Christiaan @christiaan@chrg.nl

In celebration of the social revelation called Mastodon I've created this little baby Mastodon. Server maintainers, feel free to adopt him if you like. Maybe we could call him 'Mascotodon'. 😊

#mastodon #fediverse #CharacterDesign #cute #baby #elephant #mascot #3d #3dart #b3d

Mastodon is really having a moment in mainstream news coverage. CNN, BBC, TIME, etc.

The influx of users will continue at an alarming rate. Remember to be welcoming, and kind, and positive, and helpful.

This isn't just an opportunity to improve the idea of social media, it's an opportunity to shine a wonderful light on #opensource.

About the underestimated power of comments

When you created your account, you chose a name and you chose an instance. The combination of both has become your address. You can think of your instance as your home town here, you could think of me as blue from misskey.de

When you comment on a post, you are sending a message to the writer person. But if the writer is someone on another instance, someone in another town, you also bring a message to the entire town. Some places have been here for a long time, others are brand new, just a few days old. The old places are already well connected, there are busy roads between them. The new places still have only have a few hiking paths that connect them to the rest of the fediverse.

If you want to make the fediverse a better place, write some comments. Bonus points for replying to someone in a different place. More bonus points if you live in an old town and get a message to someone in a new town or vice versa. A badge, if you write to someone new in a new place.

If live in a busy old city, check some hashtags, maybe #introduction or #newhere or anything you are interested in, find posts you like, check the dates to make sure they are new posts and leave friendly comments.

If you live in a quiet new town, reply to comments you received or check random profiles of people who found your town to see if they are from another place and comment on one of their posts. Follow people from other places to discover more of the fediverse that's still unknown to you.

Happy exploring!