kristinHenry, 30 days ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

I've been working on a new community instance for the past few months. It's still a work-in--progress, but is ready for a slow opening.

So, if you feel constrained by the on-topic nature of our Local Timeline here on vis.social, or you don't want to CW your posts that mention AI tech, you might be happier on the new instance: datavis.social

Can you stay here on vis.social and ALSO have an account on datavis.social? Yes!

https://datavis.social/home

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Hey vis.social folks!

We could use some more help on our "part-time" moderators team.

Academics, Artists, Creative Coders, and more! We seek diversity of fields and backgrounds.

Especially if you're up to date on current AI tools, so that it's easier to spot posts on our Local Timeline that should have a CW.

Here's our application form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeCflISwvcYXOtAxEhRlI80xLPdoIUy2j1_GGW0Mg8rofRUJQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Hey vis.social!

Starting tomorrow, April 25th, @darth_mall will be helping out our moderation team as Admin.

I go in for surgery tomorrow, and expect to be in the hospital recovering for an additional 3-5 days.

If all goes as expected, I will be fully recovered in a month. But I'll be back online before then. :)

Editing to add: yep, it's Cancer. But hopefully, this surgery will take care of it.

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 1 month ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

We are pausing new registrations for the next few weeks.

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 2 months ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

Looks like we may be getting a new wave of spam.

Please report any spam you receive, so that we can more quickly see the patterns and better protect our community.

--vis.social moderation team

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 3 months ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

We've mentioned that our team has been exploring ways folks in our community can help out with moderation with less time-commitment.

Well, with Signal now supporting user names, instead of phone numbers, we are almost ready to move forward.

As we prepare our application form, for potential Drop-In-Mods, we'd like to know what you would ask a potential moderator. What do you think makes a helpful moderator?

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 3 months ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

Please do NOT harass our moderators when they ask you to add a CW to a post. Harassment of anyone is not acceptable in this community.

Please read the rules and code of conduct for this community instance. They are listed on our About page: https://vis.social/about

If you don't understand them, then ask us...without calling them "dumb".

If you don't agree with them, then please find a different instance or platform.

--vis.social moderation team

#visSocialTips

artcollisions, 3 months ago to random

Seeing too many of the same boost? Go to your profile setting and select "other". At the top, there is a box to select to limit how quickly you see boosts. You will still see it if someone boosts it tomorrow, but you won't see it six times in a row.

#VisSocialTips

kristinHenry, 3 months ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

Why do we try to maintain our Local Timeline as on-topic?

There are so many reasons. But one big one is that our Local Timeline is what other folks see when they are checking out if they'd like to join our community or not.

We are a topic-based instance, so when our Local Timeline is all over the place and there's no Data Viz or Art or any Creative process...What are potential community member supposed to make of this?

--vis.social moderation team

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 3 months ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

An update on the wave of spam-mentions: I've gone through the tier5 and tier3 domains on https://github.com/Mastodon-DE/blocklists/blob/main/spam/2024-02-15/2024-02-15-spam-mute-list.md

I've added Limits to any that we didn't already have Limited or Suspended...that's about half of the list.

Please continue to report new spam, so that we can deal with them and help keep this a better space for all of us.

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to random

Hey vis.social folks!

It looks like we need to draft up a new Community Rule regarding sexually explicit posts.

vis.social is much like a conference or art festival, where NSFW topics are not really appropriate, but we've never spelled it out before now.

We'd like to know your thoughts on how you'd like to see the policy written.

Editing, to add the #visSocialTips tag.

kristinHenry, 3 months ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

Normally, I would be putting #visSocialTips in posts about what's going on. But I've been distracted by admin-stuff...dealing with spam attacks and so on.

You can help! Check your mentions, and report any spam. Once you see it, you'll know. They're very repetitive, though coming from accounts on various servers.

artcollisions, 3 months ago to random

@maarten Ugh, sorry you are getting slammed with spam! Your reports are helping and we are working on it!

(Reminder, if you get spam, please report so the moderation team can make everyone's experience better.)

