The past few days have extracted a heavy toll from me. While it's nice to see your work finally taken seriously in the mainstream, the 12-14 hour workdays I've had to pull to handle everything is anything but...
I rarely talk about how tough this job can be, since I feel responsibility to only associate positive things with the project. But it is a lot of responsibilities, and a lot of stress, for what can sometimes feel like inadequate pay.
I do software development, devops, accounting, customer support, project management, product design, public relations, and moderation for 36K per year...
@Gargron flipping heck yes that isn’t enough…
Do you split up your work with anyone else?
@Gargron even though Patreon has its issues, I'm going to support your efforts there. Many others should do the same. And when a better FOSS platform emerges to replace Patreon, we'll be primed to jump to it instead.
@Gargron Done. I'm sorry I didn't do it sooner.
@lightweight @Gargron there is! Mastodon is on OpenCollective: https://opencollective.com/mastodon
Mastodon - Open Collective

Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub

@jkbecker @Gargron interesting - thanks - I'm going to shift my contributions to that platform... which comes from NZ...
@jkbecker @Gargron ok - now providing a monthly contribution via OpenCollective rather than Patreon.
@jkbecker Thanks for telling us about this. I just contributed there.
@lightweight @Gargron
@jkbecker @lightweight @Gargron I'm supporting Mastodon for about 5 years on Patreon. Should I switch?
@jkbecker Thanks for the link. I have setup a recurring donation
@jkbecker @lightweight @Gargron ah is this better than patreon? just signed up for a small recurring one there, lemme know if should switch it
@gvelez17 @jkbecker @Gargron I cancelled mine on Patron and shifted to OpenCollective, although I have some concerns about them, too... although, at least they're NZ-run.
@lightweight
Uh... #Liberapay? #OpenCollective? Plenty of better options than Patreon!
@Blort I shifted my contributions to OpenCollective. I'm less of a fan of LiberaPay.
@lightweight @Blort why's that? Just out of interest 🙂
@jdaviescoates @Blort my understanding is that LiberaPay, despite being ostensibly open source, can't easily (or at all?) be implemented by others. So far as I'm aware, there's only one instance of Liberapay. I'd need to investigate the situation further to say anything definitive, but it makes me cautious.
@lightweight @Blort ah, well, afaik that's actually true of @opencollect too although I personally know & greatly respect the people there and love their plans to Exit to Community so it doesn't really bother me
@jdaviescoates @Blort @opencollect yes, I also have concerns about them, too. Their 'openness' seems to know lots of bounds. But they're local-ish to me, and I want to support them.
@lightweight @jdaviescoates @Blort That's correct, there can only be one Liberapay. Having multiple instances would be quite difficult, rather inefficient, and I don't think it could be an open network like the Fediverse because I don't see how we could avoid having to require that the creation of a new instance be approved by the others.
@Liberapay @lightweight @Blort I think the point is that people should just be able to spin up their own instances of "collect (regular) payments" infrastructure, needn't be called nor have anything to do with Liberapay, just like my WordPress site doesn't need to have anything to do with another.
@jdaviescoates @lightweight @Blort People are able to do that, just not with the Liberapay software. One of Liberapay's goals is to create a network effect, so it can only be either a single service or a network of interconnected services. Since the latter is much more complicated, I focus on the former and make no effort to facilitate the use of the Liberapay software by others. However, Liberapay is open source, can be forked, and is itself a fork of a previous project.
@Gargron You definitely deserve a much higher wage than that, my man
Uhhh.... what the fuck??? You deserve to be paid so much more than this.
@Gargron just donated on Patreon. Thanks for your work.
@Gargron let’s put some optimism!!!! Yeah - you do need additional help, you have no idea how many people are going to jump ship to Mastodon!!!!! Soon $$$ won’t be a problem, but it’ll be staffing. You’ll have plenty of people trying to work for Mastodon!!!!!!!!
@Gargron thank you for all the hard work. Comparing OpenCollective and Patreon, which one is the better platform for you as a receiver of contributions?

