Once you join an instance are you stuck on that instance for life? What happens if you want to participate on another instance? Can I reply to comments on other instances?
Ideas are being discussed as to how your followers can follow you when you move, but that's tricky given the entire concept of federation.
This is explained on the page I wrote[0], but if anyone on your instance follows person X on another instance, toots from person X turn up on the federated timeline on your instance, you can have a chance to see those toots. Similarly, if someone on your instance boosts a toot, it turns up on your instance, so you can see it and decide whether or not you want to remote follow that person. This the network of connections grows, albeit slowly.
And yes, you can comment on threads on other instances.
Hope that helps. You can always join an instance with a throwaway account, try it out, and if migration does come to life, migrate. If not, start afresh on the instance of choice with a new account. Come find me here:
https://mathstodon.xyz/@ColinTheMathmo
[0] http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/ThinkingAboutMastodon.html?HN_...
I tend to just open up the browser interface and scroll down will I don't recognise things, then read upwards. I've wondered about writing a took to do that, the idea being that if I do so and find it useful then I can offer it to others, and then if it becomes popular then it might get integrated into the code. It is, after all, open source. My problem is that I can't see how the interface would work. "Displayed" is not the same as "have read", and if i's been a while then it might be along way back.
It's things like this that let to the "Things you might have missed" feature in Twitter. Does Mastodon need something similar? Personally, I prefer it as it is, but I can see how others might want something different.
The interface works well with the Twitter clients I've used, usually involving showing a count of unread messages which decreases as one scrolls up. All can be marked as read by scrolling to the top (e.g. by tapping on the count). I suspect it might be harder to manage given the federated nature, though.
https://<MastodonInstance>/users/<UserName>.atom
Firefox users can right click on the browser chrome, go to Customize, and add a subscribe button that lights up when a page has a feed. It's not as snug a fit as what used to go in the address bar, but it still works.
> Firefox users can right click on the browser chrome, ...
... but I've made a note of your comment, and when I get time I'll go hunting to find out how it works. It seems to me that RSS/Atom/Subscription is going to make a comeback. Technical people are moving off other platforms and putting their output on their own sites, so some sort of subscription management is the way to go.
Maybe.
We'll see. Thank for the reply.
And if you want to migrate you should be able to download am your stuff and migrate follower lists etc
People are actively working on it to ensure that people can move across instances smoothly, but it's not yet there.
Y@J can announce they're moving and say where they're going, but there's no automated process. Several have been proposed, all (so far) can be horrendously abused. So far, X@I has to see the notification and follow Y@K manually.
As far as I know, a lot of people have different accounts for their different centers of interest.
Everyone you see on the public timeline is on a server that contains at least one person someone om your server follows. Thats how servers get to know each other. If you go seek out and follow someone on madeupname.social and youre the first to do so them you have caused new federation!
Its a good thing. Interract with as many people as you care to and your instance will benefit. This isnt like Reddit where subs will ban you for contributing in any way to subs they dont like. Its just not like that