Users Handbook

If you want to learn about posting on the league, start here!

Using Akkoma

This is a mirror of the Akkoma-fe user guide. This guide was not written by the Website League, and has some information that is not relevant to League instances. It is a stopgap while we write a new guide for Akkoma users.

Using Akkoma

General overview

(original source)

Be prepared for breaking changes, unexpected behavior and this user guide becoming obsolete and wrong.

If there was no insanity

it would be necessary to create it.

--Catbag

Akkoma-FE is the default user-facing frontend for Pleroma. If your instance uses Akkoma-FE, you can access it by going to your instance (e.g. https://pleroma.soykaf.com). After logging in you will have two columns in front of you. Here we're going to keep it to the default behaviour, but some instances swap the left and right columns. If you're on such an instance what we refer to as the left column will be on your right and vice versa.

Left column

Right column

This is where the interesting stuff happens! There are different views depending on what you choose in the second block of the left panel.

Top right

Bottom right

On the bottom right you have the Shoutbox. Here you can communicate with people on the same instance in realtime. It is local-only, very basic and will most probably be removed once the Chats functionality allows group chats.

Using Akkoma

Posting, reading, basic functions.

(original source)

!!! warning Depending on your instance some of the options might not be available or have different defaults

After registering and logging in you're presented with your timeline in right column and new post form with timeline list and notifications in the left column.

Posts will contain the text you are posting, but some content will be modified:

  1. Mentions: Mentions have the form of @user or @user@instance.tld. These will become links to the user's profile. In addition, the mentioned user will always get a notification about the post they have been mentioned in, so only mention users that you want to receive this message.
  2. URLs: URLs like http://example.com will be automatically be turned into a clickable links.
  3. Hashtags: Hashtags like #cofe will also be turned into links.
  4. There is a default character limit of 5000 characters.

Let's clear up some basic stuff. When you post something it's called a post or it could be called a status or even a toot or a prööt depending on whom you ask. Post has body/content but it also has some other stuff in it - from attachments, visibility scope, subject line...

Emoji are small images embedded in text, there are two major types of emoji: unicode emoji and custom emoji. While unicode emoji are universal and standardized, they can appear differently depending on where you are using them or may not appear at all on older systems. Custom emoji are a more fun kind - instance administrator can define many images as custom emoji for their users. This works very simple - custom emoji is defined by its shortcode and an image, so that any shortcode enclosed in colons get replaced with image if such shortcode exist. Let's say there's a :akkoma: emoji defined on an instance. That means

First time using :akkoma: akkoma!

will become

First time using akkoma akkoma!

Note that you can only use emoji defined on your instance, you cannot "copy" someone else's emoji, and will have to ask your administrator to copy emoji from other instance to yours. Lastly, there's two convenience options for emoji: an emoji picker (smiley face to the right of "submit" button) and autocomplete suggestions - when you start typing :shortcode: it will automatically try to suggest you emoji and complete the shortcode for you if you select one. If emoji doesn't show up in suggestions nor in emoji picker it means there's no such emoji on your instance, if shortcode doesn't match any defined emoji it will appear as text.

Attachments are fairly simple - you can attach any file to a post as long as the file is within maximum size limits. If you're uploading explicit material you can mark all of your attachments as sensitive (or add the #nsfw tag) - it will hide the images and videos behind a warning so that it won't be displayed instantly.

Subject line also known as CW (Content Warning) could be used as a header to the post and/or to warn others about contents of the post having something that might upset somebody or something among those lines. Several applications allow to hide post content leaving only subject line visible. Using a subject line will not mark your images as sensitive, you will have to do that explicitly (see above).

