This section documents features and processes maintained by Mastodon. For
issues related to these features and/or processes, please reach out to the Mastodon team
directly on the Mastodon project’s GitHub.
The documentation in this section is meant to supplement, not supplant, Mastodon’s
documentation at docs.joinmastodon.org. This section
of the documentation is specifically for the Mastodon UI and features that are used
by our general, non-moderator, users.
1 - Content Warnings
Describes what the content warning feature is and how it operates.
This page documents features and processes maintained by Mastodon. For
issues related to these features and/or processes, please reach out to the Mastodon team
directly on the Mastodon project’s GitHub.
Content warnings are a feature that allows you to
obscure your content in such a way that it is hidden by default in other
users’ timelines. Instead, only the text of the content warning is
displayed. To put it another way, if you were to put a content warning on
one of your posts that read “descriptions of war violence” while discussing
current or past wars, users would only see that description and could then
choose to click through the content warning to view the content (or not).
How to apply a content warning
In order to apply a content warning use the “CW” in the post field:
An example post with a content warning on the text and image looks like
this:
Threads with a content warning
Whenever someone replies to a post with a content warning, by default their
response will carry the same content warning. Here is an example:
This is the default due to the nature of the content warning: if the top-most
post of a thread needs a content warning due to what’s being shown or discussed,
then the rest of that thread probably needs the same content warning. This is
true both for when you respond to your own posts or when other users respond to
your posts.
When you reply to a post with a content warning you can manually disable and
delete the content warning, but please do so with care. When you remove the content
warning from your post all replies to you will also no longer be behind
a content warning by default, even if they should be.
When are content warnings used
Content warnings are generally used to either hide spoilers or to provide
a buffer when it is psychologically safer to choose to opt in to a conversation
as opposed to being opted in by default (seeing it in a timeline). For more
information on the nuance for how and when to use content warnings, please
take a look at our doc on how to use content warnings.
2 - Mastodon User Profile and Preferences
What Mastodon’s user profile and preferences are and how to configure them.
This page documents features and processes maintained by Mastodon. For
issues related to these features and/or processes, please reach out to the Mastodon team
directly on the Mastodon project’s GitHub.
This documentation page covers the customization options available to you via Profile and Preferences settings.
The majority of the article length is due to screenshots that show the main view for each settings page. All of
the settings shown in the screenshots are the default settings, done for the purposes of this article. This document
only provides explanation text where the feature being enabled / disabled is not self-descriptive.
In order to edit your profile settings, you can click the “Edit Profile” text beneath your handle on
the left side, like so:
Alternatively you can go to the settings/profile endpoint directly in your browser.
Appearance
When you go to settings/profile, by default you will be taken to
the settings for Profile Appearance:
To recap the above, here is where you can:
Set your display name
Write your bio
Upload your header and avatar images
Enable or disable follow requests
Disabled by default. Accounts will be able to follow your account without explicit approval. When enabled, you will be prompted to approve or deny follow requests.
Set if you’re a bot
Disabled by default. When enabled, your account displays with the word “bot” next to your
handle and display handle on your profile. There are no other changes to your account.
Suggest your account to others
Disabled by default. When enabled, your account will be recommended to other accounts as
an account to follow.
Hide your social graph
Disabled by default. When enabled, other users will not be able to see who you follow or who follows you.
Write your profile metadata
This allows you to input information that is rendered like “key: value” tags. Relevantly, when you add URLs these are also where the text area highlights green when verified.
Migrate to a different account or link to an account you’re migrating from
Delete your account
⚠️ Account deletion works differently than account suspension. When you delete your account
your data is deleted immediately and not after a 30 day window. Also, there are inconsistent
reports when deleted accounts are resurrected as they may not federate correctly depending on how
servers remote to that account update their information about the account no longer being deleted (or not).
Featured Hashtags
Featured hashtags are your ability to direct which hashtags appear on your main view. They are configured by
the Featured Hashtags settings located on the nav menu underneath Profile Appearance.
