I don't think @MastodonEngineering 's proposal of suggesting community run servers at signup is going to work.

Bear with me:

The difference between funneling new users to the foundation-run instance unless the user makes an active choice (personal invite from existing user, selecting from themselves making an informed choice etc) is that two different people both joining "Mastodon" will be subject to completely different community and moderation standards. Sure, we'll require some sort of minimal agreement, but that still leaves lots of room for ... let's say, somewhat power-hungry BOFHs.

It's a well known fact that there are a bunch of people running instances on Mastodon who believe it's their job to "sort out" what's suitable for their users to see or not see. A bit authoritarian, if you wish. Others think it's their job to enable their users to make their own choices, unless there's actual content that violate server rules.

There are servers on joinmastodon today where the admins, completely by themselves, decide to instance block users from other instances that they don't like - without them having broken any server rules whatsoever. Their "own" users on those instances have no say, and no idea why other users on Mastodon never respond to any follow requests.

If you take a step back and look at this from the perspective of random user Z just wanting to "get Mastodon" and sign up for what seems to be a local "Mastodon server" it doesn't matter how many disclaimers we put up - when this happens they're going to get pissed off anyway. And rightfully so.

I think it's better to continue to funnel everyone through the foundation server - and extend the instance move support to move over posts. That way everyone can make informed decisions they can at least understand the effects of.

#MastoAdmin

over here at (indeterminately named neurospacetodon instance) we run right on the razors edge of using 100% of all available system resources at all times, including storage.

wrote some small notes on actually pruning database space, since tootctl by default doesn't save much space - https://wiki.neuromatch.social/Maintenance#DB_Pruning

will update as i go, the status pruning command needs some updates because currently it doesn't prune anything that's a reply ever

#mastoadmin

#sysadmins #mastoadmin #mastoadmins #selfhosting questions re: DNS...

Has anyone hosting their own instance seen a massive increase in DNS queries to their domain.

I don’t host my own DNS, and my DNS provider can’t give me logs of requests, so I can’t even check which subdomain it might relate to.

I’m not sure what I could do to avoid it – the overage is not a large amount of money, but it’s recurrent and annoying, and started when I started this instance.

I changed the TTL to 2 weeks and it didn’t make a difference.

I’m not sure what else to check.

Can anyone recommend a DNS provider I could use temporarily that I could get logs from?

I don’t want domain hosting or web hosting, or masto hosting.

Thanks!

#sysadmins #mastoadmin #mastoadmins #selfhosting questions re: DNS...

Has anyone hosting their own instance seen a massive increase in DNS queries to their domain.

I don’t host my own DNS, and my DNS provider can’t give me logs of requests, so I can’t even check which subdomain it might relate to.

I’m not sure what I could do to avoid it – the overage is not a large amount of money, but it’s recurrent and annoying, and started when I started this instance.

I changed the TTL to 2 weeks and it didn’t make a difference.

I’m not sure what else to check.

Can anyone recommend a DNS provider I could use temporarily that I could get logs from?

I don’t want domain hosting or web hosting, or masto hosting.

Thanks!

We've successfully upgraded our Mastodon server to v4.6.0-alpha.4+mementomods-2026-02-08, along with Mastodon Bird UI 4.0.0-alpha.0-4.

This update includes today's latest daily build with 112 new commits from upstream since alpha.3 (2026-01-24).

What's new in Mastodon core - These are the changes Mastodon Team have introduced us in the latest nightly version we are running:

🔒 Security
- Upstream security patch

✨ New features (some only on the back end for now)
- Better language support: Horizontal and vertical posts can now coexist
- Mute end date now shown in badge
- Text-autospace added to post content
- Collections: create, edit, delete, and federated across servers
- Store remote actors' profile pic and header descriptions
- Flag to preserve cached media on cleanup

🐛 Bug fixes
- Fix quote cancel button appearing in all statuses
- Fix followers with bell icon being notified of post edits
- Fix quote cancel button not appearing after edit then delete-and-redraft
- Fix remote account last status tracking
- Fix filtering of mentions from filtered-on-their origin-server accounts
- Fix connection leak issues
- Fix duplicate hashtag processing in object updates

🔧 Other
- "Anyone can quote" label changed to "quotes allowed"
- Various dependency updates (pg, brakeman, dotenv, pino, paperclip, etc.)

🔮 Upcoming
- A profile redesign is being built incrementally upstream
- Pinned posts, follow button reorg, featured tags, badges, timeline filters, and more are landing as foundational pieces.

🐦‍⬛ Mastodon Bird UI 4.0.0-alpha.0-4 (nightly)
- Fix translate button color not matching link color
- Fix extra border-left showing up in mobile devices

Mastodon Bird UI 4.0.0-alpha.0-4 is still a work in progress in the nightly branch. It's not 100% ready, but it's stable with today's Mastodon alpha.4.

Source code: https://github.com/mementomori-social/mastodon

As always, if you notice anything unusual or buggy, please reach out to me or any of the admins. Enjoy your time here, and feel free to message me with any questions or thoughts.

If anything feels off, please let us know!

#MementomoriSocial #Mastodon #MastoAdmin

RE: https://mstdn.games/@britt/116013094706931728

So, I helped Britt out with moving her instance to a new server provider this week.

