Hello folks dipping their toes in the fediverse :)
Please make sure you fill out your bios and make an introductory post so we know who you are and follow you.
If you’re here after following me from Twitter (sorry, Musk Social), ping me and let me know so I can follow you back.
Welcome! :)
@aral Was already on the fediverse for a while and following you here.
@aral Reporting back here 😘
@aral Ping! :)
@aral do you follow back? Its good to know.
@aral Morning :)
@crashposition G’morning :)
@aral enjoying the change in tone here already, hello!
@reneestephen Happy to hear it, Renée, welcome! :)
@reneestephen @aral hello!
@slokocki @reneestephen Hello 👋 🤓
And we love Sir how often you mention
https://MuskSocial.com
@msadmin Oh my goodness, please tell me you’re a parody instance :)
@aral I’ve not been in here for a couple of years. For some reason I’m back today. 😉 Nice to see the welcoming message.
@bsscdt Hey, welcome back! :)
@aral i'm here in part from following you on Twitter 😁
I was on Mastodon very early on but fell out of it because there weren't enough people. It feels very different and much more accessible now!
@nielsa Hey, welcome back! And that’s great to here. It really have come a long way in the five or so years since I joined :)
@aral having a blast this time around 😁
@aral Hello Aral! Thanks for the welcome 😄 I saw a talk on Small Tech a while ago, so your name is familiar to me already!
@aral hi
@Fedg Hello! 👋🤓
@aral Aral. Is that gentleman (musk) the same one who is polluting the skies? Oh no!
@paulopinto That would be the one, yes :)
@aral hello from Twitter!
@neilbutler Hey Neil, welcome to the fediverse.
If you get a chance, please do set up your bio and make an introductory post so people know who you are and can follow you :)
@aral yep, here testing the waters.
@shauncbryant Welcome :)
Do try and set up your bio and make an introductory post so folks can find you.
Just learned that my server is powered by solar energy. They keep the lights on by keeping the light on.
And it was April 1st when it was posted.
I feel like a mix between optimistic and naive.
@EAUnbound Hey Geoff, you’re very welcome (and welcome to the fediverse!) :)
The admins mostly (entirely?) keep the lights on via donations. Some, I guess, might have the means to keep a server running for the common good.
Best thing to do would be to ask publicly. I’ll boost your post and hopefully the right folks will reply :)
@EAUnbound @aral like this: https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors. I'm donating $20 a month, for example.
@isagalaev @EAUnbound Although that supports Mastodon development in general (and really sad to see casino links, etc., there, btw. @Gargron) – which is great. But the way to support instance maintainers is to support them directly.
@aral @EAUnbound @Gargron I assumed it was the same thing for mastodon.social
@isagalaev @aral @EAUnbound You assumed correct. mastodon.social and mastodon.online are run by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit, which also develops the software.
@isagalaev @aral this is exactly what I was looking for! Thanks!
@EAUnbound yeah, it's rather hidden. In the Web UI, in the default mode, there's a tiny "About this server" link on the left.
@EAUnbound
Donations seem to be most common, but our instance is run by a university computer club, so the only "costs" are volunteer sysadmin time and no need for donations to keep it running.
@aral
@EAUnbound @aral I guess most instances are on expense of the owner and some have donations, while many other just hope for donation. But having own instance worth every penny
@EAUnbound @aral My instance runs on an ARM SBC (Pine64 Pro, I think?) I had lying around collecting dust, and a static IP from my ISP only costs me $5 a month. Small instances may have such low running costs that I'm sure plenty of folks, such as myself, just run them as a hobby.
@ryan @EAUnbound How many accounts are you able to run on that smoothly? (Asking for a friend.) :)
@aral @EAUnbound Wish I could tell you. Haven't had any of the friends or family I invited bite yet. So for now, it's just me here.
@EAUnbound I’ve seen a bunch who use things like Patreon to allow community members to contribute to monthly costs, and I’ve also seen small servers like my own survive on a single financial backing which is usually just the Admin putting up the cost.
Personally I’m a big fan of crowdsourced funding for Instances.
I hope this helps even just a little bit.
@EAUnbound @aral The admin of my instance has a patreon account, and I support them there. Go to the home page of your instance and look around.
@EAUnbound @aral mastodon.social has a patreon. You can support for as low as $1 a month.
@aral Thanks to you (Twitter) I’m now trying to get familiar with mastodon 😆. Still searching for the best iOS client (something like Apollo for Reddit)
@aral Good to be around.