The End Times (of Hobby Twitter)

Having a bad case of hobby Magpie-ism, and the attention span of a new-born - interestingly brought on by having a new-born, I feel like broadening this blog out a bit. Hopefully, a bit more freedom will double up and get my writing mojo flowing. So how am I going to start breaking the mould? Well, what better way than to start by chatting about Mastodon as a platform for Wargamers and hobbyists. What’s that? There are a million better ways I hear you heckle? Maybe, but indulge me. 

Mastodon, what's that? 

Every description I ever read about Mastodon reads like someone has eaten a thesis and dictionary pertaining to Social Media and is steadily regurgitating it. So, I’m going to break from that tradition. It’s essentially lots of little social medias that can all interact with one another to seem like one place. 

Consider social media as a blend of two things in different proportions, broadcasting and discussion.

Let me try a bring some clarity to my pseudo-terminology. By broadcasting - I mean showing, projecting externally, a mind dump as it where. For discussion, I mean social engagement, passing along compliments, chatting about something, responding to in a forum to something that’s interesting. Refining this a little more, view these two things as utterly separate from our social media consumption. Go on a platform and look at some reels/tweets/etc - you’re consuming media. What I am going to drive at is what the impact of the blend of broadcasting and discussion has on how we consume social media.

In my world of pseudo-terminology, Instagram is high scoring on broadcasting (duh), and not all that high on discussion (Just look at the comments - they aren't particularly engaging, it's just not what the platform is for). Facebook is high on both, there's lots of passive broadcasting, and a lot of forums prompting lots of chatter (just post in your local group about cyclists vs motorists vs dog walkers vs pedestrians - lots of 'discussion' there). Twitter is more discussion - though it's become strong on the broadcasting side of things in recent years. Mastodon is very high on the discussion elements and less so on the broadcasting elements than Twitter. I would say in spite of all the clattering that Mastodon is not Twitter, it does closest resemble Twitter.

So we’re starting from a point where we have a social media network that looks something like Twitter, albeit with some extra timelines (local and federated - what the hell are those?!? Later, I promise). So you download and open your preferred app, which for most people who first join you go for the official app, and you join a home server, let’s say warhammer.social. All seems legit, right? Unfortunately, you’re now greeted with a totally empty wasteland. You delete the app, and you go on to say selecting a server is hard, and Mastodon is rubbish. Which, is really quite a fair observation at that point. 

Let me say, humbly, you’ve done it wrong you big daftie. Firstly, not through any fault of your own though you’ve picked the wrong app, I have no idea why the official app is so unbearably bad. I really don’t. But don’t use it. Second, and this is where you can blame yourself, if you log onto Facebook and expect Twitter, you’re going to be disappointed. Similarly here, while Mastodon resembles Twitter, it’s not Twitter (ding-ding-ding, what is Mastodon blog post cliche no1!). 

That frequent comparison of Mastodon to Twitter has been a bit of a handicap for Mastodon. Yes, it's primarily snappy text base posts on a timeline, it uses hashtags for navigation, and the interface at its most basic feels pretty similar. Like Twitter images play a big part in the ecosystem. But the differences in how that all adds together in a broadcasting & discussion blend leads to a really different consumption of social media. 

Here are some of the differences for me as a wargaming hobbyist. 

Timelines - you have three timelines rather than just one. The first home is the closest to what you have on Twitter, it’s the stuff you follow. Then you have Local, this is where a server comes into things, and you’ll see all the posts from folks in your server (just realised, I should say these servers are the instances we all yammer on about), so if you join warhammer.social you’ll have a timeline that shows you everything that’s going on in there, which presently means it can be rather quiet - there’s at the point I’m writing this about 1,000 people on the server, and only 230ish are classed as active currently) - so it is still rather small. Finally, you have Federated - now this one I’m still navigating what the hell it is. My layperson’s understanding is it’s anyone that your server is connected to - so everyone’s following on the server. It can be wild and if you fancy a bit of aimless scrolling click on over to the federated timeline. 

Now, timelines run on Algorithms and that’s probably the most significant difference on between Twitter and Mastodon- their algorithms are totally different. 

You'll see lots of noise about there being "no algorithm", well there is  - but compared to most social media it's an incredibly simple one, so simple people don’t seem to consider it an algorithm - you see posts in chronological order of them making their way to your timelines. On your home timeline for example (the one most like Twitter) those posts make their way to you if you follow someone, a hashtag, or the toot is boosted into your timeline by someone that you follow. That's it, there are no adverts sneakily making their way to you, no suggested content based on your 'likes', no hot take please engage posts. Personally - I love it, and I think makes for a better social media experience. I would rather curate what I see, I’m blissfully happier not having that power rest in your man’s hands. The only downside of this I’ve not got an answer for is there are some great hobbyists who have turned the hobby into a job and rely on getting their content in front of you, unfortunately, this ‘no altered’ social media scape is a very difficult environment for them. It’s only my feelings on this - but I’d love to see more of them making their way across, they’re generally wonderful hobbyists and definitely an important part of the fabric of the online hobby community, seems a shame to be missing their voices on Mastodon. 