Visiblity scope controls who will be able to see your posts. There are four scopes available:

  1. Public: This is the default, and some fediverse software, like GNU Social, only supports this. This means that your post is accessible by anyone and will be shown in the public timelines.
  2. Unlisted: This is the same as public, but your post won't appear in the public timelines. The post will still be accessible by anyone who comes across it (for example, by looking at your profile) or by direct linking. They will also appear in public searches.
  3. Followers only: This will show your post only to your followers. Only they will be able to interact with it. Be careful: When somebody follows you, they will be able to see all your previous followers only posts as well! If you want to restrict who can follow you, consider locking your account down to only approved followers.
  4. Direct: This will only send the message to the people explicitly mentioned in the post.

A few things to consider about the security and usage of these scopes:

Sometimes you may encounter posts that seem different than what they are supposed to. For example, you might see a direct message without any mentions in the text. This can happen because internally, the Fediverse has a different addressing mechanism similar to email, with to and cc fields. While these are not directly accessible in Akkoma-FE, other software in the Fediverse might generate those posts. Do not worry in these cases, these are normal and not a bug.

Rich text

By default new posts you make are plaintext, meaning you can't make text bold or add custom links or make lists or anything like that. However if your instance allows it you can use Markdown or BBCode or HTML to spice up your text, however there are certain limitations to what HTML tags and what features of Markdown you can use.

Here is a small example of some text in markdown.

This is an example of markdown text using **bold** and *cursive* text.
To get a newline we add two spaces at the end of the previous line.

Let's also add a list

* with
* some
* items

If you set the input-method to Markdown, and post this, it will look something like

example_markdown

Misskey markdown

Akkoma-FE includes support for writing and rendering misskey markdown (MFM). To write this you will need to select "MFM" from the content type dropdown (if supported), and then you can format text in MFM.

To render MFM, you will need to turn on "Render Misskey Markdown" in the settings modal.

Other actions

In addition to posting you can also favorite posts also known as liking them and repeat posts (also known as retweeting, boosting and even reprööting). Favoriting a post increments a counter on it, notifies the post author of your affection towards that post and also adds that post to your "favorited" posts list (in your own profile, "Favorites" tab). Reprööting a post does all that and also repeats this post to your followers and your profile page with a note "user repeated post".

Your own posts can be deleted, but this will only reliably delete the post from your own instance. Other instances will receive a deletion notice, but there's no way to force them to actually delete a post. In addition, not all instances that contain the message might even receive the deletion notice, because they might be offline or not known to have the post because they received it through a repeat. Lastly, deletion notice might not reach certain frontends and clients - post will be visible for them until page refresh or cache clear, they probably won't be able to interact with it apart from replying to it (which will have reply-to mark missing).

If you are a moderator, you can also delete posts by other people. If those people are on your instance, it will delete the post and send out the deletion notice to other servers. If they are not on your instance, it will just remove the post from your local instance.

There's also an option to report a user's post which can be used to notify your (and optionally the other instance's) admin that someone is being naughty.

Using Akkoma

Settings

(original source)

On the top-right you will see a gear icon. Click it to open the settings.

General

Interface

Timeline

Composing

Attachments

Notifications

Fun

Profile

Here you can set up how you appear to other users among with some other settings:

If you're admin or moderator on your instance you also get Show [role] badge in my profile - this controls whether to show "Admin" or "Moderator** label on your profile page.

For all options mentioned above you have to click "Submit" button for changes to take place

Security

Here you can change your password, revoke access tokens, configure 2-factor authentication (if available).

Filtering

Theme

Here you can change the look and feel of Akkoma-FE. You can choose from several instance-provided presets and you can load one from file and save current theme to file. Before you apply new theme you can see what it will look like approximately in preview section.

The themes engine was made to be easy to use while giving an option for powerful in-depth customization - you can just tweak colors on "Common" tab and leave everything else as is.

If there's a little check box next to a color picker it means that color is optional and unless checked will be automatically picked based on some other color or defaults.

For some features you can also adjust transparency of it by changing its opacity, you just need to tick checkbox next to it, otherwise it will be using default opacity.

