i just joined mastodon and wondering who to follow.
who are you the hexbearians following? or what hashtags?
Feel free to sift through my list: https://toots.matapacos.dog/@porkroll/following
Not all of these accounts are active, a number of them require approval to follow them, but most people who do this are usually cool as long as you’re account has enough activity to trust that you aren’t a stalker or a chud.
A short list of more notable accounts in here:
Free Software / Tech:
- @libreleah@mas.to Leah Rowe - maintainer of LibreBoot
- @drew@social.freebitcoin.gay - Drew Devault, creator of wlroots, SwayWM, blog author
- @davidgerard@circumstances.run - Tech rabble rouser
- @workingclassgames@tech.lgbt
- @internetarchive@mastodon.archive.org - Internet Archive
- @fraggle@social.coop - “Fraggle,” maintainer of Chocolate Doom
- @pluralistic@mamot.fr - Cory Doctorow, the “enshitification” guy
- @jwz@mastodon.social - Jamie Werner Zawinski, co-creator of Netscape Navigator, Mozilla. Creator and maintainer Lucid Emacs (now XEmacs), XScreenSaver, and owner of DNA Lounge. Runs a well known blog at jwz.org/blog, which itself is now federated.
- @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io - Molly White - critical cryptocurrency / tech reporter. Runs https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/
Fellow Travelers:
- @existentialcomics@mastodon.social - Existential Comics
- @yogthos@social.marxist.network - Yogthos
- @prolewiki@matapacos.dog - ProleWiki (account is not very active)
- @hexbear@matapacos.dog - Hexbear (typically announcements when something is wrong with hexbear.net)
- @AnarchoNinaWrites@jorts.horse - Probably the best radical polemicist on the network
- @UnicornRiot@mastodon.social - Unicorn Riot
- @parismarx@mastodon.online - Paris Marx - Canadian tech critic, host of “Tech Won’t Save Us” podcast
- @notjustbikes@notjustbikes.com - Not Just Bikes
- @mondoweiss@social.mondoweiss.net - MondoWeiss
Misc. network celebrities:
- @futurebird@sauropods.win - School teacher from the Bronx. Has a bunch of ant farms.
- @vantablack@cyberpunk.lol - Vanta Black - Launched the fedipact campaign to preemptively block Threads.
- @ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org - Ham radio guy, runs a lot of weather and emergency alert bots. Also coordinates #BikeNite
- @Taweret@timeloop.cafe- Coordinates #Monsterdon
- @fedilore@mastodon.social - Reporter of fediverse drama, villain of the block-list cartel
The hardest part is getting started. In the beginning your timeline will be a barren wasteland, and your only choice is to seek recommendations or dip your head into the firehose (the federated timeline). Don’t be afraid to post or get involved in discussions too. You can find a lot of cool people just by sharing what’s on your mind and seeing who likes / boosts it.
it feels bizarre to me that you have to follow someone just to get to the content, but i guess it would make sense if i ever used something twitter.
@drew@social.freebitcoin.gay - Drew Devault, creator of wlroots, SwayWM, blog author
i’m surprised to see this one on hexbear
it feels bizarre to me that you have to follow someone just to get to the content
Platforms like Twitter “solve” this problem with recommendation algorithms, giving you a curated feed of celebrities and corporate brands and whatnot, often sponsored. Twitter defaults to a “For You” feed which works this way, and in practice it can actually bury a lot of news from the people you’re following. There is an explicit design choice in most fediverse software not to obscure things with an opaque algorithm. It does make onboarding a bit more difficult, but it is fully deterministic and a lot less manipulative. Lemmy (and the later Reddit clones) are somewhat of an exception in this regard with their hot / active sort algorithms. On Mastodon, there is no algorithm at all. Everything is strictly chronological (with the exception of the trending page, if your admin has enabled it).
i’m surprised to see this one on hexbear
He’s not part of a Marxist cadre or anything, but he is well respected for his contributions to Free Software (wlroots being the basis of almost every Wayland compositor aside from Gnome and KDE) and uses his position consistently to advocate for social justice. He has been a regular critic of reactionary elements in the Free Software movement and recently started maintaining a helpful guide. He has taken the correct side on some highly controversial issues, like calling for Richard Stallman’s resignation. His articles have been shared a number of times either in c/libre or c/technology.
lemmy’s (and previously reddit’s) strength for me was making me aware of things that i didn’t know existed. i never much cared who was sharing or what else they had – i only care about what’s being shared and that i hadn’t seen or heard of it before.
now that i think of it: i suppose that combined w my natural disinclination for relationship w others is the reason why i never spent much time on social media platforms where you have to follow a person/influencer.
and i also suppose i should be thankful that reddit got so shitty that it forced me to start using influencer driven social media like tiktok and alternatives like lemmy. lol
He’s not part of a Marxist cadre or anything
i knew of him previously through some of his work, but became much more familiar by the infamy he brought upon himself for supporting reactionary/neoliberal organizations – this is the first time i’ve seen him not represented in a negative manner on any leftist leaning instance, much less on hexbear since it’s probably the furthest left besides lemmygrad.
did you get distracted here while on your way to lemmy.ml or dbzer0? lol
catsalad
there’s dozens of catsalads – which instance?
infosec.exchange is the main one I think.
what is catsalad and why are there so many of them?
It’s a cat pics account.
The accounts follow the main account so that posts show up on the timeline of the other insurances.
somehow, i could feel in my bones that i was in the right place. lol
I’m on Mastodon, same username as here.
now i’m stalking you on mastodon. lol
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