Now, I’ve briefly touched on this - but the servers. The simplest way to look at this is they are all their own tiny social media but they can interact with all the other tiny social media that exist in the Mastodon world (and incidentally further afield too but I’m not touching that topic with a ten-foot barge pole). 

There’s a risk-reward to this when it comes to moderation, not something that you really want to have to think about, but best to. Your server is moderated by either a group or some individuals. They’ll usually have written up some notes on the community rules, and by and large, they’ll be “don’t be a massive arse etc”. 

Now the risk is that you don’t have a responsive admin - that means you might end up seeing some nasty stuff or spam. The reward is when smaller communities look out for each other (or here have a responsive admin) the impact is much much better. Despite the warhammer.social admin not being a serial poster, they’ve been very responsive when it comes to sorting out spam, and as it’s a small hobby community and the broadcast x discussion matrix is as it is - generally there isn’t anything to moderate on the nasty side of things. Generally, contrary to common sense (also known as the flawed illogic system we’ve used to make every bad decision as a species ever) smaller communities are very good at looking after themselves. The context here is Twitter has 400m users, and all of Mastodon is around 12m - the warhammer.social instance is less than 1k. 

The Mastodon in the room (thank you) is all these servers/instances - what difference does it make? It dictates what you see in the first place on your Local timeline, so I’d recommend having a look for an instance that matches your interests if you primarily use Mastodon for a hobby (warhammer.social) or go for a more general one if you want your intro to be more general (mastodon.ie for example - it’s excellent. Mastodon.Social is the big’un as general as they come). What’s nice is you can move after you’ve set up, there’s loads of guides on how to do this, and you keep all your followers etc. 

So, let me get a bit of a round-up of what Mastodon is before I natter on how to use it and more importantly why I think while it's different to Twitter, I think it’s a replacement and improvement. 

The Attempted Nutshell

Mastodon is a social media network that allows bubbles of its social media scape to interact with each other. It works on a chronological algorithm that shifts the focus onto the user to curate the content they see. While it allows people to go into broadcasting mode, it is notable in that the platform is very much most rewarding when you are having a natter with another account over something you’re both interested in. 

How to use it

App Selection - Do not use the official app, it's sadly rubbish. Mastodon is open source and this means lots of folks have had a go of developing an app. I'm an iPhone user so I'm more confident on my thoughts there and I've just had a look about for an Android app - so take that suggestion with a pinch of salt! 

iPhone: IceCubes - this is a glorious app. It has a gorgeous interface, and functionally it is brilliant. IT gives you access to do everything you want to, including having a reader for other instances (Local Timelines), which means you can dip in and out of other instances and see what's happening elsewhere. 
Android: showing the power of Mastodon, and its conversational nature - I had some conversations off the back of this, originally I had Megalodon down as the recommendation. After a somewhat unanimous response I’m going to update that and say Tusky! Go an have a look at what the android users are recommending themselves. 

(Original recommendation: What I am seeing recommended after a quick search is Megalodon. Again, apple user so if anyone is reading this - drop me a line on Mastodon with your better suggestions!)

Server/Instance Selection - there are two ways to approach this and it's up to you. 
Route one is to find a general server/instance and have a look for a big server (https://joinmastodon.org/servers) that looks appealing - like I said for me that would have been Mastodon.ie. 

Route two, which is what I did, is to find a small server that's what you're on social media for. My recommendations for hobby Server/Instances are: 

warhammer.social: does what it says on the tin, though it's explicitly not exclusively Warhammer/GW content. I am on here, and I really enjoy the server, despite the admin being really clear that they've not as much time as they'd like to devote to it, I find it a really well moderated spot, and the content from users is brilliant, we just need some more converts to get it busier! 

dice.camp: a pleasant mix of miniature hobbyists and TTRPGers, I've ended up following a good number of folks from here. It's a decent size, so if your interests are varied, hop on there and there is plenty going on. 

tabletop.vip: Another mixed instance, wargaming but with a main serving of board games. 

mastodon.wssmagazine.com: More for historic wargamers, it's a bit quieter but some of the accounts on there are great, very much a quality over quantity server/instance. I'd love to see this one grow more if it can keep up the quality! 

Etiquette - There is a bit of etiquette to Mastodon which I know some folks have baulked at - it's by no means enforced so feel free to hammer away as you would elsewhere, generally people don't take much notice. My general feelings about the etiquette are it comes from the nature of the platform that there's a lot of diversity on Mastodon and this etiquette is about maintaining the space as a friendly useable space for the pool of people there. Following the etiquette leads to a nicer ecosystem to be in, and to be honest, I'm not totally sure what there is to baulk at (oh no! Pronouns). To boot, I don't think it's actually all that intensive to follow: 

CW/TW: This is one of those things that can wind people up. Its totally harmless and relatively simple and if you don't get it right no one will get on your back. My rule of thumb is to ask "is this normal content for my server?", and if it's not "is there a chance it might upset anyone?". For example, I work in Alcohol, and it does me zero harm to put a plop CW: Alcohol when I am musing about drink on my hobby space. Really don't over think or dramatise this. 

