diff --git a/_config.yml b/_config.yml
index 8296df5..468ffcb 100644
--- a/_config.yml
+++ b/_config.yml
@@ -26,8 +26,8 @@ menu:
     url:               /news/
   - title:             Discussion
     external_url:      https://github.com/hpc-social/hpc-social.github.io/discussions
-  - title:             Join Us On Mastodon
-    external_url:      https://mast.hpc.social/about    
+  - title:             Mastodon
+    url:               /projects/mastodon/
 
 # Add links to the footer.
 legal:
@@ -316,6 +316,7 @@ twitter:
 social:
   name:                HPC Social
   github:              hpc-social
+  mastodon:            https://mast.hpc.social/about
   links:
     - https://twitter.com/hpc_social
     - https://github.com/hpc-social
diff --git a/_data/authors.yml b/_data/authors.yml
index 2f8f529..9247fb1 100644
--- a/_data/authors.yml
+++ b/_data/authors.yml
@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@ author1:
     github:          hpc-social
     email:           info@hpc.social
     twitter:         hpc_social
+    mastodon:        https://mast.hpc.social/about
+
     # youtube:         xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
     # resume:          /assets/resume.pdf
     # facebook:        nick.engmann
diff --git a/_includes/components/social-list-item.html b/_includes/components/social-list-item.html
index 6b61bb9..50b0178 100644
--- a/_includes/components/social-list-item.html
+++ b/_includes/components/social-list-item.html
@@ -8,12 +8,18 @@
   {% assign icon = data_social.icon | default:'icon-link' %}
   {% assign app = data_social.append %}
   {% assign prep = data_social.prepend %}
+  {% assign target = "_blank" %}
 
   {% unless data_social %}
     {% if platform == "email" %}
       {% assign name = "Email" %}
       {% assign icon = "icon-mail" %}
       {% assign prep = "mailto:" %}
+      {% assign target = "_self" %}
+    {% elsif platform == "mastodon" %}
+      {% assign name = "Mastodon" %}
+      {% assign icon = "mastodon-icon" %}
+      {% assign prep = "" %}
     {% elsif platform == "twitter" %}
       {% assign name = "Twitter" %}
       {% assign icon = "icon-twitter" %}
@@ -32,7 +38,7 @@
   {% endif %}
 
   <li>
-    <a href="{{ url }}" title="{{ name }}" class="no-mark-external">
+    <a target="{{ target }}" href="{{ url }}" title="{{ name }}" class="no-mark-external">
       <span class="{{ icon }}"></span>
       <span class="sr-only">{{ name }}</span>
     </a>
diff --git a/_projects/mastodon.md b/_projects/mastodon.md
index 995e571..ad05589 100644
--- a/_projects/mastodon.md
+++ b/_projects/mastodon.md
@@ -22,7 +22,11 @@ accent_image:
 
 ### hpc.social on Mastodon
 
-<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/dynamic/json?label=Accounts&query=stats.user_count&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmast.hpc.social%2Fapi%2Fv1%2Finstance"/>
+<a style="float:left" type="button" class="btn btn-primary external" target="_blank" href="https://mast.hpc.social/about">Join Us On Mastodon</a>
+
+<img style="float:right" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/dynamic/json?label=Accounts&query=stats.user_count&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmast.hpc.social%2Fapi%2Fv1%2Finstance"/><br>
+
+<br>
 
 We are proud to provide the HPC community with a Mastodon instance at
 <a class="link" href="https://mast.hpc.social" target="_blank">mast.hpc.social</a>! 
@@ -39,77 +43,4 @@ Here are some getting-started links:
 
 * Privacy policy: [https://mast.hpc.social/privacy-policy](https://mast.hpc.social/privacy-policy) and see also links in the "About" starting page.
 
