Welcome to yttrx!
yttrx is a Mastodon community server for English-speaking users, run out of Canada and the USA. If you’ve just made an account, welcome aboard. This page is here to help you get your bearings.
First things first #
Mastodon doesn’t have an algorithm picking your feed for you. Nothing is trying to keep you scrolling. That’s great once you’re set up, but it does mean the first day is on you: you have to go find a few people and topics worth following. The good news is it doesn’t take long, and the rest of this page walks you through it.
Pick an app #
You can use yttrx straight from the web at yttrx.com and never install a thing. It works well on both desktop and your phone’s browser. But a native app is usually nicer day to day, and there are some good ones:
- iOS: Ice Cubes is free and a great place to start. Mammoth is polished and beginner-friendly, and if you want a power-user, TweetDeck-style layout, Ivory (from the Tweetbot folks) is excellent.
- Android: Tusky is the long-standing favourite and an easy first pick. Moshidon and Fedilab are good if you want more knobs to turn.
- Either platform: the official Mastodon app works fine too, and has come a long way.
There’s no cost to switching apps later, so don’t overthink it. When an app asks which server you’re on, the answer is masto.yttrx.com.
Finding people and topics #
The fastest way to fill out your feed is the Explore section. From the web app:
Follow a handful of accounts, boost a few posts you like, and follow a couple of hashtags (tap any hashtag and you’ll see a “Follow” option, so posts using it show up in your home feed). That’s enough to get rolling. Go explore for a bit before you come back here. ☺️
It also helps to let people find you. Write a short introduction post about who you are and what you’re into, and tag it #introduction. Plenty of people follow that hashtag specifically to meet newcomers, and listing your interests (hobbies, fandoms, what you do for work, whatever) makes it easy for the right people to spot you and say hello.
Prefer a feed reader? There’s also an RSS feed of the local public timeline .
How Mastodon actually works #
There is no single Mastodon. Instead there’s a whole network of independently run community servers, and ours is masto.yttrx.com. If you signed up with us, that’s where your account lives, and it’s part of your username. For example, @waffles@masto.yttrx.com
is one of the admins (go say hi!).
These servers all talk to each other to pass around posts, replies, boosts and follows. This wider network is often called “the fediverse.” Each server sets its own rules and handles its own moderation, which is how a community keeps itself pleasant to be in.
If that sounds confusing, think about email. You might have a Gmail address while a friend uses Outlook, and you can still email each other without a second thought, because you each know the other’s full address. Mastodon is the same idea. Your full handle looks like @you@masto.yttrx.com, and anyone on any server can follow you with it, just as you can follow people on other servers using theirs.
Don’t worry if it hasn’t fully clicked yet. The apps make following people easy, so the best way to understand it is to jump in. 🤠
A couple of things worth knowing #
- Quote posts are here. You can quote someone else’s post to add your own take, and you control who’s allowed to quote yours (anyone, just your followers, or no one) from the post’s privacy settings.
- Conversations are more complete now. Your server pulls in replies from other servers, so threads read the way you’d expect instead of cutting off.
- Content warnings are part of the culture. If you post something long, spoilery, or sensitive, tucking it behind a CW is appreciated. It’s quick to add when you write a post.
Still have questions? #
If you want to go deeper, the increasingly less brief guide to Mastodon is a friendly, thorough walkthrough and a great next read.
Anything specific to yttrx that isn’t covered here? Reach out to the admins, that’s what we’re here for.