While the people at toot.io were relatively helpful in our email chain (once she was finally able to get a hold of them in the first place anyways), the setup at toot.io was a bit strange and not optimized for an instance of her size. The actual server itself was well *over*powered for her to be seeing the slowdowns she was, and Mastodon & especially Postgres just weren’t using those resources to a full extent.

Honestly the biggest red flag 🚩🚩🚩 to me isn’t what toot.io is doing now necessarily, but that it was apparently sold(?) to completely new management without notice to customers. In a niche service industry like this, that seems like a big problem to me, to not even explain who’s taking over and why you should trust them.

The previous ownership is probably more at fault for this relatively speaking, but it’s probably a good opportunity for toot.io customers to reevaluate their hosting options… Even if you ultimately end up sticking with toot.io, you simply might not be fully aware of what’s going on over at your own hosting company anymore, and that’s always worth double-checking 👀

#MastoAdmin #MastodonAdmin #MstdnGames #InstanceMigration #Tootio

Lancement de la mise à jour de notre instance Mastodon (mastodon) de 4.5.5~ynh1 à 4.5.6~ynh1

#MastoTn #MAstoAdmin

Lancement de la mise à jour de notre instance Mastodon (mastodon) de 4.5.5~ynh1 à 4.5.6~ynh1

#MastoTn #MAstoAdmin

And we'll see here in a minute if I've just borked my instance...

Upgraded elasticsearch to 9.X and node.js to 22... and rebuilding...

If this instance goes splort, at least I'll have something to do this weekend.

#mastodon #nodejs #elasticsearch #upgrade #mastoadmin

We’re happy to announce that Mastodon 4.5 is now ready for prime time! Quote posts, async fetching of replies, server timeline visibility settings, more moderation tools, and lots and lots of other tweaks and improvements.

Announcement on our blog: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/mastodon-4.5/

Full release notes and update instructions are available on our GitHub release page: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.5.0

#mastoadmin

If your mastodon instance is hosted with toot.io, I highly recommend moving your instance to a more reliable hosting provider.

I’ve had a terrible experience since they were sold by the original owner and I plan to move our instance to a new host asap.

Unresolved slowdowns. Lack of replies from support. Unnecessary hurdles to get them to respond. Unending hours of stress.

I have lost all faith in their service.

Prior post: https://mstdn.games/@britt/116002357985244292

#MastoAdmin

RE: https://mstdn.games/@britt/116013094706931728

So, I helped Britt out with moving her instance to a new server provider this week.

While the people at toot.io were relatively helpful in our email chain (once she was finally able to get a hold of them in the first place anyways), the setup at toot.io was a bit strange and not optimized for an instance of her size. The actual server itself was well *over*powered for her to be seeing the slowdowns she was, and Mastodon & especially Postgres just weren’t using those resources to a full extent.

Honestly the biggest red flag 🚩🚩🚩 to me isn’t what toot.io is doing now necessarily, but that it was apparently sold(?) to completely new management without notice to customers. In a niche service industry like this, that seems like a big problem to me, to not even explain who’s taking over and why you should trust them.

The previous ownership is probably more at fault for this relatively speaking, but it’s probably a good opportunity for toot.io customers to reevaluate their hosting options… Even if you ultimately end up sticking with toot.io, you simply might not be fully aware of what’s going on over at your own hosting company anymore, and that’s always worth double-checking 👀

#MastoAdmin #MastodonAdmin #MstdnGames #InstanceMigration #Tootio

RE: https://mstdn.social/@stux/116002476574325878

It’s absurd that instance owners have to beg for support like it’s a favor.

If you rely on a service, do the grown-up thing and help pay for it.

Servers, storage, moderation, and uptime aren’t powered by vibes.

Even $5 / €5 helps.

Check your server’s About page. If you can afford a coffee, you can afford to contribute.

Parting shot: if Mastodon really cared about growing the ecosystem, funding tools would already be built in for #Mastoadmin use. Looking at you, @Gargron 👀

If your mastodon instance is hosted with toot.io, I highly recommend moving your instance to a more reliable hosting provider.

I’ve had a terrible experience since they were sold by the original owner and I plan to move our instance to a new host asap.

Unresolved slowdowns. Lack of replies from support. Unnecessary hurdles to get them to respond. Unending hours of stress.

I have lost all faith in their service.

Prior post: https://mstdn.games/@britt/116002357985244292

#MastoAdmin

RE: https://mstdn.social/@stux/116002476574325878

It’s absurd that instance owners have to beg for support like it’s a favor.

If you rely on a service, do the grown-up thing and help pay for it.

Servers, storage, moderation, and uptime aren’t powered by vibes.

Even $5 / €5 helps.

Check your server’s About page. If you can afford a coffee, you can afford to contribute.

Parting shot: if Mastodon really cared about growing the ecosystem, funding tools would already be built in for #Mastoadmin use. Looking at you, @Gargron 👀

Updated my test mastodon instance, listodon.com, to v4.5.6 and updated TangerineUI to a nice lagoon theme for the default.

I had some slowness during this upgrade, I'm not sure why. At one point I thought it was completely stalled but it finally completed.

#MastoAdmin

Updated my test mastodon instance, listodon.com, to v4.5.6 and updated TangerineUI to a nice lagoon theme for the default.

I had some slowness during this upgrade, I'm not sure why. At one point I thought it was completely stalled but it finally completed.

#MastoAdmin