-The policy documents linked here are served from <a href="https://github.com/hpc-social/mastodon-policies" target="_blank">hpc-social/mastodon-policies</a> on GitHub. You can ask questions, or make contributions or suggestions for changes there.
-
-<div id="server-policy" style="display:none"></div>
-
-<br><br>
-
-<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.4/jquery.min.js"></script>
-<script src="{{ site.baseurl }}/assets/js/showdown.min.js"></script>
-
-<script>
-function getImages(string) {
-  const imgRex = /<img.*?src="(.*?)"[^>]+>/g;
-  const images = [];
-    let img;
-    while ((img = imgRex.exec(string))) {
-     	images.push(img[1]);
-    }
-  return images;
-}
-
-function getLinks(string) {
-  const imgRex = /href="(.*?)"/g;
-  const links = [];
-    let img;
-    while ((img = imgRex.exec(string))) {
-     	links.push(img[1]);
-    }
-  return links;
-}
-
-function basename(str) {
-   var base = new String(str).substring(str.lastIndexOf('/') + 1); 
-    if(base.lastIndexOf(".") != -1)       
-        base = base.substring(0, base.lastIndexOf("."));
-   return base;
-}
-
-$(document).ready(function(){
-
-    url = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hpc-social/mastodon-policies/main/README.md"
-    $.get(url, function(data) {
-        var converter = new showdown.Converter({tables: true}),
-                 html = converter.makeHtml(data);
-
-        // Convert top level headings to next level for site
-        html = html.replace("<h1 ", "<h2 ")
-
-        // Find all relative markdown links and replace with pages
-        var links = getLinks(html)        
-        for (var i = 0; i < links.length; i++) {
-            link = links[i];
-
-            // Relative directory or markdown path (link to page)
-            if (!link.startsWith("http") && !link.startsWith('mailto:')) {
-                html = html.replace(link, "https://github.com/hpc-social/mastodon-policies/tree/main/" + link)
-            }
-        }
-
-        // Relative images need to be replaced by a raw GitHub url
-        // We will need to do this for other relative paths too
-        var images = getImages(html)
-        for (var i = 0; i < images.length; i++) {
-            image = images[i];
-            if (!image.startsWith("http")) {
-                html = html.replace(image, "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hpc-social/mastodon-policies/main/" + image);
-            }            
-        }
-                
-        $('#server-policy').html(html)
-        $('#server-policy').show();
-    });
-
-});
-</script>
+You can read more about our policy at <a href="https://github.com/hpc-social/mastodon-policies" target="_blank">hpc-social/mastodon-policies</a> on GitHub. You can ask questions, or make contributions or suggestions for changes there.
diff --git a/assets/icomoon/style.css b/assets/icomoon/style.css
index 5e94a85..927e3f4 100644
--- a/assets/icomoon/style.css
+++ b/assets/icomoon/style.css
@@ -310,3 +310,7 @@
 .icon-history:before {
   content: "\1f552";
 }
+/* explicitly different name so it doesn't match icon-* pattern*/
+.mastodon-icon:before {
+  content: url(/assets/icons/mastodon.svg);
+}
diff --git a/assets/icons/mastodon.svg b/assets/icons/mastodon.svg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bace61b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/assets/icons/mastodon.svg
@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
+<!-- Generated by IcoMoon.io -->
+
+<svg
+   xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
+   xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
+   xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
+   xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
+   xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
