We are excited to share that we are beginning work on a new onboarding experiment for #Mastodon: Default Server Recommendations.
Our intent for this experiment is to recommend the closest server geographically that is in the correct language during the sign-up flow. We will be running this experiment on our iOS and Android apps only to start.
1/6
Carlos Solís likes this.
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Mastodon
in reply to Mastodon • • •(The reason we’re starting with the apps and not the web is because the necessary data to run this experiment is already provided through the app store. It is more complicated to do this right for the web, and we want to think carefully about how to do this in a way that respects privacy.)
2/6
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Mastodon
in reply to Mastodon • • •The experiment will be designed to ensure that server admins remain in control: meaning they will have the power opt-in and opt-out as needed, or reduce the percentage of sign-ups flowing their way.
3/6
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Mastodon
in reply to Mastodon • • •Starting now, we’re recruiting general purpose servers with open sign-ups. To be eligible, servers must:
- Run default Mastodon (for now)
- Agree to the Server Covenant
- Have existed for 1+ year
- Have shut-down & disaster plans
4/6
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Mastodon
in reply to Mastodon • • •If you’re interested in participating in this experiment, please let us know by filling out this form.
(sorry it’s in Google docs)
forms.gle/7uRui5VnMPfEYAgq8
5/6
Default Server Recommendations - Interest and Newsletter Sign-up
Google Docsreshared this
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Mastodon
in reply to Mastodon • • •The Default Server Recommendations experiment is a first step in reimagining how Mastodon onboarding & server discovery work.
Our team’s intent is to work with the community to build new onboarding pathways that support the entire network.
We can’t wait to get started 💜
6/6
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MasterEmit
in reply to Mastodon • • •Paul Versluis
in reply to Mastodon • • •@ruud
Sounds like a really good idea. I am very excited to see the first results.
Mastodon Belgium Admin
in reply to Mastodon • • •Before I fill in the form:
Is there anything in particular that should be done or followed-up server/admin side for this?
hannah aubry
in reply to Mastodon Belgium Admin • • •@admin hey! The only thing to do for now is make sure you’re meeting these eligibility requirements:
- Run default Mastodon (for now)
- Agree to the Server Covenant
- Have existed for 1+ year
- Have shut-down & disaster plans
Besides that, stay tuned!
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SamXavia
in reply to Mastodon • • •It's amazing seeing these sorts of things play out across the Fediverse. Making sure we make a better internet that is centered around Privacy and staying decentralized for all.
Keep up the good work and can't wait to see where we all are in several years to come.
Riquiñez
in reply to Mastodon • • •Jörgi
in reply to Mastodon • • •✅already answered, no more need for reposts
@Mastodon
How about also interest based?
There are some for special interests
Like punkstodon.de for punk music, metalhead.club for metal heads, infosec.exchange for tech security interested people and so on.
So just the region is maybe too less?
At least it's something to be considered after the first iteration
hannah aubry
in reply to Jörgi • • •Zekovski 🧣
in reply to Mastodon • • •Thank you.
🥳 ♥️
Aurora 🐌
in reply to Mastodon • • •I suggest a rule:
That the number of servers that defederate this specific server in her language is low.
To prevent toxic server.
Troy
in reply to Mastodon • • •Orion Ussner kidder
in reply to Mastodon • • •Razvan Stanimir
in reply to Mastodon • • •This would allow official institutions to have their own server and announce verification.
(1/3)
Sebastian Z
in reply to Mastodon • • •But no need to use g forms and then apologize for it.
I like to use framaforms.org/
Framaforms - Créez et diffusez vos formulaires facilement…
framaforms.orgthomkennon
in reply to Mastodon • • •Kackfresh
in reply to Mastodon • • •stux⚡️
in reply to Mastodon • • •Ben Zucker 🍰
in reply to stux⚡️ • • •Kiloku - Secretário do Caos
in reply to Mastodon • • •Carlos Solís likes this.
das nächste bitte
in reply to Mastodon • • •Andy Piper
in reply to das nächste bitte • • •das nächste bitte
in reply to Andy Piper • • •Nizar Kerkeni 🇹🇳 نزار القرقني
in reply to Mastodon • • •henry
in reply to Mastodon • • •Andreas Andersen 🇩🇰
in reply to Mastodon • • •Flaky
in reply to Mastodon • • •Frank Heijkamp
in reply to Mastodon • • •¯\_(ツ)_/¯
in reply to Mastodon • • •buhuuu! today is #diday, use it to switch to something privacy-friendly instead!
be a good role model, not a bad one!
