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If you’re setting up your own fediverse presence at your own domain, don’t make the same mistake I did and call it mastodon.my.domain. Give it a generic name like social.my.domain, activity.my.domain, fedi.my.domain or something similar. You don’t want to tie an endpoint for an open protocol to a single implementation or perpetuate the myth that #Mastodon is the #fediverse.
(Yes, you can migrate to a different subdomain later but it’s not a one-click process.)
@aral 
this feels like it was written directly for me.
I'm looking into it now for the new year, so thank you.
@aral I'm just realising this mistake now! Going to have a morning of config...
@aral i’m new to the whole mastodon universe. can you please suggest any quickstart guide?seems like there are too many moving parts and new and different aspects here that im trying to understand and learn about.
Thanks in advance!
@prakharb @laura Ah, sorry, forgot to post the link. Here you go:
https://laurakalbag.com/what-is-mastodon-and-why-should-i-use-it/
@prakharb @aral
This has some good tips
https://axbom.com/mastodon-tips/
@DismalManorGang Indeed and @feditips is awesome :) (I keep forgetting there’s also a site, sorry.)
I also recommend people to user, fund, and support other implementations.
@aral Well, I kind of made the same mistake :D
@alex Haha, I see :) 
@aral thoughts (negative/positive) on setting up different web and local domains? My mastodon is at m.zkc.se (kind of breaks your advice) but people ping me at »at erik at zkc.se« which is also (almost) my e-mail.
@erik Oh, interesting, I hadn’t realised you could split the two in ActivityPub (last time I looked into the spec with an eye towards possibly implementing it was about six years ago).
And, yeah, that’s even better :)
@erik @aral You could set up a WebFinger file at the main domain which then redirects/forwards people to your Mastodon (or similar) account. For example, if you do a search here richard[@]bairwell.com this account should show up - same : see https://blog.maartenballiauw.be/post/2022/11/05/mastodon-own-donain-without-hosting-server.html for the "medium way" to do it, for the easy way just set up a 301 redirect from example.com/.well-known/webfinger to the GET url given by https://webfinger.net when you lookup your account
@aral Is it really a mistake? I don't think you can reuse a domain for a different software as the other instances won't be able do deal with changing IDs and keys. They will probably think it's a MITM attack.
Maybe you can someday import your old keys into a different software, but for now it seems best to me to use a different domain. And using a hint to indicate the software helps people to know what to expect.
@aral I made this mistake too.
@aral
That's true. Another point: The name #Mastodon is a registered trademark and people are only allowed to use it, if they are using the mastodon code.
There was recently one situation, where the admin changed the sys from Mastodon to #Pleroma while and kept the mastodon name very prominently in the url (if I remeber right, it was part of the root domain name and sounded similiar to mastodon.social).
He was forced to change the domain name by the trademark owner.
@aral and if you are an old Usenet admin, you should name it news.my.domain for old times sake.
@aral I did make that mistake and yes, the migration is hell. 
So your tip is valuable.
@aral It's easy enough to have just my.domain as your account too, so it's similar to email and Matrix.
@aral What about mastodon.se? I guess that really is a single implementation, at least within .se
@aral what are the pros and cons of having your own personal instance? I’ve been thinking about it. 
@aral Also Mastodon is a trademark, and the trademark usage rules aren't clear enough.
(Yes, you can migrate to a different subdomain later but it’s not a one-click process.)
Indeed. And all of the "migration is easy" folks keep ignoring that your timeline doesn't come with you.
@aral Yep. Took me a bit to realise this very thing... 
Hmmm. I wouldn't make it so generic. Maybe a subdomain like `microblog` might make more sense. Then you can also add other Fediverse applications, like Pixelfed & use `pictures` for that, or something.
In my case I did use `mastodon` as a subdomain, but I'm also using a different `LOCAL_DOMAIN` so it looks nicer!
@aral you can host your server on mastodon.ar.al but have your username be @aral@ar.al, like @will does for example. Here is his profile: https://mastodon.willnorris.net/@will
@aral I was thinking of the same thing, came up with ub.domain.tld as as in microblogging. How does that sound?
@aral I am making domains xxxxtodon . Surely that can be transferred with no problem to another platform. And the xxxxtodon is becoming a useful self-explanatory "brand"....
@aral And would you use @name@domain.ext or @name@social.domain.ext as username (using webfinger)?
@aral But what if you some day will want to host image sharing (Pixelfed), a blog (WriteFreely) and a microblog (probably Mastodon today and perhaps Takahē later)? Then neither mastodon.domain.tld or fedi.domain.tld would be most future proof choices. micro.domain.tld for Mastodon perhaps? blog.domain.tld for WriteFreely. You could argue it's *how* you use the different softwares that should dictate how it's named (you could use Mastodon for image sharing the same way you'd use Pixelfed). 
@aral But I would still say they have some distinct features. Mastodon can't inline hyperlink text for one. That's a very microbloggy limitation (and a historical remnant from TXTMob and later when Twitter had to be compatible with SMS). I believe WriteFreely will allow this.