of ‘tweet’ was originally ‘toot’, but many people now prefer the more neutral ‘post’)
There are three timelines that display content. Depending on whether you are using a web browser or an app to access your Mastodon account, these may show as three tabs along the top of the page, or options in a side bar.
- Home timeline is the most immediately relevant; here you will see only posts by the people you follow (reverse chronological order, most recent at the top) including any others that they have boosted (the equivalent of retweeting). In the latest version of Mastodon, you can follow #hashtags and they will also show in your Home timeline
- Local = content posted or boosted by everyone on the same instance as you. If you are on a large general instance such as mastodon.social, this may feel like too much of a good thing; choosing a smaller or more specialised instance may make your local feed more manageable, while offering extra opportunities to discover new people. If you decide to follow one of these, they will then show up in your Home timeline
- Federated = everyone on your instance plus everyone on other instances followed by someone on your instance. The bigger the instance, the more overwhelming this is likely to be.
I have found that my Home timeline offers me what I want to see most of the time – the equivalent to my chronological Twitter feed, but without the annoying promoted tweets. I do occasionally dip into the others to expand my horizons, and you can also create lists of people to follow for different areas of interest (or if they are in different time zones so might get missed in the chronological Home feed), and/or explore and follow specific hashtags.
To help you remember what goes where, Per Axbom’s 10 Quick Mastodon Tips includes a handy flow chart. An image of the current version is included here, but Per suggests you link directly to the original diagram at https://axbom.com/mastodon-tips/#flowchart in case of future updates.
Responding to posts
If you like a post, ‘favourite’ it by clicking the little star; this will only be notified to the author of that post but is still very worthwhile as a way of showing appreciation. But if you want other people to see it, then ‘boost’ it (the interlinked arrows symbol). Numbers of favourites and boosts are not displayed – the object is not to amass popularity points but about being generous and increasing the reach and amplifying the ideas of other users.
Next: Start writing
Moving to Mastodon 