@Gargron for anyone that reads this and wants to help, consider a monthly donation thru Patreon.

Monthly membership starts at $1.

https://www.patreon.com/mastodon

Get more from Mastodon on Patreon

Creating Mastodon

Patreon
20x cheaper than a blue checkmark on #Twitter
TECI Social

@Gargron I just became a sponsor. I hope more of us in the #twitterexodus will do the same.
@Gargron Consider a donation / pay what you can subscription model. opencollective.com has a pretty decent system for this and I'd happily send a few bucks your way to make things more worthwhile.
@Gargron Found https://opencollective.com/mastodon and donated what I would have paid app.net or Twitter to get rid of ads, promoted tweets, topics, people, etc., etc.
Hope this helps make it less stressful!
Mastodon - Open Collective

Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub

@Gargron I just signed up to support you through Patreon. I encourage everybody who has recently come over to #mastodon to join me. You have close to 1000 patrons now, not nearly enough. Folks, you can donate a buck a month. If enough of us do this, we can make a real difference to somebody who has made a huge difference for all of us. #gratitude #twittermigration #twexit #neuhier. Here’s the Patreon link. https://www.patreon.com/mastodon
Get more from Mastodon on Patreon

Creating Mastodon

Patreon
@Gargron I just joined and really don't know my way around. Nevertheless, I want to say thank you for managing this site. I think it's a public good and appreciate the hard work.

@sgodfrey @Gargron a kind soul pointed me here a few weeks back.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/7/15183128/mastodon-open-source-twitter-clone-how-to-use

But to be honest, most of it is similar to twitter so I muddled through.

Some important differences in there though, like marking any potentially controversial content. I love that feature.

A beginner’s guide to Mastodon, the hot new open-source Twitter clone

Toot your own horn

The Verge
@GarethFoy Thanks - a helpful article.
@Gargron professionalize the organization which will scale in the future and ensure decentralized sustainable development. Introduce effective monetary support, which makes it easy for people to give you and the mastodon org not only kudos but also cash. Signal could be a good example how to make it.
@Gargron Just became a gold sponsor (hope it helps). I have a software company that specializes in all of things you just mentioned. Happy to help / support in whatever way possible. Feel free to slide into my DMs if you need any help. Great work on this btw!
@Gargron Thank you, for doing whjat you do, Despite being paid insultingly low for what you do. Maybe you shouldn't carry the Entire Load by yourself, tho... Nobody should carry The enrtire burden of a business on thier own shoulders. that'd kill a man after a while.
@Gargron That's a lot of different responsibilities... All at once too.
@Gargron I need to check out what's going on with my CC tomorrow. But I will be supporting this important work. Thank you
@Gargron you are doing great work, thanks for amazing service!
@Gargron because of the money: hope i can help by donating! And will look if I can take over some work - I got some relevant Skills!
@Gargron Well, damn! What can we do to help? Donate? What else?
@Gargron Well, as far as I can see, you are doing a Fantastic Job 😀 👍
@Gargron This is hard. I wonder whether it is possible to generate amounts of money for this project that it can adequately pay developers and infrastructure, and avoid the normal platform business.
@Gargron obviously get some rest. i know im not alone in saying we appreciate your hard work. perhaps in due time mastodon.social and mastodon.online will grow to be managed by a small group or entity of some sort. in any case, rest up & take a load off

@Gargron you really do a fantastic job. Apart of the signal this is another nice example that such a big impact projects should be owned by the community, non-profit or foundation with the focus on impact rather the profit.

I really love the feature with @signalbot to easily donate in app (and I donate).

@Gargron thank you for all the work that you do. it is very exciting to see this project explode into the mainstream. you deserve so much more for what you have contributed to the world 💜
@Gargron
Have you got more moderators applying yet? Hope you get a chance for a break.
@Gargron thank you so much for your work. Mastodon project is great! it's growing the fediverse so it deserves a lot more patreons supporting you!