I'm Nauss, the administrator and sole proprietor of ShoniTown, a service that people who live, work, and/or study in Shaughnessy Village, a neighbourhood in Montréal, Québec, Canada, may use to access this thing widely called the "fediverse" (see @FediverseSymbol for more information)
#ShoniTown runs using software called #Hometown, a project of @darius. It is a fork of something you are more like to have heard of, @Mastodon
Users of the "fediverse", including ShoniTown users, can do any of the following:
· make public posts
· read whatever counts for them as "the news"
· look at photos, watch videos, read up on all kinds of things
· promote their own stuff or other folks' stuff
· offer goods, services, and even actually plain old free stuff
· have fun
I have been running ShoniTown (or 'shoni dot town', as you like) since August 2023. So far, the costs have been modest. I have a bunch of personal interests, including but not limited to riding my bike around, languages, history, local politics, and since 2021 or so, urban planning. More pertinent to my role as admin of this site, I am also interested in free software (the proverbial "Linux"), online privacy, and resilient digital systems that work to help communities communicate, not help people with power control and surveil everyone
I don't accept follow requests from most non-Montréal users, unless you're someone I know IRL (hi Mom!) or another server admin. I also try to avoid being followed by bots if I can help it. If you are a #verifiedMontréaler however (I'm only half-serious), follow back