Mastodon to Twitter Migration Guide – Tips & Tools

After what feels like a year of “will they won’t they”, Twitter is finally in the hands of America’s Least Mature Man—quite a competitive category. I set up my Mastodon ages ago just to see how it was, but now that I’m finally using it I’m really enjoying it.

This started as a Quick Start guide but ended up much more in depth than I thought. I sorted the headings from most to least important. Mastodon is “complicated”, but mostly in ways you don’t honestly need to worry about. Take your time and learn by doing and asking!

Feel free to share your tips and experiences with Mastodon in the comments below! Or say hi to @[email protected].

What The Hell Is Mastodon?

Mastodon is a decentralized Twitter alternative with individual servers operated by individuals or communities rather than a single corporation. The code is open-source and anyone can create an instance. As a result there is a consistent code base but not a “corporate mission” and the functionality is largely based on “pre-algorithm” Twitter.

The tl;dr is Mastodon is Twitter without a corporation or a glass-skinned manchild CEO. It costs nothing to try, so pop on a server and see if it’s for you. I’m writing a whole-ass article about it, but the best way is to learn by doing.

Most features Twitter has are on Mastodon, some slightly renamed. Lists, Direct Messages, Retweets (Boosts), Likes (Favorites), Hashtags, Notifications. Poke around and you’ll likely find more things familiar than foreign.

Pick a General Use Instance

Mastodon isn’t one site, it has Instances, sort of like Discord Servers. I’ll get into what that truly means in the later, more technical parts of the article. If you’re getting started, just load up the server list and find either a nice general server, or something specific to your interests. “Instance” and “Server” are interchangeable in Mastodon’s context.

Which instance you pick really doesn’t matter almost at all. I really recommend just making an account and poking around before you worry much about which server, as you can move servers later anyway. I personally recommend Mastodon.Social.

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Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Guide

This is a guide for Animal Crossing Pocket Camp (or ACPC), available now! This includes a villager list, how to play events, information on the best use of all the areas, walkthrough information and more!

Submit any questions or corrections in the Comments section below and I’ll get to them as soon as I’m able! You can also hit me up on my Discord Server.

As always you can help support my writing and guides on Patreon!

Updates

Guide Updates

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp App Updates

Active Timed Events

Host The Most

  • 2018-01-30 to 2018-02-05

Expired Events
  • Winter Sports Event
    • Dates: 2018-01-12 through 2018-01-31
  • Rover’s Garden Safari
    • Dates: 2018-01-11 through 2017-01-21
  • New Year’s Event
    • Dates: 2017-12- 26 through 2017-01-18
  • Big Bro’s Hat (Mario Hat) Distribution
    • Dates: 2017-12- 15 through 2018-01-14
  • Host The Most 2
    • Dates: 2017-12-21 through 2017-12-26
    • 7 new Villagers
    • Completing requests gives +3 Friendship instead of +2 for duration
      • This means 3 requests plus one Request ticket is exactly enough to raise each to level 5
    • 7 timed goals for hosting the new Villagers
      • Worth 50 Leaf Tickets and 24 Rustic Essence total
  • Host The Most 1
    • Dates: 2017-12-5 through 2017-12-10
    • 1 Extra Friendship Point for completing all Requests
    • Special Timed Events rewarding
      • 1 New Animal Hosted: 10 Leaf Tickets
      • 2 Hosted: 6 Request Tickets
      • 3 Hosted: 3 Calling Cards
      • 4 Hosted: 20 Leaf Tickets
      • Thanks to the inclusion of 4 new characters at the time this event started, these can be completed even if you’re previously hosted all animals in the game
  • Friend Frenzy
    • Dates: 2017-12- 11 through 2017-12-20
    • Timed Goal: Befriend Another Player
      • 10 Leaf Tickets
    • Timed Goal: Befriend 10 Players
      • 20 Leaf Tickets
    • Timed Goal: Befriend 20 Players
      • 30 Leaf Tickets
  • Christmas Event
    • Dates: 2017-11-30 through 2017-12-25
Game Info

Title: Animal Crossing Pocket Camp
Release date: 2017-10-25 (test market soft launch), November 2017 (Worldwide release)
Platforms: iOS, Android
File size: 348 MB fully updated
Developer: Nintendo
Genre: Life Simulation
Price: Free to Play with In-App Purchases
Cloud Save: Yes, link Nintendo account to save/load to cloud
Always Online: Yes, persistent connection required
Gambling element: Yes, lootboxes
Battery drain: High
Mobile Data drain: Low-Medium

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Fan Games Are No Less Protected Than Fan Art By IP Laws

Or: It’s Time To Stop Defending Nintendo Unless You Hate Fan Art Too.

(This article is available in an expanded, podcast-style form as well, on YouTube.)

A common refrain when a fan game is taken down is that it’s within Nintendo’s rights. Do you know what else is within Nintendo’s rights? Sending DMCA takedowns to every single OC Remix track based directly on Nintendo’s music. What else is within Nintendo’s Legal Rights That Are Totally Always Okay To Enforce?

Say Nintendo read every article about Cosplay and sent a DMCA notice to have the pictures taken down and demanded that the cosplayer never again display or create a costume based on a Nintendo character. Is that cool with you? Because it’s not actually any different than fan games, legally speaking.

How about Nintendo sends DMCAs to the millions of pieces of Nintendo character fan art spread across Deviant Art, Pixiv, Twitter, Tumblr, everywhere? Because they could do that. Legally.

Remixes, fan art and yes, even cosplay are derivative works. The only legal difference between them and fan games is that corporations don’t go after them.

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Fan Projects Do Not Threaten Copyright Protections

I’m angry. You see, recently a truly fantastic Metroid 2 fan recreation was released: AM2R. I played it for a live stream. It’s truly fantastic, and has an amazing amount of original work put into it, being far and away more than a “fan port” of the game.

But then it got taken down by everyone’s least favorite four letter word, a DMCA, straight from Nintendo. I’m very frustrated with Nintendo for the copyright claim, very frustrated the game was taken down (though torrent sites seem to be ensuring it will not be lost). But that’s not what I’m writing this article about.

I’m writing this because this conversation about copyright and fan projects is…the same as all conversations about fan projects. The conversation is full of ignorance, misunderstanding, and what I can only assume are deliberate bald-faced lies about what companies have to do to protect their copyright.

Companies Don’t Have To Shut Down Projects to Keep Copyright

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Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer Mini-Review

If you don’t follow me on Twitter, you might not know I’m a pretty huge Animal Crossing fan. Being able to design my home is pretty much the main driving force behind most of my actions in Animal Crossing, so I was quite excited to see them break out a whole game around designing homes.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer has gotten a lot of “who asked for this” replies from the peanut gallery but I’ve always been pretty excited and I was very relieved to find out that yes, it’s pretty darn fun!

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