Contrast information is also provided - you can see how readable text is based on contrast between text color and background, icons under color pickers represent contrast rating based on WCAG - thumbs up means AAA rating (good), half-filled circle means AA rating (acceptable) and warning icon means it doesn't pass the minimal contrast requirement and probably will be less readable, especially for vision-challenged people, you can hover over icon to see more detailed information. Please note that if background is not opaque (opacity != 1) contrast will be measured based on "worst case scenario", i.e. behind semi-transparent background lies some solid color that makes text harder to read, this however is still inaccurate because it doesn't account that background can be noisy/busy, making text even harder to read.

Apart from colors you can also tweak shadow and lighting, which is used mostly to give buttons proper relief based on their state, give panes their shade, make things glow etc. It's quite powerful, and basically provides somewhat convenient interface for CSS Shadows.

Another thing you can tweak is theme's roundness - some people like sharp edges, some want things more rounded. This is also used if you want circled or square avatars.

Lastly, you can redefine fonts used in UI without changing fonts in your browser or system, this however requires you to enter font's full name and having that font installed on your system.

Notifications

This screen allows more fine-grained control over what notifications to show to you based on whom it comes from.

Data Import/Export

This allows you to export and import a list of people you follow and block, in case instance's database gets reverted or if you want to move to another server. Note that you CANNOT export/import list of people who follow you, they'll need to follow you back themselves.

Mutes and Blocks

These screens give access to full list of people you block/mute, useful for unblocking/unmuting people because blocking/muting them most likely removes them out of your sight completely.

Version

Just displays the backend and frontend version. Useful to mention in bug reports.

Using Akkoma

Timelines

(original source)

You have several timelines to browse trough

Note that by default you will see all posts made by other users on your Home Timeline, this contrast behavior of Twitter and Mastodon, which shows you only non-reply posts and replies to people you follow. You can change said behavior in the settings.

By default instances will try to send activities (e.g. posts, favorites, etc.) up to 7 days or until the target server received them. For this reason posts that are up to 7 days old and your server didn't know about yet can pop up on your timeline. This is the default behaviour and can be changed by your admin.

Using Akkoma

Users: follow, mute, block

(original source)

When you see someone, you can click on their user picture to view their profile, and click on the userpic in that to see full profile. You can follow them, mute and block them.

Following is self-explanatory, it adds them to your Home Timeline, lists you as a follower and gives you access to follower-only posts if they have any.

Muting collapses posts and notifications made by them, giving you an option to see the post if you're curious. Clients other than Akkoma-FE may completely remove their posts.

Blocking a user removes them from your timeline and notifications and prevents them from following you (automatically unfollows them from you).

Please note that some users can be "locked", meaning instead of following them you send a follow request they need to approve for you to become their follower.

Using GoToSocial

Tips on how to get started with and use GoToSocial, one of the servers which powers some of Website League's nodes

Using GoToSocial

Introduction

Accounts on Website League have the form "@username@node.domain". username is the name of your account and node.domain  is the name of your node (sometimes referred to as an instance).

Unlike most websites which you can interact with directly, the GoToSocial software does not include a full "frontend" website. Instead, to use GoToSocial, you get to choose what frontend (aka client) you'll use, which will affect how the website feels to use.

You can switch between frontends at any time, or even use multiple different ones simultaneously if you want to. All you need to do is log in and you're ready to post.

Every time you want to log in, you'll need to first enter your node's domain- that's how the frontend knows which GoToSocial node to talk to.

Using GoToSocial

Setting up your profile

To access your settings, you'll need to go to the address bar of your web browser and enter:

node.domain/settings

Examples: (please feel free to add more nodes here for convenience)

The GoToSocial project's docs have much more detail about settings, so you should read those too. This document's goal is to highlight the most important parts to get you going.

The first time you go to /settings, GoToSocial will ask you to log in.

'Profile' settings

After you've logged in, you'll be able to configure your profile - this is where you can set your avatar and header image, bio, display name, and more.