+   xmlns:sodipodi="http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd"
+   xmlns:inkscape="http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape"
+   version="1.1"
+   width="21.000034"
+   height="20.999998"
+   viewBox="0 0 21.000034 20.999998"
+   id="svg7"
+   sodipodi:docname="mastodon.svg"
+   inkscape:version="0.92.5 (2060ec1f9f, 2020-04-08)">
+  <metadata
+     id="metadata13">
+    <rdf:RDF>
+      <cc:Work
+         rdf:about="">
+        <dc:format>image/svg+xml</dc:format>
+        <dc:type
+           rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/StillImage" />
+        <dc:title></dc:title>
+      </cc:Work>
+    </rdf:RDF>
+  </metadata>
+  <defs
+     id="defs11" />
+  <sodipodi:namedview
+     pagecolor="#ffffff"
+     bordercolor="#666666"
+     borderopacity="1"
+     objecttolerance="10"
+     gridtolerance="10"
+     guidetolerance="10"
+     inkscape:pageopacity="0"
+     inkscape:pageshadow="2"
+     inkscape:window-width="2488"
+     inkscape:window-height="1376"
+     id="namedview9"
+     showgrid="false"
+     inkscape:zoom="2.6074563"
+     inkscape:cx="39.165275"
+     inkscape:cy="121.43005"
+     inkscape:window-x="72"
+     inkscape:window-y="27"
+     inkscape:window-maximized="1"
+     inkscape:current-layer="svg7"
+     fit-margin-top="0"
+     fit-margin-left="0"
+     fit-margin-right="0"
+     fit-margin-bottom="0" />
+  <g
+     id="icomoon-ignore"
+     transform="translate(-472.83472,-612.43005)" />
+  <path
+     d="m 20.999255,6.89454 c 0,-4.55553 -3.19971,-5.89085 -3.19971,-5.89085 C 16.186085,0.31239 13.415075,0.02188 10.538045,0 h -0.0713 C 7.5887954,0.0219 4.8196554,0.31239 3.2061854,1.00369 c 0,0 -3.19970999,1.33532 -3.19970999,5.89085 0,1.04307 -0.0216,2.29088 0.0141,3.6131 0.11633,4.45578 0.87615,8.84591 5.29157999,9.93622 2.03559,0.50229 3.78412,0.60817 5.1921496,0.53553 2.55339,-0.13125 3.98673,-0.85055 3.98673,-0.85055 l -0.0844,-1.72823 c 0,0 -1.82452,0.53642 -3.87324,0.47164 -2.0308796,-0.0647 -4.1734096,-0.20387 -4.5017196,-2.52976 -0.0287,-0.19063 -0.0451,-0.41084 -0.0451,-0.63464 0,-0.006 2e-5,-0.0121 4e-5,-0.0182 v 8.7e-4 c 0,0 1.99338,0.45503 4.5186096,0.56266 1.54403,0.0656 2.99241,-0.0849 4.46327,-0.24764 2.82075,-0.31414 5.27657,-1.93563 5.58518,-3.41708 0.48499,-2.33202 0.44559,-5.69397 0.44559,-5.69397 z m -3.77474,5.87072 h -2.34234 V 7.41082 c 0,-1.12882 -0.50936,-1.7011 -1.52715,-1.7011 -1.12566,0 -1.69037,0.67903 -1.69037,2.02311 v 2.93056 H 9.3354754 V 7.73197 c 0,-1.34408 -0.5647,-2.02312 -1.69037,-2.02312 -1.01779,0 -1.52715,0.57317 -1.52715,1.70111 v 5.35444 h -2.34233 V 7.24894 c 0,-1.12793 0.30769,-2.024 0.92586,-2.68642 0.63787,-0.66328 1.47181,-1.00281 2.50837,-1.00281 1.19883,0 2.10686,0.42965 2.70723,1.28984 l 0.5825296,0.91267 0.58348,-0.91267 c 0.60036,-0.86017 1.50839,-1.28984 2.70723,-1.28984 1.03561,0 1.87048,0.33953 2.50837,1.00281 0.61725,0.66242 0.92492,1.55846 0.92492,2.68642 z"
+     id="path5"
+     inkscape:connector-curvature="0"
+     style="fill:#ffffff;stroke-width:0.02123454;fill-opacity:1" />
+</svg>
diff --git a/pages/index.md b/pages/index.md
index 3ee366e..355ae36 100644
--- a/pages/index.md
+++ b/pages/index.md
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ We will be updating this site in the coming months - stay tuned!
 * [Projects]{:.heading.flip-title} --- Maintained by the community.
 * [Discussions]{:.heading.flip-title} --- Community Discussion
 * [News]{:.heading.flip-title} --- Latest news and announcements.
+* [Mastodon]{:.heading.flip-title} --- Learn how to join us on Mastodon.
 
 {:.related-posts.faded}
 
@@ -24,3 +25,4 @@ We will be updating this site in the coming months - stay tuned!
 [projects]: projects/
 [news]: news/
 [discussions]: https://github.com/hpc-social/hpc-social.github.io/discussions
+[mastodon]: projects/mastodon/