NOTE: This guide was written for Mastodon 4.0.

Text-Only Instructions

Account Sign Up

Step 1. In a web browser, type disabled.social. You will arrive at the landing page.

Step 2. When you click the ‘Create account’ button, you will be taken to a new screen that shows you the general rules of the instance. There are two buttons at the bottom of the screen. Click ‘Accept’ if you accept the general rules or click ‘Back’ if you do not.

Step 3. Once you’ve clicked accept, you will be brought to the registration page. Choose a display name, screen name (leave off the @disabled.social, the form will append that automatically), the email address you want the confirmation email to be sent to, the password you will use to log in to the instance, and then confirm the password. We also require a reason for why you want to join the instance and how you will be using the instance. Then click the checkbox that you agree to the terms of the privacy policy after you have thoroughly reviewed them. Then click the ‘Get on Waitlist’ button.

After clicking the button, you will receive a confirmation message that says: “A message with a confirmation link has been sent to your email address. After you click the link, we will review your application. You will be notified if it is approved.”. Your request goes into the queue for approval.

Step 4. You will receive a ‘Confirmation instructions for disabled.social’ email after completing the registration. Click the ‘Verify email address’ button.

After clicking the button, you should see a message that says: “your email address has been successfully confirmed.”

After logging in, you will see one of two screens depending on your application status.

NOT APPROVED

If you see a message that says: “Your application is pending review by our staff. This may take some time. You will receive an email if your application is approved.”, then your application has not been approved yet. You will receive an email once your application is approved.

APPROVED

If you see something that resembles a home feed, then you know you have been approved and are all set to start tooting!

Another way you will know you are approved, is if you received a ‘Welcome to Mastodon’ email.

Text + Screenshot Instructions

Account Sign Up

Step 1. In a web browser, type disabled.social. You will arrive at the following landing page:

The home screen of disabled.social which is broken up into three different vertical panels. On the left hand side is some general information about the instance. The middle panel is an example of a feed, hashtags, and news. The right panel has a sign in button and a create account button.

Step 2. When you click the ‘Create account’ button, you will be taken to a new screen that shows you the general rules of the instance. There are two buttons at the bottom of the screen. Click ‘Accept’ if you accept the general rules or click ‘Back’ if you do not.

A list of the general ground rules for the instance. At the bottom are two buttons: accept and back. Click accept to proceed.

Step 3. Once you’ve clicked accept, you will be brought to the registration page. Choose a display name, screen name (leave off the @disabled.social, the form will append that automatically), the email address you want the confirmation email to be sent to, the password you will use to log in to the instance, and then confirm the password. We also require a reason for why you want to join the instance and how you will be using the instance. Then click the checkbox that you agree to the terms of the privacy policy after you have thoroughly reviewed them. Then click the ‘Get on Waitlist’ button.

The registration form consists of six text fields in the following order: disaply name, username, email address, password, password confirmation, and why you want to join. Then there is a checkbox for you to check indicating that you have reviewed and agree to the privacy policy. At the bottom of the form is the “get on waitlist” button.

After clicking the button, you will receive the following confirmation message. Your request goes into the queue for approval.

A confirmation screen with the following message: “A message with a confirmation link has been sent to your email address. After you click the link, we will review your application. You will be notified if it is approved.”

Step 4. You will receive a ‘Confirmation instructions for disabled.social’ email that looks like the following. Click the ‘Verify email address’ button.

A screenshot of the verification email. There is a “Verify email address” button at the bottom.

After clicking the button, you should see the following message:

A message saying: “your email address has been successfully confirmed.”

After logging in, you will see one of two screens depending on your application status.

If you see this message, your application has not been approved yet. You will receive an email once your application is approved.

The application pending screen has the following message: “Your application is pending review by our staff. This may take some time. You will receive an email if your application is approved.”

If you see something that resembles a home feed, then you know you have been approved and are all set to start tooting!

A screenshot of the home feed after successfully logging in. An area to toot appears on the left hand side, the middle shows people to follow, and the right hand side is the top menu structure.

Another way you will know you are approved, is if you received a ‘Welcome to Mastodon’ email that looks like this (replaced with the username you selected):

A screenshot of the welcome email which shows your full handle. Your handle is just your username@disabled.social.

Known Sign Up Issues

If you are having issues with sign up, it’s possible there is an issue with the email client being used.

After testing with different email address extensions, it seems like gmail addresses work ok. But some .edu addresses do not. Universities typically have additional email filtering policies in place that can reject these types of emails at the server level. If that is the case, you might have to sign up from a different email client.

Troubleshooting

I didn’t receive a confirmation email to verify my email address.

There are a few reasons this could happen:

  1. You might be using an email address with an extension that might have an extra layer of security, such as a .edu address. You have a couple of options. You can contact the university directly and see if they are filtering out emails from Mastodon. If that’s the case, you can ask them to whitelist it. OR, you can try a different email address with a different extension.
  2. Something else happened.

Regardless of the cause, you have the option to resend the confirmation email. You will see on many of the screenshots above, that there is a hyperlink at the bottom of the screenshot with the text: “Didn’t receive confirmation instructions?” Click on that, and the following screen will pop up:

Resend confirmation email which has a single textbox where you can re-enter your email address. Below the text box is a “resend confirmation instructions” button.

Enter in your email address that you used to register and click the “Resend confirmation instructions” button.