Under the Visibility and privacy section, you can set the visibility level of your posts. This affects which of your posts will be visible on your public profile to users that aren't logged in and aren't following you from another node. The default is only show Public posts on your profile, so Unlisted posts will be hidden.

'Posts' settings

Two important settings here are:

'Interaction Policies' are also configurable here, they give you fine-grained control over who can interact with your posts, and in what way. If you set any interaction policies that require approvals, the 'Interaction Requests' page is where you can approve interactions. For more information see the GoToSocial docs.

Using GoToSocial

Posting with Phanpy

Phanpy is one of the options for a frontend to use with GoToSocial.

To get started, open https://phanpy.social.

Then, click 'Log in with Mastodon'. Phanpy will ask you for your instance domain (node domain). After you enter that, your browser will redirect back to your node, where you can log in.

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After you log in, GoToSocial will ask if you really wanted to log in to Phanpy. Click 'allow'. That will send you back to Phanpy, where you'll be logged in.


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Now you can write your first post. Tap this button in the bottom right corner:

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Button
 What it does

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This button is where you configure the visibility level of the post you're about to write.

For more information about what these levels mean, see GoToSocial's docs.

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 This lets you add or remove a content warning from your post.

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 This lets you attach images and other media. Phanpy also supports pasting images from your clipboard directly into your post.

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 This lets you attach a poll to your post

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 This lets you insert an emoji into your post. Your node may have custom emoji configured!

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 This changes the language of your post, which will be displayed in some frontends.

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 This circle is a tiny graph that fills up as you approach the character limit on your node. If your node's character limit is large enough, it's probably just going to look like an empty circle most of the time.

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This sends the post. Note that at the time of writing (September 2024), GoToSocial does not support editing posts after they've been created. If you try to edit a post, the editor will pop up with a warning about that, like this:

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Using GoToSocial

GoToSocial frontends

Here are some of your frontend options for using a GoToSocial node. This isn't an exhaustive list- many Mastodon clients are also compatible with GoToSocial.

Phanpy

https://phanpy.social/

A frontend with a large number of features. See Phanpy's readme for an introduction.

Enafore / Semaphore 

https://enafore.social/ and https://semaphore.social/ are lightweight clients based on the Pinafore project which was retired in 2023.

User guide

Others

List of Mastodon clients, many of which are compatible with GoToSocial.

Post Privacy Settings (or: what's the globe/lock icon next to a post mean?)

One of the unique architectural decisions mastodon made early on is to track "post privacy" or "post visibility" on a per-post basis.

This is represented in pillbug by this dropdown:

image.png

and in Akkoma by this row of icons:

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The exact options available will depend on which backend your node runs on.

On Akkoma:

On GoToSocial, the options are the same, with one addition:

By default, most people may be leery of the "Public" choice, and for good reason: on larger social media platforms, do you really want random strangers finding you through some unknowable algorithm and leaving bizarre replies? Even on the Website League, the same logic sort of applies; but as a result of its smallness and invite-only registration, you can at least be a little confident that a Stranger will be the right kind of Strange. That, and, well, there's no magic discovery algorithm to push your post.

Replies

Ok, so. Replies are a bit weird when it comes to privacy rules. By default, the post compose will inherit the privacy setting of the parent comment. this means, if it's unlisted, your reply will be unlisted, if it's a direct message, your reply will be direct too. But! you can set that yourself. so if you'd like to DM somebody about a post they made, you can make it a reply, but make it a "direct" visibility, and only they (and other tagged users) will see it.

This leads to a weird situation with private posts, specifically. you can reply to a private post, but your response will be "private", too. this means, only people who follow you can see it! It's common in practice to see one side of a conversation thread, because you follow one user in it and not the other. This is not the ideal behavior, we admit, but it is what we inherited from Mastodon.

If you want to privately reply to somebody who made a private post, but they don't follow you, fret not. the act of replying them counts as mentioning them, so they'll be included in the thread too. Just not any of their followers/people not mentioned.