By default, brand new Mastodon and Fediverse servers will be totally blank, with no users or posts visible at all. Searches will produce no results.

As people start signing up and posting and following accounts from other servers, the timelines and search results will start to fill up as the server starts noticing more of the Fediverse. However, this discovery process can be very slow to begin with, and those on new servers may sometimes be frustrated by the slowness.

Server admins can speed up this process by subscribing to relays. Relays automatically push posts from other servers’ public timelines onto the subscribing server, greatly expanding the subscribing server’s view of the Fediverse.

How to subscribe to a relay server on Mastodon

1. Log into your server’s website using your server’s admin account
2. Go to ⚙️ Preferences > Administration > Relays
3. Click Setup A Relay Connection
4. Paste the URL of the relay into the box and click Save And Enable

⚠️ WARNING: Some relays are better moderated than others. Some relays may contain content that breaks your own server’s rules, or may even be illegal in your country. It’s really important to check what kind of content a relay contains before you connect your own server to it. Relays are usually based on specific servers, so you can see such a relay’s content by browsing its server’s Federated feed and reading that server’s rules.

Also, bear in mind large and general relays may fill your server with content that you mostly aren’t interested in, and use up lots of resources at the same time. Smaller, more specific relays may be much better suited to your server’s resources.

Finding general relays

There’s a list of Fediverse relays at RelayList.com ⧉. Please bear in mind the warnings above before using this list, and check that the content on the relays is suitable for your server.

FediBuzz Relay: Creating your own custom relays

This is a new service that lets you create custom relays based on specific hashtags or specific other servers. This can greatly reduce the amount of resources required by relays, as it only sends posts that are relevant to the topics you have selected for your server. You can find out more on its website at relay.fedi.buzz ⧉.

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On Mastodon, you can manually choose Fediverse accounts to recommend as follows for new users when they sign up on your server. The recommendations can be accounts on your server or on other people’s servers, all you need is their full Fediverse address.

To set your server’s recommended follows, log in through the website with your admin account and go to Preferences > Administration > Site Settings > Recommend these accounts to new users. Paste in the full Fedi addresses of the accounts you want to recommend, separated by commas, and then press the Save changes button.

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One of the most fun features of running your own Mastodon server is the ability to add custom emoji. All members of your server can use them, and they will be visible in your member’s posts that federate to other servers. You can also clone custom emoji from other servers, or block them if you see something unsuitable.

To access emoji settings, log into your server’s website with your administrator’s account, then go to Preferences > Administration > Custom emoji.

When you first log in, you will see a long list of all the custom emoji visible to your server, including your own and those of all the servers you federate with. To show just your own click the Local tab at the top, to show just those on other servers click Remote.

Adding your own custom emoji

Custom emoji can be PNG or GIF files up to 50kb in size, and can be still or animated. They can also contain transparent backgrounds. (If you want to create your own from scratch, there’s a useful guide by Laura Kalbag here ⧉.)

To add your own custom emoji:

1. Log in with your admin account on your server’s website
2. Go to Preferences > Administration > Custom Emojis
3. Click the Upload button in the top right corner
4. Add a shortcode, which is a word or words which describes what the emoji looks like. If you use several words, write them as CamelCase or with underscores separating them. Shortcodes are really important as they let blind people hear emoji through screen reader apps.
5. Browse for the image file and click the Upload button at the bottom

Cloning emoji from other servers

To clone an emoji from another server, tick the box next to it on the custom emoji admin list, and click Copy. If you’re looking for a particular emoji on a long list, use its shortcode in the search box.

Blocking emoji from other servers

To block an emoji from another server, for example if it is offensive, tick the box next to it on the emoji admin list and click Disable or Delete.

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You can give your Mastodon server’s website interface a unique appearance by using the Custom CSS feature:

1. Log into your server’s website using the admin account
2. Go to Preferences > Administration > Server Settings
3. Click the Appearance tab and go to the Custom CSS section
4. Add the CSS code you want in the box, then click Save Changes

If you’re comfortable editing CSS, have a look at this excellent tutorial for customsing a Mastodon server’s colour scheme ⧉.

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When a Fediverse server is created, you have to give it its own name. This can be a domain name (example.com) or subdomain (social.example.com). People can use this server name when signing into their account on an app, or when using the server through a web browser.

The best domain names are usually short, easy to spell and memorable. You may want to avoid offensive words, as they can make it difficult to tell people about your server on other platforms. If you already own a domain, you can use subdomains for your servers.

It’s also probably a good idea to use a name that doesn’t mention the software that it is running. For example, if you were making a Mastodon server you probably shouldn’t mention the word Mastodon in the domain or subdomain. Software projects tend to change over the years, in their content, leadership or maintenance, and it may be that in the future you want to switch to a different kind of software on your server. It could be confusing for your users if your server mentions one kind of software but runs another. Alternatively, software projects sometimes rename themselves, and this too can cause confusion for your server’s users. On top of this, some software projects trademark their names and only let servers use the name if they’re running that specific software. This could make it legally difficult for your server to transition to another kind of software in the future.

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There are three different ways you can make your own server on the Fediverse:

• Easiest by far is to use a managed hosting service, where you pay a monthly fee to the hosting company and they do all the technical stuff behind the scenes, including installation, upgrades, maintenance etc. This is so easy that it allows non-technical people to have their own servers. You can find out a lot more about this by visiting my other site Grow Your Own Services, especially the section on growing your own social network ⧉.
• A medium difficulty option is getting a VPS or home computer and installing special software intended for people who run their own servers, such as YunoHost ⧉, FreedomBox ⧉ or LibreServer ⧉. This requires some technical knowledge, especially to install the software, but after the initial set-up the process the rest is done through a graphical interface and relatively painless.
• The most difficult option is to install and maintain everything from scratch. This demands the most technical knowledge, but also provides the most flexibility. You can find installation instructions for all Fediverse platforms in their documentation, usually on their official website. For example, Mastodon’s installation instructions are here ⧉.

Some Fediverse server types are available to set up through all three options, others may only be available by manually installing from scratch.

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