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"Meet Mastodon" by @webinista webinista.com/updates/meet-mas

Fantastic, no-nonsense introduction to Mastodon and the fediverse. Lots of good advice on privacy, security, and how to choose your instance.

@nolan @webinista these "wtf is masto" guides are getting better and better! One quibble with this one and the one linked from it - I wish they would not answer the (admittedly very difficult) question of "what instance do I join" by recommending very large instances.

@deutrino I don't believe @webinista is arguing to pick an instance based on size, but yeah the linked post does.

IMO though that's not a bad strategy for newbies. If you've ever seen a freshly-launched instance, you'll know that small instances can feel very lonely. Picking a big one at least ensures you get a fairly representative sample of the fediverse. And folks can always switch to another instance. 😊

deutrino @deutrino

@nolan @webinista it's not the worst advice, that's for sure, especially given the state of the art in answering "okay, but how do I find a medium or small instance which is relevant to my interests, has *some* traffic, and isn't likely to go away in 2 months when the sysop loses interest?"