RockWolf
Senator Paula Simons🇨🇦Out of curiosity- what instances are y’all on - and why? What are the pros and cons of the various instances you have chosen?
Human 3500@Paulatics ottawa.place - because I live here. You kind of do too, so join us.
I have only been here and it has been great.
Pete Anderson 🚲@human3500 Same! (Though I was one week lurking on a bigger instance when I first joined.) @Paulatics
Mike_V@Paulatics cosocial.ca. Why? Local(ish).
Catelli@Paulatics I went with Vivaldi. No pros or cons other than it is supported by the company that makes the Vivaldi browser. " fully funded by Vivaldi Technologies, an employee-owned company."
So... the Pro is, no drama. So far.
❄️SnowyIn🇨🇦❄️
Kirk Zurell@Paulatics @coop cosocial.ca 'cause it's a #coop and #canadian; moved from infosec.exchange which was job-relevant and managed by a security pro, but USian nevertheless.
Nazani@Paulatics I'm on Universodon. One of the larger instances, selected because I was told that Mastodon was becoming "too large." The only cons are that sometimes there are temporary shutdowns.
Antoine@Paulatics Hello,
indieweb.social
1. To stop participating in centralization around mastondon.social main instance
2. Because I trusted people from this instance
3. Because I adhere to indieweb principles
But that's not the only instance I'm in.
- Got a secondary one from omg.lol (because i'm part of its community)
- Got one on sharkey , because that was the only way to contact some people.
- (Ofc I don't count accounts on pixelfed etc.)
KimberlyN 🇨🇦I’m on Cosocial.ca. It’s a co-op instance, hosted in Canada, where all members contribute to, and have ownership of, the instance. I’ve been here for a couple of years now, and I really appreciate the co-op model because it provides more financial stability, responsive moderation, and encourages all of us to contribute to the decisions that are made here. So lots of pros. Character limitation falls into the con category…but that forces me to be more concise. 😊
Philippe@Paulatics #Qlub ! Pour offrir une instance francophone aux québécois et héberger leurs données ici au Québec.
Westcoastmaven 🇨🇦@Paulatics I’m on Social. I wanted an instance that has a robust team of IT individuals behind it without being a corporate venture. (Social is a registered charity.) I also wanted it located in the EU which tends to have progressive consumer standards & protections.
Stefan Bohacek@Paulatics I run my own Mastodon server.
The pros are that I have more control over my social media experience, I get to experiment a bit (I've brought down my server once or twice), and I'm unaffected by moderators of two servers not getting along and severing ties between the followers on their respective servers.
The cons are, well, I have to pay for the hosting. And after I'm gone, I'll take my server down with me, with all my posts.
Wait. Maybe the last one is a pro.
Bull Miller@stefan The last part is definitely a pro.
Celeste Ryder 🐾 🐀🏳️🌈
BigLinter@Paulatics im on the first one ive found when i searched for mastodon.
dont have any favorites, it just works.
Renata 🇨🇦🐈@Paulatics @stephanie Cosocial.ca @coop
It’s a cooperative
It’s incredibly well organized - you pay the coop fee to join to keep things running, receive regular updates (and can participate) on decisions about how the instance is run. It feels right.
Also one of the key people is Activity Pub’s @evan
All canadian infrastructure
It’s a cooperative
It’s incredibly well organized - you pay the coop fee to join to keep things running, receive regular updates (and can participate) on decisions about how the instance is run. It feels right.
Also one of the key people is Activity Pub’s @evan
All canadian infrastructure
Erin Dalzell (He/Him) 🇨🇦KimberlyN 🇨🇦 (@[email protected])
@[email protected] I’m on Cosocial.ca. It’s a co-op instance, hosted in Canada, where all members contribute to, and have ownership of, the instance. I’ve been here for a couple of years now, and I really appreciate the co-op model because it provides more financial stability, responsive moderation, and encourages all of us to contribute to the decisions that are made here. So lots of pros. Character limitation falls into the con category…but that forces me to be more concise. 😊
Paul Turnbull has moved.🇨🇦@Paulatics If I moved I would be considering cosocial.ca as it appears to have a good stable operating model and is Canadian.
Account has movedSame, and being a co-op would hopefully help avoid issues like *waves around* that can arise with one person running the show.
@alessandro While I’m used to the concept of one person running a social site from the old late 80s, early 90s BBS days, the scale of things now means it has a lot more hazard.
Fair, and I suppose website admins (allegedly) defrauding charities of a quarter million dollars was always a rare occurrence.
@alessandro It was a simpler time. :)
Erik@Paulatics social.linux.pizza, because I use Linux and I like pizza ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Scott Jenson@Paulatics I'm on social.coop for very basic but powerful reasons:
1. It has an excellent governance model
2. It asks every member to donate (even a small amount)
3. It pays it's moderators (see #2)
I wish more mastodon servers took this level of care. I honestly think we only need a few servers to really do this properly to have a vibrant, ethical, and sustainable model going forward for consumers to feel safe.