Lusogeek
in reply to Mastodon • • •Sexybiggetje🐖
in reply to Mastodon • • •Aral Balkan
in reply to Mastodon • • •This is a link to the server covenant:
joinmastodon.org/covenant
One important question – and one we’ve discussed together – is which definition of antisemitism are you going with? I’d appreciate it if you could state the decision you’ve reached on this publicly. Crucially, is it one that conflates opposition to Zionism, Israel, and the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people with being bigoted against Jewish people or not? This is key in knowing whether only Zionist, pro-Israel, pro-genocide Mastodon servers will be featured in recommendations or not.
Mastodon Server Covenant for joinmastodon.org
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Kackfresh
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •@aral
I feel like by asking this question you're — inadvertently — legitimizing zionism by implying that the conflation of antisemitism with antizionism is a credible definition of that word.
Personally, I assume that antisemitism means antisemitism unless I have reason to believe otherwise.
Aral Balkan
in reply to Kackfresh • • •Carlos Solís likes this.
Aral Balkan
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •@potatoes_fall Also see this follow-up: mastodon.ar.al/@aral/115989944…
Aral Balkan
2026-01-31 13:28:20
Colin
in reply to Mastodon • • •besides geographical location, are there going to be any filters for like, interests or core topics etc?
A gardening and plant instance is going to have a different vibe from the software/hardware developer instance, etc.
It would be neat to be a part of this, but only if relevant users/signups are being directed.
Edit: "General Purpose Servers" ah.. missed that keyword (figured that would've been mentioned again earlier?). /ht: tyrol.social/@nitrml/115989922…
Niko Trimmel (@nitrml@tyrol.social)
Niko Trimmel (tyrol.social - Deine Community in Tirol & Umgebung)Riquiñez
in reply to Mastodon • • •Matt Noyes
in reply to Mastodon • • •Domo 🦇
in reply to Mastodon • • •quaff
in reply to Mastodon • • •Saustrup
in reply to Mastodon • • •joene extra
in reply to Mastodon • • •Claudius
in reply to Mastodon • • •Octavia Con Amore Succubard's Library
in reply to Mastodon • • •hannah aubry
in reply to Octavia Con Amore Succubard's Library • • •For this experiment, that is correct. We are looking to partner with servers that have open sign-ups. But we've heard the feedback that spam is going to be a big issue for many servers to participate, so our team is going to discuss what we can do about that next week.
Davey
in reply to hannah aubry • • •@haubles @OctaviaConAmore
Thanks for clarifying.
As it stands any participating server would be paying a price for inclusion.
I'm not even sure how many reputable general purpose servers still have open sign-up after recent spam waves.
As a volunteer, eyeballing potential member applications while not attending to one's own business is the only way to do it.
Mike [SEC=OFFICIAL]
in reply to Davey • • •Andrew
in reply to Mike [SEC=OFFICIAL] • • •@mike yep, it's a deal breaker for famichiki.jp as well.
@davey_cakes @haubles @OctaviaConAmore @Mastodon
Jens Bannmann
in reply to Mastodon • • •Good point! Just in case your team hasn't thought of this yet, I'd like to share an idea.
On the pricing page of my hobby project (link in my bio), I wanted to show the prices of the "correct" country. But I wanted to ensure that I don't get to know the result if someone is just visiting.
But sending the user's IP address to a third party geolocation service is not legally possible without first asking for consent.
Here's my solution: the web page contacts a tiny endpoint on my server that returns the IPv4 address it sees, but doesn't log it. Then the country lookup happens client-side via a geo-IP database file that the web page has loaded into the browser cache earlier. As the web server itself also doesn't log, I don't have any data on visitors (unless they become customers). 🎉
In the next step, you could list all languages of servers in that country, starting with the most common ones spoken there (e.g. for Switzerland: DE, FR, IT, RM) & let them choose.
#GDPR #SaaS
Nordnick 🐘
in reply to Mastodon • • •Which app store provides which data?
#Mastodon #Fediverse
Frank Heijkamp
in reply to Mastodon • • •pdlrd
in reply to Mastodon • • •Petra van Cronenburg
in reply to Mastodon • • •"Correct language": Does it mean the favourite language that people choose individually in their preferences (but for which they need an instance) or official language of a country/region? Asking for all the multi-language migrants, bilingual regions, and foreign-language prefering people.
