Welcome to all our new Navigators on CaneAndAble.social. If you are new to Mastodon, or the Fediverse, please feel free to follow this account for general tips and tricks, and community announcements for the Cane And Able instance. If you have any questions, you can mention this account or @lynessence. This account hasn't been very active lately, but now that another new year has been rung in, and the holidays are over, I'd like to get back to a more regular posting schedule.
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A reminder to those who have registered for our first ever CaneAndAble get-together that it’s on at the top of the hour. We are looking forward to meeting everyone.
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Hi all members of CaneAndAble.social. Today is Friday, and that means the first ever CaneAndAble get-together for members of our wonderful and growing community is super close now, but there is still time to request the registration link for the Zoom meeting.
It’s taking place this Saturday at 4 PM US Eastern time, 20 UTC. That’s currently 8 PM in the UK, 9 AM on Sunday in New Zealand, 7 AM in Eastern Australia.
This get together is open to CaneAndAble members. If you would like the Zoom link, please send a direct message to this account from your CaneAndAble account, and we’ll ensure you have the link in good time for the event.
Lynette and Jonathan will talk a bit about the instance and answer any questions or take your suggestions. Then we’ll just open it up for a conversation between all the members who attend. We’re particularly interested in getting questions or comments about making the most of mastodon, using Mastodon apps on various platforms, and other ActivityPub services.
We’re really looking forward to it. See you on Saturday.
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Welcome to all the new folks who have made their virtual home on CaneAndAble.social. We're so happy to have you here!
I've noticed that quite a few of you who have signed up are unfamiliar with Mastodon. There's some new lingo to learn, but it's really not that scary. There is an excellent post that is pinned to the top of the Navigators profile which helps you get started on Mastodon if you're new, and tells you how to migrate from another instance if you're not.
If there's anything that isn't covered in this guide, please feel free to reply with your question and I'll do my best to answer.
We want you to have the best experience possible, so please don't hesitate to communicate if you're having an issue, a question, or you just want to say hello.
Again, welcome to our newest CaneAndAblers, and happy posting!
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We believe in the ability of Mastodon to create distinct, cohesive communities while also being able to talk to the world, so we’re excited to see people signing up for our inaugural meet-up via Zoom. There's still time to get the deets.
It’s happening this Saturday at 4 PM US Eastern time, 20 UTC. That’s currently 8 PM in the UK, 9 AM on Sunday in New Zealand, 7 AM in Eastern Australia.
This get together is open to CaneAndAble members. If you would like the Zoom link, please send a direct message to this account from your CaneAndAble account, and we’ll ensure you have the link in good time for the event.
Lynette and Jonathan will talk a bit about the instance and answer any questions or take your suggestions. Then we’ll just open it up for a conversation between all the members who attend. We’re particularly interested in getting questions or comments about making the most of mastodon, using Mastodon apps on various platforms, and other ActivityPub services.
We’re really looking forward to it. See you on Saturday.
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In our relentless quest to bring our users reliability and general epicness, we are now rocking mastodon 4.31, which was recently released.
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Thanks to everyone who has chosen to be a part of our instance. We love being part of the Fediverse, and we also love the sense of community we are creating here on CaneAndAble.social. We’re thinking about ways to build on that community spirit we already have and to make this a great place for blind people to hang out.
One way we’ll do this is to organise occasional online gatherings for CaneAndAble.social members. We’ll experiment with a first one by hanging out for a chat over Zoom. It will be open to everyone who has a CaneAndAble.social account. More details to follow in the next couple of weeks.
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Since this is CaneAndAble.social, we proudly point out that every October 15 is International White Cane Day. Events will be held across the world celebrating the white cane as the symbol of independence for blind people, and raising awareness of obstacles in our path, figuratively and literally.
As the day dawns in the southern hemisphere, this instance that serves the blind community wishes blind people everywhere acceptance, opportunity and independence. With our white canes, we are relentlessly moving forward.
To our sighted allies, the blind community is as diverse as any other. We have hopes, dreams, careers and shortcomings, just like you. We belong. Celebrate the role blind people play in all walks of life so we can all contribute.
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Here's what's new in this shiny new version of Mastodon we're now rocking, as we continue to be on the cutting edge. https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2024/10/mastodon-4.3/
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Tap tap tap. Testing testing. Welcome to the latest and greatest Mastodon. We are now upgraded to version 4.3. Carry on.
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[#]CaneTip. Thinking of joining us at CaneAndAble.social but feeling a bit daunted about the process? Settle back as we explain, because this cane tip is for you.
There are a few steps in this cane tip, but if you follow along, you’ll find it’s straightforward and fully #accessible.
That said, if you haven’t been very active on Mastodon where you are now, it will be easier for you to just start fresh. But if you’re a tooting ninja, buckle up. We’ll get through this together.