#VisSocialtips

kristinHenry, 3 months ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

Please remember to add CW for off-topic posts and any posts showing or discussing alcohol or food.

Especially on our Local Timeline.

--vis.social moderation team

#visSocialTips

artcollisions, 4 months ago to random

Y'all, for the sake of our lovely admin who is bombarded daily with AI hype, please CW ALL posts containing AI content.

#VisSocialtips

kristinHenry, 4 months ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

We understand that this community is different from what you're used to. But a lot of it avoids our volunteer moderation team burning out.

If you can't be bothered to follow our code of conduct, or follow our community rules, maybe you should be on a different instance.

Right now, and for at least a year, is going to be a really tough time to be a community mod on mastodon.

A little effort from your part, helps ease our burden.

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 4 months ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

Please remember to add CWs for anything political. This coming year is going to be very rough year, and we don't want to burn out our moderation team.

If you're posting 'unlisted', I would recommend still adding CWs out of courtesy to your community.

Not sure how to add a CW to your existing post? This might be helpful: https://github.com/KristinHenry/vis.social#add-a-cw-to-your-post

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to random

Hey vis.social folks!

Please remember to add CWs for off-topic posts like "US Politics" and more.

Yes, even for exciting news.

We're an international community as well as being topic-based.

We recommend that you post off-topic subject as 'unlisted' and/or with a CW/Subject.

Not sure how to add a CW? Here's some help: https://github.com/KristinHenry/vis.social#add-a-cw-to-your-post

--vis.social Admin and Mod team

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to random

Hey vis.social folks!

There's a new wave of spam coming from mastodon.social, so we are temporarily Limiting that instance for a while.

You should still be able to interact with accounts you already follow there.

-- vis.social moderation team

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 5 months ago to random

There's so much chatter about Threads today. I guess I should mention that we've had threads.net proactively blocked for months already.

We'll keep an eye on things, but I don't see us lifting the block until next year, at the earliest.

1. We don't know how much of a server load it will add, and thus increase our expenses.

2. Moderation is a big concern. We do not have the resources to deal with a new unmoderated instance right now.

--vis.social Moderation team
#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 5 months ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

Greetings from your Admin and Moderation team.

Remember that this is NOT twitter. This community instance is taken care of by a team of volunteers, and that we have specific rules that help us avoid burn out and keep this all running as smoothly as possible.

Most of those rules revolve around being thoughtful of others.

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 5 months ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

Please remember to ad a CW for any posts about AI or ChatGPT or Bard... or whatever is being hyped at the time.

Think of a CW as a Subject Line

On Mastodon, we can edit our posts and add CWs to them: https://github.com/KristinHenry/vis.social#add-a-cw-to-your-post

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 6 months ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

Did you know that you can make your posts so that they only are shown to your followers, but are not private?

By setting your posts as 'unlisted', they won't flood our Local Timeline.

This is especially recommended if you're posting completely off-topic, since we are a topic-based community instance.

How to set a post to 'unlisted'? This might help: https://github.com/KristinHenry/vis.social#set-the-privacy-level-of-your-post

You can also set all of your posts as 'unlisted' by default, in your settings.

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 6 months ago to random

Hey vis.social folks!

This is NOT twitter. Please don't treat our Local Timeline like it is.

Use CWs generously, with a sense of overabundance of thoughtfulness about triggering others.

If there food or alcohol? Use a CW

Is the topic very upsetting to most people? Use a CW!!!!

Alternatively, make your posts Unlisted.

#visSocialTips

kristinHenry, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago) to art

Hey folks!

Please do NOT report artists for sharing links to where their art is available to purchase!

Just DO NOT be such a jerk!

If you want artists to keep sharing their work on mastodon, this whole "absolute no commercial posts at all" attitude has to stop. There is a huge difference between a big corporate ad campaign and an individual artist posting a link to their own art shop.

Edit/Update: Well, this blew up. I'm muting now, and won't see replies.

#ArtForSale #art #visSocialTips