Interesting folks to follow on Mastodon
My highly-idiosyncratic list of interesting people on Mastodon
I’ve been really enjoying moving from the crumbling mess of Twitter, to the chaotic federated world of Mastodon. Plenty of other people have talked about the reasons, I’m not going over them all here.
However, one complaint I’ve heard is “I can’t find anyone to follow” which I find quite surprising, as I’ve found too many people to follow! So I thought I’d post a short1, opinionated list, to help lure people in.
This is mostly tech folks - as that’s my interest area, and Mastodon is mostly attracting tech folks and activists right now. But there are quite a few random non-tech folks too - sorry, it’s a bit of an idiosyncratic list!
Aside - how to follow people
I thought I’d call this out separately, as it’s sometimes a bit fiddly, especially for new users.
This assumes you are using a browser. Mobile users can’t easily cut and paste URLs, so following someone not on your instance depends a bit on the app you use.
For a user @fergee@one.mega.cities their instance is one.mega.cities and that is where most of their information lives. You can browse their details with the url https://one.mega.cities/@fergee - and there is a Follow button there, but it’s not so easy to use if you are not also a one.mega.cities user. (the behaviour seems to differ by instance - or maybe it’s mobile vs browser? Some say ‘paste this url into search’ and some let you re-log in to your home instance)
The easy way to manage this is to find the user’s page on your instance. This is usually a URL like https://my.instance.name/@fergee@one.mega.cities though some have slightly different paths. You can manually make this URL in a browser address bar by just concatenating the https://my.instance.name/ part with a mastodon handle (starting with a @). Or you can build them using a tool like a spreadsheet, if you want.
Or, you can just paste the user’s handle @fergee@one.mega.cities into the search box on your main mastodon page, and search ‘accounts’, and you should end at the same user page on your own instance.
Once you get to the person’s page on your instance, you can just click ‘follow’ and a follow request is sent. Some people auto-accept follows, some manually check you aren’t a bot or a nasty person or whatever first.
Once you are following them, you can also add and remove people from custom user lists from the same page. But that’s a different subject.
My list
Some of these people are quite active, some are just lurking for now. Some of these people are also dual posting to Twitter, which seems fair enough if you have a big follower count.
I’ve sorted by number of updates, which will be biased towards really verbose people and those who’ve been on Mastodon a long time. But it’s easier than other categorisations - what makes someone ‘interesting’?? (The count includes posts and ‘boosts’ which are like re-tweets, so chronic over-sharers will have inflated update values)
I note that there are 5 signatories of the Agile Manifesto in this list!
| Name | Handle | URL | Followers | Updates | Who |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cory Doctorow | @doctorow@mamot.fr | https://mamot.fr/@doctorow | 5988 | 83968 | Author, journalist, blogger |
| Eugen Rochko | @Gargron@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@Gargron | 262050 | 72812 | Mastodon lead developer |
| Christine Lemmer-Webber | @cwebber@octodon.social | https://octodon.social/@cwebber | 8668 | 33216 | Developer, CTO, co-author of ActivityPub which underpins all of this |
| Cory Doctorow’s linkblog | @pluralistic@mamot.fr | https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic | 27872 | 31622 | This is his link-dump user, it is very very verbose! |
| Terence Eden | @Edent@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@Edent | 3304 | 4192 | Unicode, W3C, open standards, cybersecurity |
| Lesley Carhart | @hacks4pancakes@infosec.exchange | https://infosec.exchange/@hacks4pancakes | 21838 | 2446 | Cyber security expert |
