After publishing the results of Discovery Week, we can now give you a first sneak peak at Mastodon 5.0, our next big version. It will bring a new visual look to your screens, a refreshed and calmer layout, as well as a new composer.
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/08/5.0-laying-the-foundation/
Aug 18, 2026, 3:44 PM@Mastodon will you also add a ™️ to the mastodon logo, so people know they're dealing with a bunch of corporate cuntwaffles?
Aug 18, 2026, 4:25 PM@Mastodon Looks great!
But please use the real wildly known Fediverse "logo" instead of this corporate bullshit asterisks
@Mastodon : can we set our preferred default for visibility, quotes, etc., so that we don't have to go through all these every time we post something ? For instance I never want to post a reply to myself (aka a thread) that's quiet ; Mastodon keeps forcing some toots to be quiet only to tell me "careful now, you added a hashtag but this is a quiet post so it won't be seen !".
Then why did I opt in the search ? Why did I put a hashtag ? Clearly I want my post discoverable. Let me make it default.
@ladyteruki @Mastodon (On the web) Click "Preferences", then "Posting defaults".
@Gargron @Mastodon : thanks for your reply but I have already set to public by default as you can see, yet I still regularly get toots that are automatically set as quiet when I add a post to an existing thread. And when I type a hashtag, then do I get the warning about my toot being quiet, so I have to manually change it to public. The hassle hasn't disappeared.
@ladyteruki @Mastodon When you reply, it inherits the visibility of the post you're replying to.
@Mastodon Most of this seems like pretty good ideas and I'm happy to see Mastodon sitting down with people and addressing common points of confusion!
Two questions about "Messages", though:
- From what I recall of the documentation, private mentions can be seen by anyone sharing a server with one of the participants if they're given a direct link. How do you explain that when a chat interface is introduced?
- Making "whisper" subthreads under public posts covering aspects of the subject you might not want visible to the whole world is a very good use case for private mentions, how are you going to handle that?
@HaTetsu in 5.0, messages and private replies will only be moved out of the feed views and profile pages. Post/thread views will not be impacted. I realize they have some particular use cases that require careful handling.
If 'whisper' subthreads is a common case for you, may I get in touch to understand more when we get deeper into exploration? @Mastodon
@imanijoy Just FYI, @mcc also posted about this (and a few other points) yesterday. Here's a deep link into the thread: https://mastodon.social/@mcc/117118866863461890
Aug 19, 2026, 5:46 PM
@Mastodon Find my comments in the thread here: https://mastodon.online/@NatureMC/117388021254494184 read also alt texts.
It's not intuitive, everything less readable, and so many bugs as never before. It's not fun at all anymore.
Pseudo "big platform" Likes- and boosts counting.
Was ist "vibe coded" with so many bugs?
I'll close Mastodon for today.
@Mastodon I hope you look at the honest feedback from mastodon.online users suddenly exposed to this new approach to Mastodon. Broadcast platform instead of social media?
I thought a CSS update had gone wrong, removing functionality and making the interface on my small screen phone appear like one of those phones for 95year olds (https://mastodon.online/@Pepijn/117388169134644838).
Here's another mastodon.online user: https://mastodon.online/@NatureMC/117388021254494184