George B
in reply to Mastodon • • •Fedi.Garden – An easy way to join Mastodon and the Fediverse
fedi.gardenFedi.Tips
in reply to George B • • •@gbargoud
I've posted about this on my other account @homegrown which is for people who run their own servers, and boosted it on here to get it a bit more visible. Hopefully that gets the word out to admins 🙂
Dusk to Don
in reply to Mastodon • • •Fabulous news. Any movement away from mastodon . social (risk of centralization, and plenty of other issues) is progress
HT @FediTips
social.growyourown.services/@F…
Fedi.Tips
2026-01-14 18:04:32
FinchHaven sfba
in reply to Mastodon • • •"We will be running this experiment on our iOS and Android apps only to start."
And here is the core symptom of the core problem itself:
You're pointing the question and its solution right back at the Deathstar Mothership itself: @Mastodon dot Social
Sort of a recursive, self-fulfilling loop, no?
But not the least bit surprising
ren (a they/them) 🌈🎶
in reply to Mastodon • • •Awesome! The other issue is “filling up the feed”, right? Bluesky’s feeds to follow are nice, but we got hashtags here. Maybe when people sign up, you also give them a nice (and attractively presented) list of hashtags to follow???
LEAN IN on that old school spirit and people feeds will fill up right away!!!
Vlad_3301
in reply to Mastodon • • •Можно выпустить в тг подарок , который можно будет получить при подтверждении ак ,в мастодонте .
Хотя не знаю почему ещё не выпустили свою же крипту, 🤔
You can issue a gift in tg , which can be received upon confirmation of the ak , in mastodon .
Although I don't know why they haven't released their own crypt yet,
stux⚡️
Unknown parent • • •Emmavetch
in reply to Mastodon • • •Fedi Fox
in reply to Mastodon • • •#FOSDEM #Fediverse #Privacy
Would you please like to focus your attention on the issue of encryption, please. Currently you are building a network with servers that do not encrypt user data and do not offer e2ee for private messages. This will explode into a gigantic privacy catastrophe when Mastodon will get it´s endless November, so these heavy design issues must be solved before that.
Brian
in reply to Mastodon • • •witchescauldron
in reply to Mastodon • • •The problem of too big, Mastodon – #OMN (Open Media Network)
hamishcampbell.comGraeme 🏴
in reply to Mastodon • • •Walter Tross
in reply to Mastodon • • •Matt
in reply to Mastodon • • •☝️ check out the thread, admins:
cc.
@chm
@admin@mastodon.nu
@trumpet
@hugo
@xaphanpl
@admin@paktodon.asia
@tc
@xrobau
@team
@sysadmin
@amministratore
@mastodonie
@maop
@kenobit
@chief
@support
@admin@piaille.fr
@valvoja
@henri
@saustrup
@donelias
@admini
@spla
@announcements
@mike@thecanadian.social
@admin@mastodon.com.br
@adrian
@xrobau
@aussocialadmin
@mike@chinwag.org
spla
in reply to Matt • • •Richard ⬜🟩⬛
in reply to Mastodon • • •Michael Bishop ☕
in reply to Mastodon • • •Lucien
in reply to Mastodon • • •Hi I'm Sean
in reply to Mastodon • • •HashRaydamon
in reply to Mastodon • • •Peperlito
in reply to Mastodon • • •Émilio Gonzalez
in reply to Mastodon • • •sammypanda
in reply to Mastodon • • •Philip Wittamore
in reply to Mastodon • • •Nate X.
in reply to Mastodon • • •kali
in reply to Mastodon • • •Cycliste du quotidien
in reply to Mastodon • • •johnny garbanzo
in reply to Mastodon • • •Claudius
in reply to Mastodon • • •Iαη 🍺
in reply to Mastodon • • •The fediverse is about avoiding the problems of centralisation. Having centralised topic servers has already resulted in much fedi-infighting.
I have several special interests. But its nonsensical to need multiple accounts. Resulting in topics most people are excluded from because they are not a member of that club. And those topics are watered down with other topic or non topic posts.
This is all because Mastodon doesn't yet have Federated groups, where 'anyone' can join. Where topic posts stay within those groups.
Mastodon Belgium Admin
Unknown parent • • •You could try with a tool like s3fs to mount an S3 bucket locally, then copy or move files over before pointing Mastodon directly to the S3 bucket.
Eashwar
Unknown parent • • •Eashwar
in reply to Eashwar • • •community.hachyderm.io/blog/20…
Leaving the Basement
Hachyderm CommunityBaloo Uriza
in reply to Mastodon • • •L29Ah
in reply to Mastodon • • •> 1/6
pathetic
Strypey
Unknown parent • • •@beachbum1972@echoingdusk.
> I would be happy to host more folks on my server. I just need some guidance on how to reduce the cost a bit
Is your server auto-deleting media after it hasn't been looked at for a while (3 months, a year, whatever)?
@haubles @admin @Mastodon