Our September engineering blog post is out. Read about our recent releases, what we did last month, our progress on the Fediscovery project and what's coming next !
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2024/10/trunk-tidbits-september-2024/
mastoadmin
If you're wondering where the "Mark images as sensitive" option went in Mastodon v4.3.0, it's now hidden behind a cheat code.
You need to turn the Content Warning option on, but leave the warning text box itself blank. This will cause the images in your post to be marked as sensitive, without marking the whole post with a content warning.
If any Mastodon admins are dealing with spam account sign-ups, it's worth noting that these accounts seem to universally use disposable email providers and burner email address. There's a GitHub repo that tracks these providers. All moderation inquiries are sent to a user's email on Mastodon, so there's no legitimate reason any Mastodon user should be using a disposable email address. As such, there's a git repository that tracks these disposable email providers. There are also bash scripts that will import the repository into tootctl for you.
The disposable email git repo can be found here:
And the bash scripts can be found here:
Simply clone the repo and copy the bash script onto your server, then edit the script to point at your Mastodon installation and the directory you cloned the repository to, and it should handle the rest.
Side note: I checked our logs and we had a huge spike in attempted sign-ups from a bunch of different disposable email addresses this week, so I can confirm that blocking them definitely works. 
#Mastodon #MastoMeta #MastodonAdmin #MastoAdmin #Spam #Spamwave
Roughly half the servers used in today's spam wave have already responded to our community outreach and modified their registration settings, deleted the spam accounts and posts, and hopefully will be better prepared for similar events in the future.
Thank you to our community for spotting this, helping write the admin alerts in various languages, contacting the affected servers, and updating our worksheet!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13sskOdKraYo2hSMK353Ijm0_K8WCp-JHs6cyruffedA/
Mastodon Bird UI 2.0.0-2.0.1 stable is now released! This version supports Mastodon v4.3.0 and v4.4.0-alpha released today. 
Live demo (single column layout only): https://mementomori.social
Source code and installation instructions: https://github.com/ronilaukkarinen/mastodon-bird-ui
#MastodonBirdUI #BirdUI #CSS #UI #WebDev #OpenSource #Mastodon #MastoAdmin
There seem to be a lot of misconceptions about how to set up #mastodon .
I'm here to clear them up.
1. You do not have to sacrifice a duck. Any waterfowl will do.
2. The bit about dancing around naked in a forest glade? While dancing is fun, you may just walk.
3. When the demon appears, you needn’t chant in Latin. It is fluent in all languages.
The rest of the guide is correct.
Attempting to build in Mastodon: Show ancestor message on main feeds/lists to which reply is for https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/25888
Rough, very early working draft...
Edited 218d ago
Hello #mastoAdmin folks — is there a way to make a server temporarily read-only (that is, no posting, federation not running, but still have rest APIs to read content) and then *later* bring it back to full function? *Without Coding 😅
Edited 211d ago
Olha só que legal: um bot que dá boost em posts populares em outras instâncias.
https://social.growyourown.services/@homegrown/113783835725792419
Querem tirar o emprego de @miugnutos e @Bruiserzinha.
@fediadminbr
Let it snow! ❄️
I have added snow to my instance during the winter holidays. It's a tiny JS canvas and fades out on scroll down. The snow is also respecting the system accessibility settings, it won't be there if you prefer reduced motion.
Here's the source code for server admins: https://github.com/ronilaukkarinen/mastodon/commit/9bf1563af50842a5f61b34b7cc095fb746e5d15b#diff-5fcd1b6168ec33e0eff0a05fcdeacfab68e261215bbdb719be6b3526173be770
See the snow yourself: https://mementomori.social
#MastoAdmin #Mastodon #JavaScript #Coding #Programming #Snow #Winter #LetItSnow #MementomoriSocial
Edited 194d ago
Hey adventurers!
Get ready for a thread(s).
With all the recent heat about Meta and seeing that the company decided to fully take advantage of a pretty much fascist political party to leverage their own needs, after a peaceful discussion the staff at The Gamer's Tavern decided to de-federate from Threads.net effective immediately.
1/ 🧵
#Threads #Meta #TheGamersTavern #Mastodon #MastoAdmin #FediAdmin
There will be some short downtimes for some maintenance starting now. #mastoadmin
Starting to feel like this 2025 Influx of users is much larger than 2022 Influx of users. New users come in huge waves. Many of them also seem to genuinely like Mastodon according to the feedback. In 2022 many tried, soon gave up and left to Bluesky or back to X. Today, many have even deleted their commercial accounts and settled here.
I like this new development of things. Seeing new faces and more cat photos bring me so much joy. Thanks for being here. Remember that you matter. 
