Hey vis.social!
Our community server, as are all other mastodon servers, are being hit with AI-agent and other bots trying to set up accounts.
Most of these have been easy to dismiss. But we're getting more clearly AI-agent written applications that look legit, but are NOT.
We're considering closing applications for while.
--vis.social moderation team
Hey vis.social!
Reminding everyone that we welcome posts in many languages. But we do ask that you post a translation in English. If it doesn't fit in your original post, make it a reply.
Thank you!
--visSocialModerators
Hey vis.social!
Yes! Most of your posts should probably be 'unlisted/quiet public/followers only'.
Even though hashtags in these posts won't show up in searches, they still help folks that are filtering their feed.
For example, I add #cancer to some of my quiet posts so that it's easier for folks to filter out those posts if they want or need to.
Hey vis.social!
There are some great hashtags to follow. You might already know about #datavis or #RStats and #SciArt.
But there are some lovely ones like #Bloomscrolling, #LichenSubscribe, and the wonderful #TinyBalancingSheep
Making a post public, on our server and many others, is much like shouting 'Hey! Everybody look at my post!'
In some ways, it's like giving a talk or poster at a conference, or announcing that you're going to. It's a shout! Usually a joyous one
So, would you really shout about your wordl score? Or something like it?
Public posts don't need to be big and important. They can be lovely photos of birds, art, and so on
If this is confusing, we're happy to open a public discussion
And yes, this is a topic based community, with a broad range of topics. We do try to keep our Public Local Timeline on topic: Art, Science, DataVisualization, and related subjects. Basically, creative works.
Mastodon is different from most corporate social platforms, in many ways. One way is that we can set the 'volume level' or 'privacy' for any post: public, quiet public (unlisted), and so on.
Most folks on the server have set all posts to "quiet" by default.
Hey vis.social!
There are real people moderating and running this server. We are all volunteers, and work together as a team to keep this community server up and running as smoothly as possible.
We assume that you are aware of our community rules, but sometimes need reminding.
Making a mistake is expected. Being a jerk about it, is not.
A few days ago, I had the delightful experience of sharing a meal with vis.social moderator @wcbdata and datavis.social admin @janeadams.
At one point, while we were talking about how mastodon and the greater fediverse is different. I mentioned how I think of the "Local Public Timeline" as giving a talk or poster at a research conference. Or announcing the talk.
Posting 'quiet public' or 'unlisted' is the conversations in the halls and the dinners and all the informal chats.
Hey vis.social!
Our server expenses go up. Contributions go down, I'm growing concerned about finances.
I'm going to look into more ways to reduce our server expenses. My medical bills are eating up more of my funds, so I really do need to make sure I'm not paying as much of our server expenses as I have been
One option might be to turn inactive accounts into "memorial" accounts. I'm not sure if this will help. Maybe?
Info on how you can help support: https://vis.social/about
Hey vis.social!
Please remember to CW any AI topics on our public community timeline.
And yes, 'vibe coding' is AI. And so it must have a CW marking it as such.
--vis.social moderation team.
keeps vis.social running