| David Gerard | @davidgerard@circumstances.run | https://circumstances.run/@davidgerard | 1737 | 1634 | Blockchain skeptic, writer, journalist |
| Leo Laporte | @leo@twit.social | https://twit.social/@leo | 16163 | 979 | Tech podcaster |
| Lisa Crispin | @lisacrispin@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@lisacrispin | 845 | 634 | Agile tester, consultant, author |
| Timnit Gebru | @timnitGebru@dair-community.social | https://dair-community.social/@timnitGebru | 14164 | 631 | Computer scientist, diversity advocate, AI research |
| Brian Marick | @marick@mstdn.social | https://mstdn.social/@marick | 723 | 600 | Developer, podcaster, Ruby, Testing, thinking |
| Scott Hanselman | @shanselman@hachyderm.io | https://hachyderm.io/@shanselman | 22020 | 599 | Tech geek at Microsoft, speaker |
| Ian Betteridge | @ianbetteridge@mastodon.me.uk | https://mastodon.me.uk/@ianbetteridge | 2896 | 568 | Tech writer, the one named in “Betteridge’s Law” |
| Tim Bray | @timbray@mastodon.cloud | https://mastodon.cloud/@timbray | 8347 | 533 | Dev, activist, XML co-author |
| Adrian Cockcroft | @adrianco@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@adrianco | 1290 | 471 | Analyst / Architect / DevOps, ex Netflix and many others |
| Charlie Stross | @cstross@wandering.shop | https://wandering.shop/@cstross | 9789 | 349 | Sci-fi/Fantasy author |
| James Gleick | @JamesGleick@sciencemastodon.com | https://sciencemastodon.com/@JamesGleick | 8121 | 339 | Author ‘Chaos’ and other books |
| Dr Sarah Hendrica Bickerton | @sarahhbickerton@mastodon.nz | https://mastodon.nz/@sarahhbickerton | 1227 | 305 | Sociology and Public Policy lecturer |
| Taylor Lorenz | @taylorlorenz@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@taylorlorenz | 72915 | 273 | Tech columnist at the Washington Post |
| Matthew Skelton | @matthewskelton@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@matthewskelton | 1019 | 270 | Team Topologies co-author |
| Jamie Zawinski | @jwz@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@jwz | 4836 | 264 | Programmer, blogger, Netscape and Mozilla dev |
| Mary Robinette Kowal | @maryrobinette@wandering.shop | https://wandering.shop/@maryrobinette | 2881 | 216 | Sci-fi author |
| Julia Evans | @b0rk@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@b0rk | 14195 | 193 | Programmer, speaker, tech zine person |
| Elisabeth Hendrickson | @testobsessed@ruby.social | https://ruby.social/@testobsessed | 1018 | 187 | Tester, author, change maker |
| J. B. Rainsberger | @jbrains@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@jbrains | 528 | 178 | TDD person and awesome dev advocate |
| Molly White | @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io | https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff | 31191 | 171 | Wikipedia author, crypto skeptic |
| Brendan Eich | @BrendanEich@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@BrendanEich | 1788 | 163 | Creator of Javascript |
| Neil Gaiman | @neilhimself@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@neilhimself | 160905 | 156 | Author - Sandman, American Gods and many more |
| Chad Loder | @chadloder@kolektiva.social | https://kolektiva.social/@chadloder | 18549 | 135 | Activist, cybersecurity expert |
| Martin Fowler | @mfowler@toot.thoughtworks.com | https://toot.thoughtworks.com/@mfowler | 9578 | 119 | Tech loudmouth at Thoughtworks |
| Kelsey Hightower | @kelseyhightower@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@kelseyhightower | 8987 | 114 | Google k8s dev, advocate, speaker |
| Josh Graham | @delitescere@mas.to | https://mas.to/@delitescere | 101 | 96 | Semi-retired CTO, speaker |
| Emily Webber | @ewebber@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@ewebber | 508 | 92 | ex-GDS agile, Communities of Practice author |
| George Takei | @georgetakei@universeodon.com | https://universeodon.com/@georgetakei | 226312 | 89 | Star Trek Actor, Activist |
| Kevlin Henney | @kevlin@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@kevlin | 978 | 89 | Speaker, author, thinker |
