normally i'd wait a little longer before announcing this as there's more to be done (like a custom theme and some extra features), but apparently it's already been going around and cohost is set to shut down in less than two weeks so here goes:
critter.cafe! a mastodon instance i made with @squirrelo for me and my friends to follow peeps from here who are moving to fedi instances. i figured i'd share it here too in case if anyone wants to give mastodon/fedi a try and doesn't have an account yet
more info & sign up instructions below
important note:
what this is: a more cohost user friendly way to engage with mastodon/fedi
what this is not: a replacement for cohost
some notes:
- you can interact with and follow almost anyone on mastodon and the fediverse (like chitter.xyz or meow.social)
- support for markdown post formatting (mastodon doesn't support this by default)
40005000 character limit (the mastodon default is 500)- hidden follower counts
- chronological timeline (no algorithm)
- cohost-style rules and vibes
- small scale & privately hosted
- serious moderation (nobody is getting banned or defederated over personal beef)
some downsides to consider:
- any images uploaded will get compressed, there is no way to disable this
- unless you use a third party client like phanpy.social to view your timeline, there is no support for inline replies (you'll have to expand a post to see what it's replying to)
- mastodon is a lot more twitter-like than cohost (which is more tumblr-like)
- some things can be really confusing at first if you haven't used mastodon before
if you'd like to sign up, go to critter.cafe and register there; make sure to put your cohost username in the "reason for joining" field. each account has to be manually approved, but i'll do so as quickly as i can !
I also made a guide for commonly asked newbie questions: https://crittercafeguide.carrd.co/
also: if you already are on an existing fedi instance and would like to move, you can do so while keeping your followers