Fediquette: Your guide to Mastodon culture

Contents

Introduction ⚓

So you’ve heard about this cool social network called Mastodon 🔗 and decided to give it a try. You found an instance, created your account, learned how to post, and put your first words out there. Then, someone replies telling you to use something called a…CW? Or you post an image and get told to use something called…alt text? What does any of this even mean?

On the surface, Mastodon looks and behaves a lot like other popular social networks. But beneath the toots and quips and pictures is a community of people who, over time, built a unique culture that permeates throughout the network. This can be jarring, especially if you came from a more commercial social network, and it might seem daunting at first, but it’s refreshing once you learn about its nuances.

This blog is a short introduction to Mastodon etiquette, or Fediquette 🔗. I don’t claim to know everything, as I’m still new myself, but this is what I’ve observed so far. If you think anything here is incorrect or not completely accurate, drop me a DM 🔗!

Respect your neighbors ⚓

While it’s impossible (or at least very hard) to get an exact breakdown of the demographics, many people on Mastodon are from marginalized or underrepresented groups. Many of us never felt comfortable expressing ourselves on larger platforms that cater to broader, more normalized demographics, whereas Mastodon can have entire instances dedicated to specific interests or characteristics. This isn’t to say that Mastodon isn’t without its problems 🔗, but its users have far more control over who’s allowed to participate and what kind of abuse they’re willing to tolerate. The question is: how do you make a decentralized network a safe and welcoming community for everyone regardless of their background, interests, and challenges?

The answer is to always be respectful, receptive, and accomodating. This isn’t a popularity contest like other sites. When someone posts about a problem they’re experiencing, listen, especially if they’re feeling unsafe or unwelcome. You don’t need to chime in to every conversation, and you won’t always be welcome in to every community. If, for example, a disabled person has a disability-related question, responses from able-bodied people isn’t always welcome or helpful. Just be considerate, and when in doubt, ask. If you really don’t want to be exposed to someone else’s conversation, you can always opt out using Mastodon’s built-in filters, blocks, and mutes.

Use content wrappers ⚓

One of Mastodon’s killer features is content wrappers, or CWs. These let you hide the content of your toots behind a button that other users must click before they see your toot. It’s a bit like tossing a sheet over your toot and putting a small sign in front of it saying what’s underneath the sheet. Anyone passing by can take a peek if they want to, but if someone doesn’t, they’re not exposed to whatever it is you’re covering.

Use these as much as possible! A common use case is of course NSFW content (e.g. porn), but it’s also a tool for psychological safety. Heavy topics come up frequently on Mastodon, and for some people, even just seeing the topic scroll by can be an emotional trigger. When talking about sensitive topics, use content wrappers and tell us generally what the topic of your toot is. That way, you give other the freedom to choose whether to engage instead of forcing it on them.

This applies to pictures too, especially since you can control image visibility separately from the post. Got a clean post but a sensitive picture? Just mark it as sensitive and Mastodon will blur it out! It’s a really convenient and easy way to make everyone comfortable.

Embrace accessibility ⚓

A lot of Mastodon’s users use accessibility tools, particularly screen readers. Mastodon includes a bunch of built-in tools and features to cater to accessibility, especially with images. Whenever you upload an image to Mastodon, you have the option of adding a description, also known as alt text. Always add alt text! It takes just a few seconds, and it lets visually impaired readers enjoy your content just like able-bodied users.

Pro-tip: If your image includes text, Mastodon can automatically extract that text using OCR (Optical Character Recognition). It’s not always perfect, so you’ll likely need to edit the output, but it’s a good starting point.

Hash your tags! ⚓

Searching and discovering posts doesn’t work quite the same way on Mastodon as it does on centralized sites. There is no central database, no crawlers indexing everyone’s posts. Instead, it relies on you to add hashtags to your posts, then anyone who searches by that hashtag has the chance to see your post.

Adding a hashtag is simple. For example, if your post is about dogs, add #Dogs. If it’s about technology, add #Technology. If it’s about Sunday brunch, you guessed it: #SundayBrunch. One thing to keep in mind when writing hashtags is to keep them all one word, but use CamelCase (capitalize the first letter of each word). When a hashtag is made up of multiple lower case words, like #todayismyday, screen readers can’t make sense of them. But if you write it as #TodayIsMyDay, screen readers can recognize the different words and pronounce it appropriately.

Remember the Golden Rule ⚓

“Do to others as you’d have others do to you.” In other words, don’t be a jerk and everything will be fine. Mastodon is a social network in the truest sense: there are no algorithms pushing controversial posts or sponsored content, frequent abusers won’t be tolerated, and word spreads quickly across instance admins. If you or your instance are consistently being abusive, you’ll likely just get isolated from the rest of the network. But if you’re willing to be part of a growing community of amazing people who just want a place to express themselves, you’ll fit right in!