https://cosocial.ca/ is slowly coming online, and I'm going to be slowly shifting my presence from my personal site to this one.

I've made @evan approved-follow-only. New followers should follow @evan.

I'll be boosting everything from cosocial.ca to prodromou.pub for now, until I do a full account move. We're still testing the site!

Thanks for your patience. This feels really exciting.

CoSocial

Cooperative-run social media server for Canada. Join at https://join.cosocial.ca

Mastodon hosted on cosocial.ca
@evan @evan cool! So, tell us-- how is the new instance run? Is it a coop, run democratically by users, subscription or free, etc.? I'm curious! I know you were looking into these kinds of ideas, and I'm always looking for group governance structures that work.
@jamesmarshall @evan great question! We're a cooperative incorporated in Canada as of last week. 🎉 Each member gets an account on the server. Each member also gets a vote in the cooperative. That means they can vote directly on topics during the member assembly, and also that they elect the board members. We're still working through how we'll do more frequent and direct community decision-making.
@evan @evan nice. Will anyone who follows the CoC be able to join, or just Canadians, or approved case by case? Will it have a small subscription fee, or be funded with donations? Curious to see what works that people are happy with. As you know, the "who can join" issue can become contentious in some communities.

@jamesmarshall Just Canadians. That makes it easier for us to manage legal stuff, like copyright, privacy, and coop membership law.

There's a membership fee, $50/year.

@evan right, that all makes sense. Based on the published server costs of the instance I'm on, that fee will easily cover server costs plus hopefully some salary for moderators and admins. I'm curious what typical instance costs *including labor* add up to.
@jamesmarshall yeah, our budget at that membership level has us giving a pretty fair salary to paid moderators and server admins sometime this year, IIRC.
@evan @evan Love the art! :D Mastodon, some (presumable) Canadians crouching in the shrubbery, maple leaves...
@evan @evan Another reason to envy Canadians… :-)