Dr. Ashley | Panicked FoodieNov 11, 2022

All,

The moment has finally arrived! 🥳

@McCullohMD
and I have been hard at work for the past week putting together a Mastodon instance so that we can create a backup disability and chronic illness community.

It can be found here:

https://disabled.social

For now, we have set up a terms of service, privacy policy, rules and best practices.

I have plans to set up a Twitter space to go through each of these with the disability community directly to add/subtract/reword things.

disabled.social

A place for people who are chronically ill, mentally ill, disabled, and friends/families/allies to come together, meet, share knowledge and random banter, and just about anything else.

Mastodon hosted on disabled.social
Show threadTara L. Campbell
@PanickedFoodie @McCullohMD @stevendavis What level of support/accessibility should we expect for people with intellectual and/or cognitive disabilities on this server? I ask as a caregiver who is overwhelmed w/mainstream social media access for a YA. The balance between respecting their need for autonomy and individual expression, and protecting them from the realities of online life is exhausting.
Nov 13, 2022 at 4:44pmWeb
Show threadChris McCulloh, MD ♿️(he/him)Nov 13, 2022
@tara @PanickedFoodie @Steve This is a very good question. We are an all-volunteer community, however our goal is to make this as welcoming and safe a space for all. We are building a moderation team with the goal of keeping the community free to communicate, discuss, and debate respectfully. I would love to better understand what your experiences have been so far - both bad and good - that have led you to feel overwhelmed. Hopefully we can learn from that and do right.
Show threadShani KomulainenNov 13, 2022
@McCullohMD @tara @PanickedFoodie @Steve My question is about having cognitive limitations & using Mastodon. What do I do when I'm brain-fatigued & can't think through multiple steps (Alt-text & CWs especially)? I like to post photos but don't always have the 'spoons' to think through then type up a description.
Show threadTara L. CampbellNov 13, 2022

@McCullohMD @PanickedFoodie @Steve I don't know how much of this is within a specific server's control but here are the big ones:

1. Cross-server exposure to others -- disability server is safe but the federation tab is not
2. If the user does something wrong, they risk cut off from the community -- need a way to alert a caregiver w/o requiring account monitoring
3. Grooming is common on other platforms; what looks harmless enough turns dangerous

Show threadTara L. CampbellNov 13, 2022

@McCullohMD @PanickedFoodie @Steve

Solution ideas, but again not sure if this is feasible for individual servers:

1. Option to turn off federation tab and disallow comms with people outside the server
2. Optional contact account that is notified when the user account has acted in violation with the server rules
3. Option to disallow private DMs -- conversation is at least visible to moderators