#MastoAdmin #Mastodon #Fediverse #SocialMedia #SocialWeb #Meta
Edited 162d ago
¿Desea contribuir con los costos de Mastodon.CR y otros proyectos del Fediverso costarricense?
Hágalo en https://www.impulsait.com/producto/patrocinio-mastodoncr-y-proyectos-del-fediverso-tico/
He creado esa página con una explicación de cómo funciona la gobernanza y operación de #MastodonCR, los costos aproximados mensuales con un desglose de servidores y enlaces de pago, cuentas bancarias, SINPE móvil, etc.
Operar una red social no es gratis. Hacerlo respetando los derechos de las personas usuarias sin publicidad tiene costos económicos y de esfuerzo humano importantes. Por más de 2 años los costos ha sido cubiertos por mí y mi empresa @impulsait como un compromiso de aportar positivamente a la sociedad, mi plan es seguir ofreciendo el patrocinio humano, tecnológico, legal, financiero y fiscal por muy largo plazo, de forma transparente y con respeto a la privacidad y seguridad de las personas usuarias.
¿Qué cambia ahora? Que las personas usuarias podrán tener la oportunidad de participar económicamente del proyecto y compartir un pedacito de la carga financiera si está dentro de sus posibilidades.
Dicen que lo perfecto es enemigo de lo bueno. El uso de mi empresa es la mejor forma he logrado dilucidar para operar esta comunidad. He leído muchísimas experiencias de comunidades del Fediverso que terminan cerrando por dificultades económicas y desgaste humano, eso no nos puede pasar a nosotros. Estoy abierto a construir junto con la comunidad mecanismos para que construyamos un espacio seguro, colaborativo y sostenible en el largo plazo.
Tengo mucho orgullo de lo que hemos logrado hasta ahora y me da ilusión lo que está por venir.
Vamos un paso a la vez en este camino imperfecto pero que lo construimos juntos.
ummm 😅 guess we're going to have some surprise maintenance tonight! 
Expect some downtime later for upgrades!
Interessante o Anubis mas acho que implementar ele na Bolhinha, numa análise superficial e preliminar, traria mais problemas do que soluções.
Por exemplo, ele não se dá muito bem com WebSockets e o Mastodon usa isso o tempo todo.
@fediadminbr
Edited 108d ago
We just released Mastodon 4.3.4, 4.2.17 and 4.1.23. They contain bug fixes as well as security fixes (medium severity)
We recommend every instance administrator to update as soon as possible.
If you are using our nightly releases, a container image with the fix has been published with the `nightly.2025-02-28-security` tag.
Full release notes and update instructions are available on our GitHub release page: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/
Edited 129d ago
Todos receberão o memorando: agora o Mastodon permite notificar os usuários por e-mail quando um administrador cria um novo aviso 📣
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/33928
Antes apenas aparecia uma discreta notificação com ícone de megafone na interface web e apps.
Por enquanto só na versão de testes, @fediadminbr.
Edited 122d ago
OMG the Mastodon issue about fetching whole conversation threads finally got completed after 7 years!
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/9409#event-16708683816
Looks like Mastodon is finally getting some built in functionality to fetch missing replies:
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/32615
🥳
Pushed a ton of changes to https://www.mastoreqs.com that should make it less of an eye chart and much easier to navigate, especially on mobile.
Dependencies are broken out into multiple matrices, notes are color coded, there is also a quick navigation bar on the side to jump directly to particular components.
Enjoy. Also, upgrade your shit #MastoAdmin. 
I'm learning that the mastodon announcement feature is relatively useless, Out of the ~130 MAU we have here only 28 saw an announcement after 15 days. Mastodon definitely needs to work on this.
🚨 Exciting Announcement!! 🚨
Masto.NYC now has DONATION REWARDS!!!! For monthly donations of at least $5, we'll mail you a four-pack of our exclusive vinyl stickers!
Not only is the art made locally, but the stickers are printed here too! We're very proud to offer these and hope you like them as much as we do 😍
As with all donations, these are tax deductible and help cover our costs.
Edited 114d ago
If you care about what you're building, don't host your stuff with Hetzner. Don't trust them.
They will take you down without warning and won't answer your queries. For sure, they'll send you an invoice, tho.
Happened before with @Ursalzona and other fediverse servers, happened now with this Peertube instance, and it's best to avoid being their next victim.
Go host your stuff somewhere else. And keep your backup routines working.
I just mailed out a short stack of envelopes containing new Masto.NYC donors' sticker packs (https://masto.nyc/stickers).
I’m very aware that one has to be very choosy about one's charitable giving these days. A donation to your Mastodon server not only helps pay its bills—it sends such a strong statement about how much this service means to you.
It's an incredible and humbling morale boost during strange times. Thank you. #MastoNYC #MastoAdmin
https://masto.nyc/@jmac/114258806648262313
Edited 94d ago