Cornelius RoemerNov 6, 2022
Woah - German government has got its own Mastodon instance and most of the ministries and many agencies already have accounts.
Verification problem at least partially solved - just need to check the domain is right!
I've also seen newspapers like theatlantic.com set up instances themselves. Looks like verification will be worked out sooner or later.
https://social.bund.de/explore
Explore social.bund.de

Discover users based on their interests

Mastodon hosted on social.bund.de
Show threadCornelius RoemerNov 6, 2022
Unfortunately I mistook fedifinder's output of @theatlantic.com to mean they have an instance. I don't think they have one (yet) unfortunately but this is only a question of time I hope.
Show threadCornelius RoemerNov 7, 2022

If you like Mastodon it'd be great if you supported their development with a modest donation like I've done.

There's no better way to annoy Elon than to bank roll an alternative to Elon

See this tweet for two ways of donating to Mastodon:
https://mstdn.science/@corneliusroemer/109298404704283226

Cornelius Roemer (@[email protected])

If you like what you're seeing here, why not donate a little bit to support Mastodon development? I've just donated a modest $10 myself through Open Collective: https://opencollective.com/mastodon Patreon is also available: https://www.patreon.com/mastodon Mastodon gGmbH is registered as a German non-profit, so if you want to donate substantial amounts, you should in theory be able to get a tax waiver - but first contact someone at Mastodon, e.g. @[email protected] Governance looks solid!

mstdn.science
Show threadCornelius RoemerNov 7, 2022
And look - MIT already has a gated instance. Anyone who's on mastodon.mit.edu is verified to have an MIT email. Neat isn't it?
https://mastodon.mit.edu/
mastodon.mit.edu

An instance for the extended MIT community. Run by volunteers at SIPB, MIT's computer club. NOT run or endorsed by the MIT administration.

Mastodon hosted on mastodon.mit.edu
Show threadGina C. PietersNov 7, 2022

@corneliusroemer This is nice, but the problem is that you can't easily move your historical posts with you when you migrate servers.

I can imagine that can cause issues/force retention when people would rather leave.

Show threadCornelius Roemer
@profpieters Your historical posts still stay up on the old instance - it should also be possible to repost all the old posts in an unlisted way - then the date and likes/rt would be lost but at least the content would be preserved.
Also, as long as the old instance is still up the posts live on there.
Nov 7, 2022 at 2:30pmWeb
Show threadFelicitas FreiseNov 9, 2022
@corneliusroemer @profpieters Wouldn't it be better in this case to remember the Adenauer quote "Don't remind me of the foolish things I said yesterday" 😉