I'd even suggest that cities/states could step in as the amount of money is NOT very much and it provides a helpful way for cities to be in touch with their communities.
David B. 
@Paulatics My own instance. Pros: I'm my own boss.
Cons: it's not free.
Cons: it's not free.
soaproot@Paulatics Early on in my time here (when I was on another instance), I noticed that the team at @moderators were awesome. They still are! And geographically local to me.
Scott Murray 
Jeri Dansky
3dcandy@Paulatics mastodon.social but I was here fairly early....
7sleepersmusic@Paulatics I'm on "the flagship", mastodon.social, which I think is also the largest. I joined in 2019 and TBH I didn't do much research, I just went where everyone else seemed to be going. I'm happy here and have no reason to leave, but I might have chosen differently if I'd given it more thought.
Bytebro 🇬🇧 🇺🇦 🇬🇱I'm on mastodonapp.uk, and our instance admin @wild1145 is a lovely fluffy person who normally gets issues resolved very quickly!
I also have a 'backup account' on mendeddrum.org in case of bigger issues 🙂
Lori M Olson@Paulatics I’m on your instance. Don’t see any need to move quite yet. This is my personal account. I have another account over at ruby.social, because I’m a Ruby software developer, for discussing techie things.
I’d honestly love for governments at all levels to set up and manage their own instances for public servants.
Edwin G. 
@Paulatics I decided to run my own instance.
Pros: I have full control on moderation. I left my previous instance on disagreements for a moderation decision.
Cons: I have full control on moderation and price.
If I were to choose an instance, I would probably do “cosocial.ca”. I considered them when I last moved.
erin@Paulatics prior moderator with mstdn.ca. Swapped to ottawa.place earlier this year due to my own personal issues with the instance. Out of curiosity, why can't we get a canada.ca instance for government officials? This way you have complete control over the instance’s operations and governance.
Andrew Dunham@erin @Paulatics I've offered a few times, but I'll say it again: if anyone in the 🇨🇦 government wants some assistance setting up an official Mastodon instance, I would be very happy to do so. There's even a non-profit for this instance (spoiler alert!) that we can do this through, if it would make that any easier!
@andrew amazing offer!
And if you need any help with the nonprofit or community development side of the instance, this is where my experience lies. Happy to volunteer my time to support any current or future initiatives.
@erin (dropping Senator Simons so as not to flood her with notifications)
I do actually have one question, if you don't mind... Leigh and I have a nonprofit that we're in the process of transferring the infrastructure / assets for the instance to (federal corporation # 1652828-7 if you're curious). One of the things we want to do is set up a bank account specifically for the instance, to help keep the funds separate from our personal cards/accounts/etc.
Do you have any suggestions or recommendations on banks here in Ottawa that are good for nonprofits? In my (very limited) searching, all I've found so far are accounts with pretty high monthly fees, in some cases a good percentage of the total operating cost of this instance 😵💫
@andrew Without knowing the instance's cash flow and transaction needs, have you looked into any credit unions? Alterna and Meridian come to mind. I'm familiar with Alterna (as a personal user).
Alterna: https://www.alterna.ca/en/business/community/resiliency-program
Meridan: https://www.meridiancu.ca/business-banking/accounts/community-not-for-profit-account
You could also look into Tangerine. They don't explicitly state they offer a nonprofit but their business accounts may include the option.
The big banks all look like they have a low-cost account for non profits however it seems very dependent on cashflow and monthly transaction usage.
If EQ bank ever offers a non profit account (they currently do not) I would likely recommend them.
Bruce Acton 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
Ms. Que Banh
WTL
Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦
Patrick Lam 
@andrew @erin Desjardins is a coop and is really good for non-profits. I know a bunch of their branches in Ontario were taken over by another coop some years ago but they still have branches in Ottawa, including one in Orléans. On a provincial level, they’re the largest financial institution in Quebec (yes, bigger than RBC or BoM!), so they’re very stable and well-regarded.
Edit: Meridian! Meridian is who took some branches over.
bjb 
Mikey!@bjb @andrew @erin concur with that suggestion.
Big bank costs my company $300+/mo just for daily use, holding 6-digits in chequing, none of that is CC processing.
Credit union is like... $1.20-1.85/mo. Same sort of balance.
(CC processing is around $10K/a)
Also having the ability to viably threaten to close an account is the absolutely the secret tech.
Action Jay 🐾 
@andrew @erin @Paulatics we're also tracking politicians on the fediverse at @ElbowsUpforDigitalSovereignty . If somewhere in government someone set up an instance and got everyone moved over at once, it'd be so very incredibly rad.
davecb 🇨🇦The province of Ontario internet site used to be a volunteer effort, carefully named GovOnCa.ca and GovOnCa.uucp It was in a friend's basement. Some government folks had email based there.
The official Ontario site is just https://www.ontario.ca/ these days, but gov.on.ca still redirects to it. It might be worth considering if we should start with an @canada@somewhere account ...
There is a @canada thingie already at lemmy.ca
