Add content warnings to inflammatory posts (including news articles about others being inflammatory). If bad actors try to ruin your followers' day, don't help them, and keep that CW up.

And add alt text to your images and videos. Not just for visual impaired readers but for adding context.

Let me recommend this website for general activitypub recommendations, including mastodon. It asks a few questions and gives some recommendations. https://fedidb.com/welcome
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**My advice on finding a server**
Firstly, the server/instance you choose has little effect on what you actually see on the network. So choosing a server, I would say, is more about the people you want to associate yourself with and also what level of administration you want, with what rules.

For example: I’m part of the server infosec.exchange which I joined because of an interest in infosec. It is a fairly large instance that many security minded individuals call their home. That doesn’t mean there’s exclusively infosec talk, but also cat photos and general life updates. It’s not that big a deal in reality, what server you choose.
So just try to find a server with, maybe a shared interest, a good ruleset or just well known administration. You could also use mastodon.social but most recommend against that.
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**My advice on finding accounts**
Just give it some time. Yes, that easy.
When I got here I knew not just nothing about mastodon but nothing about microblogging at all. But I just clicked a few buttons and gave it a month, and now I got a steady feed.

There really is no trick other than, find accounts on the server or trending feed, follow some accounts, unfollow some accounts, take part in some discussions and be kind to others.

One thing I can say is joining in on discussions under popular posts. There you may find people to follow who may also follow you back. That can give your feed that alive feeling, with real, genuine people.

From there it evolves dynamically.
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*So, just try your best, be kind, maybe migrate to a server with good administration and give it some time.*
*Hopefully this helped, and that my absolute blob of a post didn’t give you a headache.* XD
*And that you’ll join us here on Mastodon too.”

Some of the apps (eg. Fedilab) have this as built-in functionality ("Manage timelines"), or you can do it on the web

#FediTips

The idea that there's no shitposting on here comes from journalists who joined the biggest instance, followed the ten journalist accounts they follow everywhere and saw no shitposting.

Since there's no "For You"-style feed, what you see is what your follows post and boost, so if you only follow strictly business accounts you'll only see strictly business.

read bios and pinned before following _especially_ if its a locked account, the most interesting people do not take kindly to cold follows out of nowhere. doubly so if you're new. talk to people first, get acquainted w/ the culture

Take your time, don't expect too much in the first few days or even weeks!

The fediverse does not try to grab your attention like common social media do. Until you have got into it, sometimes it might even feel a bit boring. Over here there are no tools to *keep you interested*, since the fediverse does not get more revenue the longer you stay here. Actually, there is no *here* at all. It's a federation of thousands of separate heres.)

You have total control. That means that you might have to work a little bit to establish whom to follow.

The other advices: be kind; try hashtags.

9) Some instances have increased symbol limits, some instances have markdown formatting

10) ALT text is important

11) Sometimes admins of your instance might block the other instance. Be it for the good will (there are some wild instances around here) or just a result of a pissing match, you can't follow anyone on the blocked instance. If that's important, might as well move to the less strict instance.

4) Use tags

5) Please, for the love of any entity you worship, u s e t a g s

6) Like, seriously, find out good tags to follow: gamedev, art, 3d, blender, gaming and just follow them

7) Tag your posts to reach people interested in the same things you do

Blocks are free. But be aware that technically they are public (instances exchange this among each other). Mutes however are not public. And they are also free.

- follow some hashtags (#CatsOfMastodon is pretty good)

- use mute liberally. if you click "show options" you can do a timed mute that expires automatically, and or can only mute someone's posts but not their replies to you

- make a filter called like "00 filtered posts". then when you want to hide a post click the meatballs menu on the bottom right (3 dots), click filter this post, then type 00 and click your filtered posts filter