Before we get started with the step-by-step, let’s cover what you can move across, and what you can’t. Most important, you can keep all your existing relationships. If you follow our simple guide, then the people you follow and those who follow you will all survive the journey. If you follow people who have opted to approve everyone who can follow them, they will need to approve you again once you’ve moved to us.
All those posts you bookmarked so you can refer to them later? No sweat! They’ll be there when we’re done.
If you’re a neat freak and you’re using lists so you can read just the content you need, when you need it, you’ll probably have spent a good chunk of time getting those lists right. You’ll be relieved to know you can bring those with you.
It’s important that Mastodon is a safe and enjoyable place, so don’t worry, the accounts you’ve blocked will stay blocked once you’ve made the move if you follow our guide.
Silence is golden, so those you’ve muted via Mastodon’s official method will stay muted.
If you’ve blocked entire domains for any reason, you can continue those blocks when you move to us.
There’s a lot you can transfer, but be warned, what you can’t transfer at this time is the content you’ve created. You can download your posts so you can have a permanent record of them, but you can’t upload those posts when you move to us. The clever Mastodon developers tell us that this is due to technical limitations. If you don’t delete your old Mastodon account though, and you follow our guide, you can keep your old posts online while ensuring that people get to you at your new home, so all isn’t completely lost.
Another thing you can’t take with you when you go is followed hashtags. So if you’re following any hashtags, make a note of them, and follow them again once you’ve made the move.
So, let’s do this! And let’s do this in this exact order, so we don’t break the world.
Step one. We need to get you set up on CaneAndAble.social. Open your browser and head over to CaneAndAble.social. On the home page, choose the Create Account link, and follow the simple steps to sign up. Choose your username carefully, because you can’t change it later without creating a whole new account and doing this migration malarky all over again. Oy!
Since our moderation team is running this community voluntarily, we want to be sure that everyone who joins us has read and understood the rules. Please take the time to do this, because if you don’t, you’ll miss a key thing you need to include in the reasons for joining field, and that will mean we can’t approve your account.
Once you’ve signed up, wait until you get confirmation via email that your application to join has been approved.
Step two, tame the email notifications. Got that email? Rejoyce! Welcome to the community. Before we start the migration, let’s check something in the Preferences of your CaneAndAble.social account. When you’re logged in with your shiny new account, choose Preferences, then choose Notifications. On the Notifications page, navigate by heading until you reach the “Events for email notifications” heading. We suggest unchecking all the boxes in this section, particularly if you’re going to be using a good smartphone client that supports push notifications. But at least for now, ensure that the “someone follows you” checkbox is unchecked. Otherwise, when you migrate your followers across, you’ll get an email for every person who follows you. Not nice, not nice at all.
Step three, data export.
Now we need to head over to the website of the instance you’re moving from to get all your data. For example, if you’re currently with Mastodon.social, go to its website, log in, and activate the Preferences link. On the Preferences page, activate the link that says Import and Export. You’ll be landed on the Export section by default, which is what we want. The data is presented to you in a table. Most screen readers will let you press the letter T to navigate you directly to the table. Navigate through this data, and you’ll find a summary of how much data you’re using, how many followers you have and more. Beside some of these statistics, you’ll find a link called “CSV”. CSV stands for comma separated value. They are simple text files which you can open in a text editor, or a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel. But be sure not to change anything in any of these files before you upload them to us, or you may accidentally break the formatting.
The easiest thing to do at this point is to download every file that the CSV links point to. You may end up with six or more CSV files. Although the links on this page are all labelled CSV, which isn’t particularly helpful from a #accessibility point of view, the files are clearly named once they’re on your device.
Step four, data import. Now that you’ve downloaded the data from your old server, you’ll want to upload it to CaneAndAble.social. On the CaneAndAble.social website, ensure you’re logged in, choose the Preferences link, and then Import and Export. But this time, you will then need to choose the Import link.
On the Import page, you’ll find a combo box from which you can choose the category of data you’re uploading. Make your selection, for example “following list”, and then press the Upload button. You’ll then be presented with the standard file upload dialog from which you can choose one of the files you just downloaded from your old server. The one to upload for each situation is very clear. For example, the file to upload if you have chosen “following list” from the combo box is called “following_accounts.csv”.
Repeat this process until all the data you got from your old server is uploaded to us.
Step five, tell CaneAndAble.social what’s coming.
Next, we’re going to set up a redirect from your old account to your new one, like when you move house and you get your snail mail redirected. To do that, we need to do something on CaneAndAble.social, and on the server you’re moving from.
From the Preferences screen on CaneAndAble.social, activate the Account link. Navigate by heading until you reach “Moving from a different account”. Next, activate the link called “Create an account alias”. You’ll be presented with an edit field into which you should type the username you have at the instance you’re moving from. Be sure that the at symbol is contained at the beginning, as if you were mentioning yourself, or the process won’t work.