Alt Descriptions for images: I think there is a big community of partially sighted folks on Mastodon - Alt Descriptions help them navigate your content. I actually have found this great, It's mindful to sit and write them when you're posting an image. If your in a bit of a rush, post away, and you can always come back and edit the post to have an alt description after you've posted it. 

Politeness: Mastodon not having a timeline altering algorithm has one really nice off product - it isn't adversarial. You'll get more much more interaction, engagement, and joy out of the app following, replying to, and boosting the content you like. Communities instinctively form here over things that they are commonly interested in, like, curious about rather than an in-out group arena where you're defined more by what you don't like. 

Using the App

Replies:  Replies are the lifeblood of Mastodon, go and engage with folks posting about the stuff you're interested in, and you end up with digital pals, and have a really nice chat about hobby stuff. What's not to like about that? The platform has so far been infinitely more engaging in this way than Twitter was for me - I am a sample of one, and things are small - so fingers crossed it doesn't change. 

 Likes and boosts: I saw this described brilliantly - likes are you saying "I think this is neat", and boosts are "Hey folks, look at this cool thing". The like don't suddenly curate your content, they don't force you to see anything you didn't want to see. Boost can be curated, you can stop repeat boosts, and you can stop seeing an account's boosts, so again, you are totally in control of what you see! 

Hashtags: Okay this is one I don't think folks have talked about enough. Hashtags are an extremely important way in which to navigate Mastodon. They are important for finding and sharing content. Some Hashtags have nothing happening on them (yet #WHFB I am looking at you) others have some decent traffic #WarhammerCommunity. What is key is not to spam the hashtags (something I hadn't thought much about initially) but to use them liberally and relevantly. Think of them as descriptors to show your content to the relevant people. 

As for following Hashtags, your app might show you which Hashtags are busier initially follow hashtags extremely liberally in your interest area - it'll help populate your timeline and find you interesting accounts and content to engage with. Over time you might trim them back - you might notice replication etc. Additionally, I would throw in some Hashtags for your other interest as timeline breakers (#Gardening for me. And yes, I am that twee)

Instance readers: Make sure your app has something like an instance reader - so that you can hop onto another instance and read the content there as if it was your local timeline. I have found this an invaluable way to find people I want to follow. 

Curation: This might be the single biggest differentiator to most(all?) other social media. Mastodon isn't really doing this for you. You are in the driving seat, and you'll get the best out of the app and network if you mute things that annoy you, follow hashtags that interest you, turn boosts off where they are an issue, and follow people who you enjoy getting all their content from (and here, be open-minded to folks posting about non-hobby stuff where you can - really makes for a nice ecosystem when you see another bit of life from people who hobby). This is a bit of work, and no one tells you to do it when joining and that is responsible for 90% of the issues people have with Mastodon I reckon. 

Million gold crown question, why do I think Mastodon is a great space for hobbyists especially ones leaving Twitter? 

It's a friendly space, that encourages conversation, and its interactions feel very sincere even if the likes and boosts aren't on the same scale as something like Twitter (though getting four likes fromMastodon's 12 million users is like getting 133 likes from Twitter's 400m, and if you actually look at the combined hobby spaces' 20k users vs Twitter it's probably something like 160,000 likes). The vibe is casually nattering across the gaming table, around the painting session, or about your interests when you catch pals. While Twitter is like this too, I think Mastodon's lack of algorithmic infrastructure lends itself brilliantly to encouraging and fostering this. 

The diversity of hobbyists: I think this is reflected brilliantly in the four instances (and there are more than just the four) there's a little bit more than a machine churning out recommendations for GW accounts, and I say this as one of those GW heavy accounts - I want to see the board games, I want to see the TTRPGers, and I definitely want to see more of the historical stuff. The community is pretty small right now and the range to topics (if, as I said above, you know how to find it) is pretty wide! 

Curation: this will put some folks off, fair enough, but I think the fact I am not being bombarded with stuff I really don't want to see (Unsolicited Adverts)*, and I am getting the fruits of my own creation is really rewarding. *I follow the bot account recirculating tweets from Warhammer Community and I would really love to see some of the Hobby Content Accounts over here - even if it's stealth advertising, and I would love to see how the content evolves - when the adversarial aspects of modern content creation are put where it belongs - the bin. 

The Obvious Thing: there is one thing that's relevant to Twitter users and worth touching on, himself doesn't own Mastodon. The really worrying and widely reported decisions that have been happening with Twitter in its attempt to get into profitability are not an issue on a not-for-profit 'de-centralised' form of social media (ding, ding, ding, what is mastodon blog post cliche no2 and 3 all in one sentence!). It's pretty idealistic to think that hobby Twitter disappearing would make any difference, however, I think most folk will be left feeling uncomfortable that their presence adds anything to his endeavours. Maybe Mastodon isn't it for people - but it's a really good option once you've got your head around it, and hopefully some of the above has struck a chord with you and I'll see you on one of the servers posting some content.

If it hasn't, I am wheeling out one last big gun - you Toot on Mastodon, that's fart. Farting away is infinitely better than tweeting away. If that doesn't convince you, I'm not sure the internet is for you.