@taylorlorenz how about Nicole, but you can call her the Fediverse chick?

@taylorlorenz Please represent people from the global south, @liaamancio comes to mind

@taylorlorenz

For some more great and diverse perspectives maybe speak to @Yehuda who runs a Native owned and operated BIPOC friendly instance and advocates for more BIPOC visibility and fairer representation in the Fediverse, and @vantablack creator of @FediPact and Legendary Defender Of The Fediverse

@taylorlorenz Already you are getting many good responses to your question, and I notice many names whom I recognize as some of my favorites. Sometimes one of them posts something I simply take as fact, without my bothering to verify. One thing I have not verified, but have treated as if a fact, is from someone with a YouTube channel who posts content in the English language, but who speaks another language in his home country. He posted that the new AI thing with YouTube altered his carefully selected English subtitles without him knowing or being notified. This was an issue for him because he and some of his viewers use English as a common language, but the AI generated changes to his captions did not help or improve this communication choice. When he posted that, I deleted my YouTube account and now spend more time on PeerTube.

@taylorlorenz

Try @catsalad

@taylorlorenz

@dansup

@taylorlorenz talk to @cwebber and @evan

@taylorlorenz I’d recommend @CiaraNi

@taylorlorenz

I read through the lists people gave you already, and my one addition would be people who create games and events for us to enjoy, like:

@hashtaggames with host @paul

@monsterdon and #Monsterdon which I think is arranged by @Taweret

@JoParkerBear and #JoWordle.

@taylorlorenz
@mapache who wrote Badgefed, a guide on how to federate Wordpress blogs, and several other projects

@taylorlorenz

There is a fedimagazine being written by fediversers in spanish

I am not part of it but I can say it is very representative of this side of the fediverse

https://archive.org/details/lafedirevista-1er-numero

@taylorlorenz
Please don't forget to mention that in many mastodon servers there is a rule that you cannot "annoy" people, yes it's as arbitrary as it sounds. As you could imagine the simple fact of disagreeing with someone in the comments (even if is made with absolute respect and rationality) will annoy that person so you can be banned for that. The consequence is that some mastodon branches aren't a place to discuss rationally, only a place where you show off your opinions and there is no debate admitted about it.

@taylorlorenz I'd nominate @Edent, both very social and very much versed in the tech itself.

@taylorlorenz @FediTips provides detailed beginner friendly information through their sites and handles

@taylorlorenz The different programs and their forks! (Like #Mastodon, #Pleroma, #Misskey, and the history of their forks)

The #Reddit-style forum #Fediverse software like #Lemmy and #Mbin

#Fediblock

Attempts from big tech to adopt the #Fediverse (like #Threads)

@taylorlorenz I could certainly offer some historical framing… 😬

@taylorlorenz
@mekkaokereke is one of the luminaries here.

@taylorlorenz great idea

@taylorlorenz is the scope of this just Mastodon or could it also include things like PixelFed, WriteAs and PeerTube? Just a thought.

@taylorlorenz

Talking to the forkiverse admins would be a good case study on moving a community here:

@kevin @Casey @pj

@taylorlorenz
follow @_elena

@taylorlorenz I'd second the recommendation for @cwebber

I'd also recommend a glance at my essay on why Mastodon/Fedi is currently the best choice for social networking: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2025/11/03/Time-to-Migrate

@taylorlorenz I think one thing worth mentioning is that there are lots of people on Mastodon that aren’t influencers, or experts, but just interesting people sharing slices of life with others. Things like cats, nature, art, pets, funny stories, weather and a lot more make it a bit more human in my opinion.

There are definitely news feeds and analysis from topic experts ranging from climate to legal, but there is also a lighthearted side and a socially engaging side you don’t find on things like BlueSky. Here, people will actually respond to something you post (without flaming you :-)

@taylorlorenz I'll (humbly) suggest @jerry - admin of the long-standing infosec.exchange masto instance, proprietor of the jerryverse (i.e. a wide variety of Fedi instances), and all-around good chap 👍

@taylorlorenz definitely @NorcalGma2 😁

@taylorlorenz I would be interested to hear from other journalists on the platform, if you know any, about their experience and on which instance they’ve settled.

I remember when I joined there was a concerted effort to grow journo.host, but I’m not sure what came of it. If someone asked me who to follow today I wouldn’t have good answer.

@taylorlorenz You should talk to @evan and @cwebber for sure

@taylorlorenz I’m not such a well traveled soul on the Fediverse, but I’m fairly sure you could connect with some of the friends of the guests on Fireside Fedi.

Also, my vote would go to @dumpsterqueer, one of the more public facing devs of one of the smaller projects aiming to make hosting accounts individualistic and simple

@taylorlorenz the data scientist @nrennie who is a leader in #dataviz

@taylorlorenz The scientist @davidho

@taylorlorenz I'd suggest @FediTips and @FediFollows

As well as @dansup and @gargron of course.

@taylorlorenz If you can manage to speak to George Takei he was an account everyone followed during the early Mastadon era. It was a strange way people started populating their feeds.

It probably fragments pretty fast afterwards although the beige.party instance stands out as a high quality follow. Everyone on the instance is great to follow if only for the engagement and amusement they generate.

@taylorlorenz Christine Lemmer Webber obviously...and anybody else that works at Spritely institute.

@taylorlorenz
I love the videos and other work by @_elena

@taylorlorenz You will want to talk to @mho about success in German language media markets. Mastodon brings more traffic than X.

@taylorlorenz
I'd recommend @cyberlyra who would be awesome on your series. She can connect the Fediverse to digital independence from big tech.
I'd also suggest looking for stories from everyday users who can articulate the difference from corporate social media platforms and how they found their community on apps like Mastodon. Interspersed with the experts, real people can help make the experience more personal and relatable.

@taylorlorenz

i strongly suggest seeking perspectives beyond those of the hegemonic white FLOSS-head user base here, there has been a lot of dialogue and struggle around these issues here. this is a good read:
https://logicmag.io/policy/blackness-in-the-fediverse-a-conversation-with-marcia-x/

@taylorlorenz the author of @pixelfed might be cool ?

@taylorlorenz I would talk to @kissane about this: https://erinkissane.com/fediverse-governance-drop

@taylorlorenz I would talk to @kissane about this: https://erinkissane.com/fediverse-governance-drop

@taylorlorenz imho any decent intro should include some ways to find people to follow that post about variety of topics. most people coming from currently popular platforms would be used to algorithmically generated content/timeline and when they just create account and log in they simply won't see anything of interest to them (local/global feeds are full of politics and negative tech news)... without following at least 100 active people that post things that you care about this place can be pretty depressing.

@taylorlorenz I feel like picking a server is the most daunting task that trips people up. If you could focus on how to pick one that would be good. Also make it clear it doesn't really matter much, since you can migrate your account if you find a different one you like later on (at least on Mastodon you can)

@taylorlorenz Don't forget: @mike @coachtony @dansup @Greg @Michael @ben @rimu @pfefferle @jaz @john @quillmatiq @snarfed @scottjenson @imanijoy @anildash @darius @js

@taylorlorenz I’d definitely speak to @paige.

@taylorlorenz TBH you should also talk to @Alice who works harder to build a truly absurd and fun culture then anyone else on the platform. When people talk about vibes, she sets them.