Step Six, move your followers across.
Finally, head back to the instance you’re moving from, choose Preferences, then Account, but this time, navigate to the “Move to a different account” heading and follow the instructions. You’ll need to enter the full username of your new account, complete with the at symbol at the beginning and the @CaneAndAble.social at the end.
And now, pour yourself a nice glass of kombucha because that’s it! You can delete your old account if you want to, but there is no need since everyone will be redirected to your new account in future.
If you use stand-alone Mastodon clients, be sure to log in with them.
Many of us here on Mastodon will not follow anyone without a bio in their profile. That’s perfectly reasonable, because if we don’t know you, we don’t know what sort of content you’re going to post. So take it from us, you will get more people following you if you take the time to build up your profile.
When you’ve moved to a new instance, it’s a good idea to write a new introductory post using the introduction hashtag, and pin it to your timeline so people can get to it easily in future. People who are selective about who they follow love reading these bios. On CaneAndAble.social, you have 10,000 characters, so you can tell us all about you.
A final couple of notes. Mastodon imposes a cooling off period. Once you have migrated, you can’t move anywhere else for 30 days, so be sure you’re sure.
Second, while we have written this guide from the perspective of someone contemplating joining us at CaneAndAble.social, of course you can also use this cane tip to help you move from us to somewhere else. Your data belongs to you, and we want you to use Mastodon where you’re happiest.
Any questions? Send the CaneAndAble.social navigators a mention and we’d be pleased to help.
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Welcome to the home of the Cane and Able navigators. Follow this account to keep up with all
the latest happenings with the CaneAndAble.social Mastodon instance for blind people, as well as handy tips and tricks for mastodon and the Fediverse in general.
At CaneAndAble.social, we’re passionate about the benefits of social network that no one individual can control, no matter how wealthy they are. That has benefits for blind people, who wish to participate in social media via a range of access technology on many platforms. Mastodon’s openness means that anyone with the skills can create an app for the Fediverse, and that’s good news. We are always sure to have accessible means of participating fully. If the accessibility of one app happens to break, or it is no longer developed, there are others, and there are few barriers to entry for new developers.
So, about this name of ours. How did we get it, and what does it mean? It is a pun. For those unaware, there is a story in the Bible, Genesis to be precise, chapter 4 to be preciser, (OK that’s not an actual word), of two brothers, Cain and Abel. But changing the spelling to Cane and Able sends a powerful message. The white cane blind people use for travel is seen as an international symbol of our independence. Able, as in ability, reflects the values by which many blind people live our lives.
So often, we are limited not by our blindness, but by other people’s perceptions of it. This manifests itself when we’re passed over for a job, because an employer closes their eyes and can’t imagine how they would do the job if they couldn’t see, and concludes that we can’t do it either. Limited perceptions result in us struggling to get the accommodations we need to succeed in education, to function optimally with technology, and so many other pursuits. CaneAndAble.social is a slightly tongue-in-cheek way of making an important statement. Our blindness doesn’t mean we’re not capable.
You will have read the rules before signing up here, so we won’t revisit them in this post. But here are a few things that make our community special.
First, while there are other instances where blind people hang out, CaneAndAble.social is a domain that is up-front about our blindness, much like there are other communities on Mastodon that directly identify with many other minorities. It clearly speaks to the kind of people we serve. This helps with discovery. You know that by looking for people on CaneAndAble.social, you’ll find blind people like you. Over time, you will find more businesses serving the blind community as well.
Second, our friendly team are here to help with any questions you have about using Mastodon accessibly. Direct your requests to this account by mentioning it. Not only will the navigators, Lynette and Jonathan, do what we can, but other people who follow this account have plenty of knowledge to share too. We know that Mastodon is a bit of a different way to do social media, but it represents a better future and we want you to have the help you need to make the most of it.
Third, you have room to express yourself with clarity and courtesy. Mastodon by default gives you 500 characters per post. CaneAndAble.social gives you a whopping 10,000. If you find that’s not enough for a legitimate reason, we’ll gladly consider increasing it.
Fourth, one of the things we often hear from new community members who join us is, “dude, this thing is fast!” And it is. We take good infrastructure, and providing you with a quality service, seriously.
Fifth, Some instances have chosen to block Threads, the Meta social network that is now part of the Fediverse. We have chosen not to do this, because we support people being in touch with as wide a group of people as possible. As technology evolves, we will embrace bridges to other social networks.
The site’s Community Manager is Lynette, @lynessence, and Jonathan, @JonathanMosen, chips in and pays the bills.
We strive to bring you a reliable, helpful, friendly community and are so glad you’re here. Let us know if we can help with anything.
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