Innocuous In Innisfil Has MovedJan 12

This message is intended for Canadian #Mastodon admins who are running public instances large and small. If you are an admin, please share with your counterparts. If you are a member of a Canadian instance, please send this to your admin.
A small group of us (Note: really, really small) are in early discussions on how to encourage our government - individual politicians & federal, provincial, and municipal departments - to move their social media presence to Mastodon. This would involve an awareness campaign targeting politicians, party HQs, and departments/agencies.
We are asking for input from admins to help us create a future state vision for this project, and provide us with advice or ideas on how to bring it to a reality. I will set up a web call within the next 3 weeks and hopefully you can participate. We are not asking you to contribute beyond input. Please DM me and I will add you to the invitees.

#mastoadmin
#MastodonCanada
#MastoCanadaGOV (hashtag for this project)

CC: @ZebKing

Show threadopalideasJan 12
@paulbusch @ZebKing Definitely support that! But this brings up a slight failing of Mastodon that I have been asking about.
If Mastodon is to replace the corporate social media stuff there has to be a way to better focus on the local, even down to family level.
How can I set up an instance for Vancouver Island? For the Central Island? For a residential group in Qualicum Beach?
And, needing a dedicated server is out of reach for a senior with fixed income.
Show threadInnocuous In Innisfil Has MovedJan 12

@opalideas @ZebKing

My attempt at articulating this failing/opportunity - and correct me if I'm wrong:

- Having an instance/server for each community is too complex and potentially confusing.
- Mastadon should include the function of adding a Group, which you can join.
- Groups can be based on geography (communities), interest, activity, organizations, etc.
- You could select Groups from your feed filter to quickly check for posts specific to the group.

My wife is active on Facebook, despite my encouragement to delete her account. She belongs to 2 local community groups plus a few other activity groups. She also sells on FB Marketplace. Until Mastodon has similar functionality, she will remain on the evil empire.

This functionality would likely be more beneficial for users versus government accounts. But municipal council members would find it useful as would politicians that want to connect with their riding.

##MastoCanadaGOV

Show threadopalideasJan 12
@paulbusch @ZebKing Groups would be good. How does one set them up? Is there a way of targeting to a general location to have the Group boosted?
Unless this process becomes both easy to do, and gets the right attention, it will be really hard to overcome the inertia of "I think I'll just stay with Facebook etc."
Show threadInnocuous In Innisfil Has MovedJan 12

@opalideas @ZebKing

The "Groups" functionality does not currently exist. Not sure if it is being considered by the development team.

Show threadMathew Storm

@paulbusch @opalideas @ZebKing

From research I found the discussion post from 2023:
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/discussions/26123

and a stale branch from 2022:

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/19059

Looks like initial development work had been done, it's been dead other than discussion for a while.

I recall @helge made a proposal for a Groups implementation, but can't seem to find it at the moment.

Groups · mastodon mastodon · Discussion #26123

Does anyone know if Mastodon is planning #groups like on Calckey/Firefish and Twitter respectively? Friends of mine and I have always worked with closed and moderated groups on certain political to...

GitHub
Jan 12 at 11:44pmWeb