This page can also be accessed directly via settings/featured_tags.
When you enter hashtags to feature on your main view, they appear in the lower right:
Note in this case the descriptive text “Hachyderm’s Featured Hashtags” refers to Hachyderm as the account display handle and not
Hachyderm at the instance-level.
Preferences Settings
The Preferences settings are located immediately under the Profile settings in the left navigation menu.
Appearance
When selected, the Appearance settings (not to be confused with the above) display by default. This page can
also be accessed via settings/preferences/appearance.
This stops the timeline view from refreshing automatically.
Enable Auto-play animated GIFs
Set to reduce motion in animations
This is specific to reducing the motion of animated GIFs.
Disable swiping motions
This is specific to using browsers with devices that have a swiping feature. When enabled, it stops
you from accidentally switching timelines when using a swipe motion to “go back”.
Use the system font
When enabled, this uses Mastodon’s default font (Roboto).
Enable crop image size
Show trends
Enable the confirmation before following someone
Enable the confirmation before boosting
Enable the confirmation before deleting a post
Set how you want media to display
Default is “hide media marked as sensitive”. Specifically allows you to either always show media, always hide media, or hide media only where the poster marked that media as sensitive.
Enable if you want a color gradient for hidden media
Enable if you want posts expanded with content warnings
Notifications
Accessible via Preferences Notifications. Can also be directly accessed via
settings/preferences/notifications. These preferences
are separate from the Notifications preferences you can make when viewing in the Timeline view.
To recap the above, here is where you can:
Enable or disable email notifications for:
Someone following you
Someone requesting to follow you
Someone boosting you
Someone favoriting a post
Someone mentioning you
Override the above, in cases where:
The account is not following you
You are not following the account
Block direct messages from people you don’t follow
For the two features in the “override” section above, this means if you have enabled notifications for boosts and
also enabled “block notifications from non-followers”, then you will only see notifications for when your followers
boost you.
Enabled by default. When enabled, if multiple people have boosted the same post in a short timeframe you will
only one of the boosts rather than all of the boosts separately.
Set your default posting privacy
Posting privacy options are: Public Unlisted Private
Set your default posting language
Set if you want all of your media marked as sensitive
Disclose what application you use to post from
Filter languages
Note not all languages captured in screenshot, due to length.
3 - How to Verify with Mastodon
How to verify with Mastodon.
This page documents a process maintained by Mastodon. For
verification failures, please reach out to the Mastodon team
directly on the Mastodon project’s GitHub.
Verification on Mastodon works less like Twitter and more like an identity
service. That is, you do not need to prove your association with your own
brand to an entity or to pay a fee, you are only showing that you are the owner of one
(or more) domains or accounts on separate services to substantiate your digital
identity.
Here’s what it looks like when a profile has verified via their GitHub
identity:
GitHub shows as verified with a green checkmark and complete URL,
including username / handle.
What domains or accounts can you verify?
You can verify via:
Any domain that you can edit pages for
Any online service that recognizes, supplies, or allows you to
supply the “rel me” attribute (see below).
How to verify
Verifying with domains
In general, when you verify you will do so by using the following HTML on the
page you are editing, like a personal site or blog:
Instructions for current, commonly requested, services are below.
As with the verification process itself: when verifying with a
service, that service is responsible for assisting with errors or
issues with verification. If you experience issues with the
verification process, please reach out to the relevant service for
assistance.
GitHub
In early 2023 GitHub announced support for multiple social URLs,
including adding support for Mastodon specifically. In order to
verify via GitHub:
Go to your GitHub profile page and click “Edit”
Provide your Hachyderm account URL of the format https://hachyderm.io/@USERNAME
Click “Save”
Once you have saved, your GitHub profile should now render your
Mastodon account in the format @USERNAME@hachyderm.io.
Visually
When you edit, it will look like this:
Once saved, your Hachyderm account will look like this: