There are common questions that come up when people consider joining the Fediverse, hopefully this page answers them:
What is the Fediverse? What is Mastodon?
There’s a simple non-technical article explaining the Fediverse and Mastodon ⧉ over on Fedi.Garden’s sister site Fedi.Tips.
This seems so confusing! Why would anyone want to join this?
Fedi.Tips also has a guide about why the Fediverse exists and why it’s made up of many separate servers ⧉. The Fediverse is not a nerdy toy, it’s a community creating social networks that are under the control of ordinary people and grassroots groups instead of billionaires and corporations.
How do I sign up?
Go to the front page of this site and choose the option that suits you best.
What if I sign up on the wrong server? Do I need to be on the same server as people I want to follow?
No matter which server you are on, you can follow people from other servers and they can follow you. Think of it like choosing a phone or email provider, you don’t all need to use the same provider because the providers operate on a single connected network. (Incidentally, that’s what “Fediverse” means ⧉: it’s the social network that is created by all these independent servers being connected to each other.)
The servers listed on Fedi.Garden are human-curated and have all committed to obeying certain standards of technical reliability and responsible moderation. This hopefully makes it a bit easier to choose a server.
Also, just like other kinds of providers, you can move to a different server ⧉ if you want to.
What if I’m unhappy with a server? What if a server closes down?
If you are on a server you are unhappy with for any reason, you can move your account to a different server while keeping all your existing follows and followers. There is a non-technical step-by-step guide all about transferring accounts ⧉ over on my sister site Fedi.Tips.
You can also move your account if a server decides to close down, which is why all the servers listed here promise to give three months warning if they ever do close. This three month period gives people more than enough time to move their accounts elsewhere if needed. The process for moving your account is exactly the same no matter what your reason is for moving.
I tried to sign up but it asked me why I wanted to join, and I wasn’t sure what to say. How do I answer this question?
Don’t worry! In most cases the server isn’t really interested in your answer, they are just asking the question because it helps prevent spam bots. Just write a brief sentence saying why you want to join (e.g. “I want to share pictures of my cat” or whatever). There is no right answer, it’s usually just to prove you are human.
Servers which ask for a reason tend to have better moderation, so it’s actually a good sign if the server asks this during sign-up.
I signed up but the server says I have to wait for my membership to be confirmed. Will this take a long time? Why is this happening?
Usually memberships are confirmed pretty quickly, commonly within 24 hours. Servers use manual confirmation to prevent spammers signing up, as the spammers tend to use automated scripts which sign up with predictable usernames.
If you’re asked to wait, it shows the server takes moderation seriously and it’s a sign of a well-run server.
The server I want to join only seems to have a few hundred members. Isn’t that a bit small for a social network?
The membership number you see on a server’s website just indicates the number of people on that particular server, they don’t tell you the total size of the network that the server is part of. There are millions of people on the entire Fediverse network spread across many thousands of servers.
Why are there all these servers? Wouldn’t it be easier if there was just one server everyone signed up on?
There are really important reasons why the Fediverse is spread out on so many servers ⧉. If everyone signed up on the same server, all these reasons would disappear:
Okay, I’ve successfully signed up for an account. What do I do next?
Have a look at the guide here.