No one on any social media platform has a right to an account

It costs every social media platform to host a user and their content

But with centralized social media, the platform eats costs (with ads, selling your data to third parties, etc)

With decentralized social media like Mastadon, your community on your instance may donate to maintain the instance (thanks to those who do!) — if donations are short of costs, admins/mods pay

2/ 🧵 #FediGuide #Fediquette

This is why it’s vital that instances (especially big ones or even small ones with very active members who post a lot) have solid admins and mods willing to upkeep maintenance:

instance upgrades, financial updates and reports, moderation tools, increasingly more difficult new member analysis in the age of AI and increasing scams/bad actors (and bad actors attacking marginalized communities, which alone is a huge burden for smaller instances), and more

3/ 🧵 #FediGuide #Fediquette

If the ratio of members to admins/mods exceeds a certain threshold (and especially if members post a lot and/or generate a lot of moderation reports) it can take more money, time and labor to maintain and moderate an instance than you may imagine

This is especially the case for members violating rules and not being intentionally mindful of the community costs of their presence and violations

What does this look like in action? Great question, thank you for asking

4/ 🧵 #FediGuide #Fediquette

Admins and mods (not Mastadon) make and uphold instance rules and moderation to reduce conflict and maintain safety

This is financially (not just legally) smart

When a member violates rules, that member may generate more engagement responses and resultingly more moderation reports — increasing financial and labor burdens of admins and mods (with less money, time, ability to focus on other tasks)

Intentional community is awareness of costs we bring to communities

5/ 🧵 #FediGuide #Fediquette

Members used to heavily posting on centralized social media platforms may not realize doing so on their Mastadon instances costs admins and mods more money, time and energy via increased demands on storage, bandwidth, and server processing power

That doesn’t mean we don’t want you to be here or post! It just means your admins and mods appreciate intentional posting (focused on community needs or news, not just ourselves) and donations that help the community exist

6/ 🧵#FediGuide #Fediquette

This is why it’s a smart business and safety decision to limit or suspend members violating rules and requests from admins/mods on different instances, who try to create instance wars and safety problems:

pitting communities against each other

migrating to new instances to post about ex instances

wanting instances to not use critical moderating tools like rules, strikes systems, admins/mods communicating issues across different instances, suspensions, defederating

7/ 🧵 #FediGuide #Fediquette

The above activities can lead to instances:

shutting down due to legal issues (why defederating from instances is vital, given different international laws)

running out of money to run the instance (especially if donating members quit due to safety issues)

admin/mod burnout and difficulty recruiting volunteers (most instances aren’t big enough to generate profit to financially pay off as a job; those that are, only some are paid, others volunteer)

8/ 🧵#FediGuide #Fediquette

If you don’t want rules, moderation, defederation (protecting everyone and the instance itself) and don’t realize you’re joining communities that run higher costs because of your presence

Mastadon (or other decentralized platforms like Discord that function similarly) may not be right for you

Even if you donate to instances, you may cost instances more

One bad actor heavily attacking Disabled.Social cost a community fundraiser event — we can’t do it all

9/ 🧵 #FediGuide #Fediquette