Convener: Session Convener: n00q (@n00q@don.n00q.net)

Participants who chose to record their names here:

• Jeff Sikes (@box464@mastodon.social)
• chewie (@chewie@mammut.gogreenit.net)

Tags / links to resources / technology discussed, related to this session:

https://n00q.net/articles/guide-mastodon-hometown/

Discussion notes, key understandings, outstanding questions, observations, and, if appropriate to this discussion: action items, next steps:

• Was using mastodon
• Wanted to set up an instance for my local punk scene
• They were all on IG
• I wanted to get people off that
• Debated between Mastodon, Pixelfed, Hometown
• Pixelfed is like IG
• Hometown is a local only option
• Problem with Pixelfed - doesn’t have mobile apps - for my friends they need an app on their phone. Needs to be a native nice app
• If pixelfed releases apps - I’ll try it.
• They are in beta for Android - need to show people how to sideload
• Settled on Hometown - thought the local only posting was good
• Eugen said it’s not what he wants for Mastodon
• It works well and I set it up
• It was hard at first
• There was an outage of IG that happened soon after
• Hey you can check out the new thing
• People join - use it once and then leave - we’ve seen a slow cumulative increase
• Every time I think it’s not working - there’s a jump in users
• 30 active users who are posting once a day, about 100 users
• It’s less active which we like
• We flyer at shows - one side has an invite - some enticing graphics on the back explain how mastodon
• For me personally I use tuskegee / tusky???
• People are also exploring the fediverse - took a long time for the queer trans friends to join after I explained they were on the fediverse
• Hometown is Glitch-soc - it’s a fork - infosec.exchange uses it
• Hometown is Mastodon + Glitch-soc + a few other small things
• Can break the chain on individual posts to unfederate
• Hometown has a special emoji that makes it local only
• Every instance of hometown has it’s own secret emoji when posted - connotes it’s a local only post
• I’m not telling people to delete IG, you have 10 apps - give it a try.
• Being patient - peopl come and give it a try and people slowly

Jeff - thinking of setting up a family group

• My mom has early dementia
• She loves social media
• Wanted to set up a closed instance for her

Nooq - just go to mastodon - install mastodon

• Hometown - local only posting
• Default posting is local only
• Can set up as an allow list federation

Jeff - installed a bonfire install

• It has good moderation tools
• If Mom puts something out there we have to look at it first
• Or if someone tries to follow her - weh ave to approve first
• She loves facebook, if we wanted to do a moderation - we’d have to say she was 13 -
• So important for people to feel comfortable and safe - but looking for things that make it easier for us to moderate

Nooq

• Need an app that is native and really slick
• Nooti - Nostr app that was demo’d yesterday - that was pretty slick