🐦 Thread original: @Bodil, all her apes gone, no Twitter.

Hi, if you're thinking of evacuating to Mastodon before the boy genius destroys this place entirely, I thought I'd write you a survival guide, just to manage your expectations.

First and foremost: it looks a lot like Twitter at first glance but it isn't, for better and usually for worse. Don't be fooled by the familiar look into thinking you're going to have a similar experience.

They'll tell you to choose a server based on your interests or community affiliations. Masto servers as communities are largely a conceit, don't listen to this. Pick a server based on how much you trust the admins to #1 keep it running, and #2 moderate it well.

The latter point is particularly important, because there's no centralised authority to appeal to for moderation. It's a federated network with nobody in charge, and it includes such interesting neighbours as Gab and Truth Social. Moderation is going to be on you and your admin.

Anyone telling you what Masto culture is like and how you should behave to fit in is lying. Doesn't matter if they wrote a tutorial or if they're in your mentions lecturing you. The fediverse doesn't have a single uniform culture, there's a node for everyone. (See above re: Gab.)

(...)
And here's another thing that's happening over there right now: a shocking amount of people, vastly outnumbering the old time mastodonians, have just evacuated there from Twitter, and if there was anything like "masto culture" before, it's being examined and reconsidered.

See above: Masto culture is a lie. If you go there and find the culture rubs you the wrong way, if you've tried it in the past and had bad experiences, be patient: I suspect it'll be a completely different place by next week.

(...)
But even if you're still skeptical that it's ever going to replace Twitter (and I'm generally with you, even though I'm feeling foolishly hopeful atm), I'm p sure it's the best option around right now just for preserving at least a partial social graph for whatever comes next.

So that's why I, as a long time Mastodon detractor, think you should probably join Mastodon right now. Just to be on the safe side.

I'm @bodil@lol.camp [lol.camp/bodil](https://lol.camp/bodil) over there, by the way.