Diaspora/Website

We do the best we can to keep these tutorials up-to-date with the latest diaspora* developments. As such, please be aware of the fact that your pod may not be running the latest version of diaspora*, which can result in behaviour different from the behaviour described in our tutorials. Find your pod on %{podup_link} to see which version of the software it is running.

Welcome to our “Getting started” guide. If you’ve found your way to this page, you’ve probably either just signed up to diaspora* or you’re thinking of doing so. In this series of tutorials we’ll walk you through the sign-up process and get you acquainted with the basics of how diaspora* works. We hope you find it useful, and that you enjoy using diaspora*!

Because of the decentralized and open-source nature of diaspora*, it is possible for pod administrators to customize their pods. Therefore, depending on which pod you’re on, the interface might look very slightly different to how it’s described here. However, the essential elements should all be present, even if they are arranged slightly differently.

At the top of the screen is the header bar, which always remains in place, even when you scroll down the page. This header bar contains:

If all aspects are selected and you want to view just one, click <span class="click">Deselect all</span> and then select the one you want.

Why not play around with it for a few seconds?

It filters the content stream. You might want to read only posts written by people in your Family aspect. Or you might want to read everything posted by your contacts <em>except</em> family members.

Contacts page

You can click this button to change the aspect(s) this person is in by selecting and deselecting aspects in the drop-down list. If you want to remove a person from all of your aspects, deselect all aspects and the button will turn grey. You are no longer sharing with them.

If you are viewing contacts in an individual aspect, there will be a cross to the right of each contact displayed. Clicking this will remove the person from that aspect.

You can also create new aspects from your contacts page.

Only sharing with me

This shows you a list of people who are sharing with you but with whom you are not sharing – your “followers.”

It’s now time to add some contacts to the “Diaspora” aspect you just created. If you already know people who are using diaspora*, you can find them and add them to any aspect you like.

We call connecting with someone “sharing” because it’s an indication that you want to share content with them. Sharing in diaspora* can seem a bit confusing at first, because your levels of sharing with other people are unlikely to be the same as their levels of sharing with you. Let’s try to make sense of what that means.

Someone has placed you into one of their aspects, but you haven’t done likewise for them. You will get a notification that this person has “started sharing with you” but you won’t notice any other change.

They will see your public posts in their stream, but none of your limited posts.

There’s no way to tell which aspect someone else has placed you in, for privacy reasons – it’s their business which of their aspects they place each person in, so no one else can find out.

Following

You are sharing with a person who is not sharing with you. This means that you have added them to one (or more) of your aspects, but they have not added you to their aspects.