| Pamela Fox | @pamelafox@fosstodon.org | https://fosstodon.org/@pamelafox | 1220 | 86 | Python / Cloud advocate and teacher |
| Charles Oliver Nutter | @headius@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@headius | 1133 | 83 | JRuby / JVM dev |
| Tom Lyon | @aka_pugs@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@aka_pugs | 1110 | 78 | Old-school Unix coder, computer historian |
| Stefan Tilkov | @stilkov@innoq.social | https://innoq.social/@stilkov | 1293 | 74 | CEO / Principal Consultant at INNOQ |
| Brianna Wu | @briannawu@mstdn.social | https://mstdn.social/@briannawu | 10746 | 72 | Game writer, activist |
| Karen James | @kejames@mastodon.online | https://mastodon.online/@kejames | 5579 | 72 | Environmental geneticist, social justice advocate |
| Eric Meyer | @Meyerweb@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@Meyerweb | 3765 | 66 | CSS standards advocate |
| Jessica Kerr | @jessitron@hachyderm.io | https://hachyderm.io/@jessitron | 2637 | 58 | Software developer, speaker, symmathecist |
| William Gibson | @GreatDismal@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@GreatDismal | 20201 | 50 | Cyberpunk author |
| Joanne Harris | @joannechocolat@mastodon.online | https://mastodon.online/@joannechocolat | 5865 | 45 | Author of Chocolat, chair of Society of Authors |
| Paul Irish | @paul_irish@toot.cafe | https://toot.cafe/@paul_irish | 3928 | 42 | Chrome, Javascript, CSS developer and advocate |
| Paul Krugman | @pkrugman@mastodon.online | https://mastodon.online/@pkrugman | 25238 | 41 | Economist |
| Pragmatic Andy | @PragmaticAndy@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@PragmaticAndy | 748 | 40 | Author and publisher |
| Ron Jeffries | @RonJeffries@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@RonJeffries | 1666 | 38 | XP author and inventor |
| Dave Snowden | @snowded@mas.to | https://mas.to/@snowded | 566 | 33 | Cynefin author and thinker |
| Amanda Palmer | @amandapalmer@home.social | https://home.social/@amandapalmer | 2275 | 31 | Musician, writer |
| Trisha Gee | @trishagee@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@trishagee | 1312 | 28 | Developer, author, Java advocate |
| Katie Mack | @AstroKatie@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@AstroKatie | 23469 | 23 | Astrophysicist |
| Greta Thunberg | @gretathunberg@mastodon.nu | https://mastodon.nu/@gretathunberg | 71468 | 20 | Climate activist |
| Martin Kleppmann | @martin@nondeterministic.computer | https://nondeterministic.computer/@martin | 1464 | 19 | Author “Designing data-intensive applications” |
| Kent Beck | @kentbeck@hachyderm.io | https://hachyderm.io/@kentbeck | 2195 | 17 | Extreme Programming author |
| Michael Brunton-Spall | @Bruntonspall@octodon.social | https://octodon.social/@Bruntonspall | 212 | 16 | Civil servant, ex-GDS thinker, infosec |
| Antirez | @antirez@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@antirez | 1707 | 12 | Redis creator |
| Dave Farley | @davefarley77@techhub.social | https://techhub.social/@davefarley77 | 46 | 11 | Continuous Delivery and Software Engineering author |
| Felienne Hermans | @Felienne@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@Felienne | 1281 | 5 | Scientist, researcher, SE Radio podcast host |
| Esther Derby | @estherderby@mstdn.social | https://mstdn.social/@estherderby | 228 | 4 | Agile author, thinker, change maker |
| Charity Majors | @mipsytipsy@hachyderm.io | https://hachyderm.io/@mipsytipsy | 63 | 2 | Software engineer and CTO of Honeycomb |
| Daniel Terhorst-North | @tastapod@mastodon.social | https://mastodon.social/@tastapod | 1553 | 1 | Agile guy, speaker, BDD, CUPID |
| Rebecca Parsons | @rjparson@toot.thoughtworks.com | https://toot.thoughtworks.com/@rjparson | 111 | 1 | Thoughtworks CTO, dev, speaker |
| Robert Virding | @rvirding@fosstodon.org | https://fosstodon.org/@rvirding | 63 | 0 | Erlang author |
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It’s not that short, I’ve just dumped a couple of my lists and cleaned up the names - making a really short list would be more work! ↩
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