Periodic reminder that I run the Fediverse AU #Mastodon server for #Australian #NZ #research and #university organisations who don't have a home on Mastodon.

https://fediverse.au

And here's a piece I wrote on why universities are reluctant to run their own Mastodon servers (recently updated with information on referrer tracking and social media platform support)

https://blog.kathyreid.id.au/2023/07/18/why-are-universities-reluctant-to-join-mastodon-and-the-fediverse/

#universities #SocialMedia #HigherEd #Fediverse #FediverseAU

As folks might know, I #MastoAdmin the #FediverseAU #Mastodon instance, which is a closed (must be approved) instance only for university and research group accounts in Australia / Oceania - because they're typically brand accounts and don't have a natural home in AU.

Yesterday I upgraded the storage for this Mastodon instance, and placed it on a #DigitalOcean #CDN.

If you're interested in this sort of thing, you can see the change plan here - because documentation is both helpful in the moment, and a good reference for others.

https://bit.ly/fediverseau-410-413-cdn-upgrade-plan

Are you thinking about running a #bot on #FediverseAU? Our server rules allow this, providing they add value to the audience.

If you're interested in #bots for #Mastodon, here's an excellent article by @simon where he uses #GitHub #Actions:

https://til.simonwillison.net/mastodon/mastodon-bots-github-actions

You don't need server access to do this, but if you run into issues with authentication let me know and I can provide the logs that you need for debugging.

@kcarruthers @atomicpoet @tguarna @Jdreben

Thanks Kate. I spun up #FediverseAU precisely because of this eventuality.

There's a whole book in Twitter and its value as an academic network - adaptive systems, eocsystems, world systems literature, and how Twitter's structural changes affect the broader #higherEd communications network.

Universities *won't* spin up their own infrastructure, IMHO. I worked in an IT Dept of a major Australian University for 16 years - their focus is on outsourcing everything.

They don't *build* or *maintain* a lot anymore - they are *integrators*. Until one of their corporate providers offers Mastodon as a Service, they won't run their own.

Perhaps #AARNet will run a whole-of-uni Mastodon, like it used to run whole-of-uni videoconferencing. That's a possibility.

Moreover, no university department is going to want to own #moderation of Mastodon instances - in the same way that Marketing departments want to control university websites, but don't want to be responsible for all that distributed content authorship entails.

There's no tangible, immediate value in hosting a Mastodon instance - because if the institution can't control the message, why would they provide the infrastructure?

We all know the power of #networks, the power of #connection and the power of #ecosystems
But that power is emergent, and intangible, and cannot be quantified in a business case 🎓