Hey folks, I come to you, hat in hand, looking for support. Financial support for #Fosstodon has dropped off recently and I totally get it - inflation is up and #Chistmas is around the corner. We all have more important things to spend our money on.
At the moment our outgoings are larger than our income, so our slush fund is dwindling away. Anything you can do to support us would be GREATLY appreciated. Here’s all the ways you can help:
Seeing the #fosstodon posts reminded me of something:
"We studied open-source software communities because open-source software communities are an extreme example of gender inequity. Seventy percent of all the software that supports technology infrastructure is open source, which makes open-source software integral to the future of the tech workforce. Yet women make up only 9.8% of the people who contribute to open-source software projects.
In seeking answers to this retention problem of the tech industry, our research found that women’s negative experiences range from minor to severe harassment, sexism, discrimination and misogyny to explicit death threats. Their expertise is challenged, their contributions are not well-received and their roles are diminished. They face constant harassment and deal with normalized abuse, often hearing that “guys will be guys,” and they deal with isolation because they are often severely outnumbered by men."
I'm a German web developer mostly living the rural life in Spain, growing vegetables and making #OliveOil, while surrounded by #chickens and #goats, but I also spend some time back home in deepest Bavaria each year.
Before that I lived in the UK for 23 years, studying #SoundEngineering, working at and then running a #CommunityRadio station and volunteering at a #CSA (community-supported agriculture) project 1/2
I'm on Fosstodon. English is not my birth language. And yet I don't think Fosstodon's English-only rule is racist.
Please, before you reply in anger or scroll past, hear me out. I'm one of the "diverse" people whose interests you are defending - so surely you would not dismiss my views?
Probably old news to #fosstodon folks, but earlier I was exploring how I might to repurpose an old laptop when I came across this awesome list of #selfhosted software:
And, finally, I'm a criminology masters student in my 40s, returning to university, with an interest in researching digital #surveillance and #privacy.
Today we had our 7777th report. Reports aren't something I like to deal with, but I do feel like this is a milestone of sorts. #Fosstodon has been around for just shy of 6 years, which means we've been handling over 1000 reports a year, every year, since it's inception. I feel like I need to say a solid thank you to our moderation team, both past and present, for all the hard work they do and have done to keep Fosstodon a place we like to call home. Thanks so much to all of you.
This is an attempt to make you aware that Kev's behavior is in danger of destroying Fosstodon. OSS projects are leaving, and you're in danger of being blocked by multiple other large instances.
I'm not going to contact you using any of your moderation contact info, because I know that I'll just get Kev. You have a toxic leader on your hands, and you either do something about it, or you lose the whole thing.
All jokes aside, I'd be willing to yield this domain & instance to projects in the FOSS Linux/BSD desktop space, if there was enough interest in taking it on.
Though I have somewhat tainted the name with my shitposting.
The fact that I am writing this post for free without needing to worry about advertisements and systematic tracking and being able to decide whether to pay for it or not (you should!) is proof that good people still exist in this world and change is possible.
I'm super stoked about the recent #Fosstodon announcement. Ideal recruitment opportunity and have bigged it up on the other site. Let's see if it generates an influx of new users + donations 🤞 Huge credit to @kev + team for being democratic and asking the community. Happy to moderate in En a Es, when I get more time!
I'm pleased to see this announcement from #Fosstodon
"Following a discussion with our patrons, the policy requiring posts to be in English on Fosstodon has been removed. The moderation team will utilize available translation technologies for moderation purposes. However, we may request community support for languages not supported by our translation software, or where context isn't well understood. We appreciate your patience as we incorporate this change into our moderation practices."
Between @downey and @aral getting issues with #fosstodon, is it too much to speculate that they're preparing to go along with #Threads moderation rules?
Any other, similar experiences? @doot and @nightjar had issues before, Someone got banned for calling Rowling a TERF, me for calling a AfD-adjacent person a Nazi (that was years ago).
Thanks to feedback, I'm unsure if this is new - which would be good, it could just be the same old issues. Can we collectively watch this?
The first #Fosstodon community Meetup is in the books. Thanks so much to everybody that made it, and thank you to @isaacs for a great talk. Can't wait to do it again!
OK, so I officially registered #Fosstodon on libera.chat. I'm going to be occasionally dropping in there (don't expect @kev though). If you're wanting to chat, that's where I'll be (but not all the time). Anybody is welcome!
So Microsoft’s AI can go through all of people’s stuff and report back on what it finds…
I know that I am preaching to the choir here on #Fosstodon, but seriously people,
use (almost) ANY other operating system if you care AT ALL about your personal #privacy.