@anke good that you know you've sent it now! Much sympathy for waiting on results for applications like this, though. 💙

@welshpixie yes! omg this is so true. I never feel like I'm posting into the void here. People talk to each other and help each other and treat each other like people rather than content factories.

I try to commission art from other fediverse users when I can and I've been so happy with the results.

And as a writer, my crowdfunding has been funded and my books have sold almost entirely on the strength of my friends and community here.

@welshpixie It's definitely reciprocal -- I don't think people should come here expecting to cross-post from twitter, never engage, and get the same kind of community support. Like you need to be *part* of a community to have it's support.

But 100 followers here is surely worth 100x that elsewhere, because that's 100 people who actually want to talk to you and hear from you.

@weirdwriter @FiXato @welshpixie I can't speak for FiXato but I didn't take it that way. There is a very common phenomenon of people using Mastodon as an extension of their twitter platform and not really engaging or responding here, which is what I took this as referring to.

Additionally, I don't think it's unreasonable to say 'I don't like this' or 'I wish people did things this way'.

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... They don't have to be bad people to be muted. This can make local TL much nicer for you!

- talk to people! Reply to posts you like. Others will do the same!

There aren't really celebrities and brands on fedi.

There's no algorithm telling you who to follow or raising or sinking posts.

So you can be active in building and shaping your own fedi experience and get to have a community of real people.

It's pretty great. ^_^

Since there are so many new folks!

- follow people on local/federated who seem nice or interesting!

- follow people you have friendly interactions with!

- follow people you see boosted into your home timeline a lot, or who your friends follow!

- it's okay to unfollow people if you change your mind!

- mute or block people who post things you don't want to see. Muting people that make you annoyed or uncomfortable is healthy!

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