Really looking forward to reading @jdp23's discussion of safety features (and lack thereof) here.
Unlike some people quoted here, I didn't get harassed within moments of arrival. (And I am sure we can take some guesses as to why that is.) That said, I did get a tour around moderation etc. this past summer during the #donkeygate incident; and here is the only place I've been doxxed, so I have some firsthand thoughts about all this too.
We (by this I mean, a community of friends & associates on Mastodon) will stop reporting harassing behavior to Mdon mods (& outing it publicly) the moment a certain harasser stops harassing, doxing, & other abusive behavior.
None amongst us has engaged in: private unwanted communication; puppeting & tagging after being blocked; contacting anyone's place of business(!). Someone has done all of that, but it wasn't us.
In all seriousness, I just had a look at the posts on the #BearsOfMastodon tag and it looks like it's functioning fine with multiple valences of "bear". Unless there's conflict I don't know about. It's possible, folks!
"Under American women’s influence, [Henry James] insisted, language risks becoming a ‘generalised mumble or jumble, a tongueless slobber or snarl or whine’; it will sound like ‘the moo of the cow, the bray of the ass, and the bark of the dog’."
On ancient and contemporary reactions to "the public voice of women" in EuroAmerican contexts:
That history was explored in detail on the Asstodon hashtag several months ago, so it's interesting to see how people with too much time on their hands are piling on to diss a community hashtag they'd hardly ever heard of till now. #Donkeygate? Please! 🙄
Some people have worked hard to simply provide fun content, well appreciated as a successful and loved Mastodon community. Shame. And all because of a hissy-fit by an attention-seeking academic! Weird.
Re a series of boosts: I can now say I've been harassed on Mastodon by an apparently maladjusted donkeykeeper, over the proper use of a hashtag I started.
I wasn't going to write about this but now I may, maybe. In any event that wasn't a sentence I thought I'd ever write!
I just noticed something: the two anonymous posts to me, from the donkeykeeper's alts, were posted on "public" (🌍) and using the hashtag. In other words, they show up in the feed of the tag! For all his concern about keeping only donkeys on the tag.he was perhaps actually trying to hail other defenders of the tag to swarm me, I think--from alts so his fingerprints weren't on it. So the GG comparison is not so far off. #Donkeygate
Screenshot of post from today, user @carrot tells me to step off the Asstodon tag because there is no controversy on the tag, it is just quiet and friendly
Appending publicly here a few thoughts about #Donkeygate that I'd said in stray comments elsewhere/not on the tag. One thing that's been extraordinarily illuminating in this is the Rashomon-like quality of the whole arc: not everyone saw tagged posts containing non-donkey content, i.e. butts. Smaller curated instances filtering tags for NSFW pre-screened posts for those users. Ppl on big, more free-for-all instances did see a few of those posts. This is a Mdon affordance +
#donkeygate update w more material from today (sigh). In one, he doxes me again (real surname) & his screenshot discloses that he's reported me to my employer. And a 2nd one where he's also unable to just drop it. (I've initiated no contact of any kind with him; just updated this chronicle in real time.) These have both been deleted, so appending to the historical record here.
THANK YOU to those of you keeping an eye on his donkeysh*t & helping report it.
Idk if a certain Ass still reads my posts, but if so: do everyone a favor and Google DARVO
(Figured this should be on the record for posterity, since the Ass has made a very public show of being the victim of a Vast Media Studies Conspiracy) #Donkeygate
Since the tag-pouncer ceased policing butts on #Asstodon, I've seen I think two butts. In over two months. They were appropriately CW'ed. Very, very easy to ignore or even filter if you want (filtering out NSFW will catch most of it). It's still well north of 90% donkeys.
(Looking now, only seeing one since late July, but federation is weird, YMMV.)