Just as a bit of an ask for the folks here on #MastodonAppUK or #Universeodon

I've got a fairly significant amount of expenditure coming up as part of making some major improvements behind the scenes, we're planning to move to new servers at the end of August / start of September which should give us more capacity and streamline how things are running.

At the same time I've commissioned @thisismissem to do some important work to get us setup and ready to upgrade to the latest version of Mastodon which will allow us to maintain some of our custom functionality you're all used to and I'm hoping to get these upgrades done in the next few weeks.

If you're in the position to support us financially even as a one-off payment now would be a great time to consider throwing in a bit of cash to help out!

Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/mastodonappuk
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/universeodon

Apologies that things have been relatively quiet, I've been pretty busy and needed to get some of this sorted!

I've had some not ideal news come through, both of the contracts that I thought were going well and I'd be starting any day now have fallen at the final hurdle with projects getting cancelled and a whole host of other issues.

For those of you on #MastodonAppUK or #Universeodon if you're able to financially contribute to the upkeep and running of the sites I would really appreciate any support right now, anything contributed here reduces the amount I need to dig into my own savings to keep things running.

Both Ko-Fi and Patreon are great, and as I say anything folks are in a position to contribute is hugely appreciated

Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/mastodonappuk
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/universeodon

I've also now added the ability to do one time payments through one of my own sites so there aren't any extra fee's but you don't get access to the Ko-Fi / Patreon members posts - https://clients.superior-networks.com/order/main/index/mastosupport

Announcement for #MastodonAppUK and #Universeodon folks -

I'm going to be drastically reducing our remote media retention window on both sites as I've just had a storage bill of around $1,200 USD for last month's storage costs and we're at nearly 80TB and growing at an unsustainable rate. I don't expect this to impact anyone for the most part given we will re-fetch media if you open an old post and the media isn't available here but it might mean those older posts take a second to re-pull the media and refresh.

Apologies, I just can't sustain that sort of expenses given it's a nearly 50% increase over the month prior.

If you're in a position to support us either monthly or as a one-off as always it would be hugely appreciated (Especially given this bill is nearly £400 more than normal) and you can do so on Ko-Fi or Patreon

Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/mastodonappuk
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/universeodon

#MastodonAppUK & #Universeodon Members Note:

Just to reassure, I am aware of and monitoring what's happening over on Fosstodon when it comes to their decision to retain a moderator who from what I can see on the Fediblock threads would be problematic. Given the substantial following / followers relationships between the 3 instances (MastodonApp.UK / Fosstodon and Universeodon.com / Fosstodon) I'm waiting to see if there is any further updates / changes in the situation over there as defederating would have a noticeable impact to the community here and I'm very aware that to undo that in the future would be impossible.

I am hoping there is some element of misunderstanding somewhere here and that this can be resolved but if not we will take the appropriate moderation action to protect our members and communities here. I'll keep folks up to date and give plenty of warning before any permanent moderation damage is done.