@Sarahp
I think that's ultimately going to end up being up to each individual mastodon instance. With the larger instances (mastodon.social) I think there's been enough time and people to establish some sort of expected decorum. It's tricky as a newbie to slot it without upsetting some of the 'locals'. You always have the option of rolling your own instance or joining a less populated server that coincides with your interests more than a generic catch all.