Notices by Veronika Bondarenko (veronika@journa.host)

It started out so well and then these bots found me. Tips for dealing with this?

Cannot stop laughing at trolls who are creating Mastodon accounts just to tell me how terrible I am for leaving Twitter. That’ll sure show Mastodon that no one wants to use it!

Also, I didn’t leave Twitter (still on it) and I certainly didn’t join Mastodon out of protest. I joined because something is clearly afoot here and journalists should be on top of new developments. It’s kind of our job.

4) It’s hard but let’s try not to think of Mastodon as a “Twitter replacement.” The interface and communication style are very similar, yes, but we should move away from thinking “why doesn’t it have X THING TWITTER HAS” and think about functions we need.
5) I don’t want to turn into an evangelist but I’m seeing a lot of misconceptions about Mastodon on Twitter. Many think it’s hard to use (um, it’s a new site built by volunteers that’s growing at lightning speed, what can you expect?) #mastodon

5, Continued) Some think it’s the liberal version of Parler but I’m already seeing the spectrum. Should we try to dispel false narratives or simply use it and see who hops over?
6) This is THE TIME to fill a niche and establish a presence. If you’ve ever wanted a stronger audience and online presence that didn’t take off on Twitter or Instagram, now is the time to be interesting on here.

A few growing pains/early mistakes/Mastodon notes:
1) Don’t look for the biggest or most popular server to join. You can find the same people and do the same things from all of them so pick any and migrate later. Chances are, there’ll be a new one that’s a better fit in a few days — I just joined a journo one!
2) Migrating is not immediate. There are currently two of my accounts that should merge soon.
3) Let’s not bring the worst of Twitter behavior on here. What are some things we don’t want?