Want to make your own fediverse Starter Pack? Here's how Collections work in Mastodon 4.6.
First, one prerequisite: Both you and every account you add need "Feature profile and posts in discovery algorithms" turned on in account settings. No opt-in, no inclusion. This is the abuse-prevention foundation — you can't be added to anything you haven't consented to.
To create a collection:
From your Mastodon home page, hit the new Collections option, and then click New Collection.
Fill in: name, short description, a topic hashtag, language, Public or Unlisted visibility. There's also a Sensitive toggle that hides the description and accounts behind a content warning.
Add accounts by handle. Each one has to be opted into discovery, and they all get a notification the moment you add them.
Publish. Share the link anywhere — your profile's Featured tab picks it up automatically.
The cap is 25 accounts per collection. Deliberately small. Bluesky's 150-account Starter Packs got gamed with spam padding, and industry research suggests the sweet spot for follow-through is 25–80. Starting low and raising later is easier than the reverse.
What the people you add see:
A notification with a link to the collection, a view of the full list, and a one-click "remove me." If you later edit the title or description, every member is notified again — no sneaky edits.
What they don't get: a "follow all" button. Every follow is intentional. Same anti-abuse reasoning.
For developers:
New REST endpoints under /api/v1/collections — GET, POST, PATCH, DELETE, plus add/remove account actions. Built on FEP-7aa9 so other fediverse software can implement it. Full reference at docs.joinmastodon.org.
The catch: this is v1. There's no browse/discover view yet — that ships after critical mass of community collections exists. Sharing is manual for now: post the link, send it to friends, drop it in your Featured tab.
El Duvelle
in reply to jcrabapple • • •