Mastodawn

Some extended thoughts:

I’m truly sad to hear the discourse surrounding #mstdnca and learn of the allegations against its instance owner, Chad.

I made my fediverse home with mstdnca in Nov 2022 when there was only 1600 of us. Me and Chad connected and I became the 2nd volunteer moderator. We also became friends.

That was a pretty exciting time for the mstdnca community. A Canadian social media alternative was growing! We had prominent figures + politicians joining.. we had an organization sponsoring us. There was lot’s of promise for our growing community.

During this time, there were promises made to ensure our community could thrive and to do that we needed governance, boards, oversight. A community building project I was eager to participate in.

But it never happened. Why?

Most early adopters will note the first immediate reason was because of needing to keep up with the servers exponential growth. The “growing pains” of the instance.

Another reason I’ve read is that no one offered to help, and I’m here to say that’s not true, atleast not at the beginning.

Myself and the 2 other moderators were highly skilled in different areas, and we had a ton of other highly-skilled people willing to help. I put out a call for volunteers for different groups and committees and we had dozens of people eager to participate.

But nothing ever got off the ground.

I volunteered a total of 6 months before resigning. There was some discourse within the volunteer team, stemming what felt like a lack of leadership and direction.

Despite this, Chad became a good friend of mine—but we haven’t spoken since last year when he didn’t respond to a text I sent expressing something that was bothering me in our friendship. The community stopped feeling like home so I left and came to ottawa.place a few months ago.

While my reasons for leaving were ultimately personal, I can’t help to take note that 3.5 years later, the promise of governance, board, and oversight has still not been met and the growing pains haven’t ended.

Edit: grammar

1/2

Stéphanie 21h ago

@erin thank you for sharing your experience. I didn't want to put your name in my post without knowing if you were ready to share.

You did so much work back then! We were lucky to have you

@stephanie I didn’t see your post until just now! Same reason I left names out of mine 😉

Thank you! You should also be commended for all of the work you put in to the Mastodon Canada community. It’s a shame to see where the community is at the moment.

Stéphanie 20h ago

@erin we all loved the community so much and gave so many hours that year. We did our best 💜

I'm just hoping he can do the right thing this time and accept to transfer/give/gift the instance until this is all cleared out.

David Harrison 🇨🇦20h ago

@stephanie @erin With all of the hardware at his house and presumably at risk of seizure as a result of his lawsuit, I think any transfer would have to involve moving all of the data to another server or a hosting org such as Fedihost. That, in turn, will mean someone to pay the bills.

It’s not impossible, but it’s certainly going to take real work to protect that instance. I hope it happens.

@david @stephanie would it be at risk for seizure in a civil case?

I assume there would be an added cost. Not just on the server front, but to make mstdn.ca the community it was promised by legitimizing it as a nonprofit / society.

But with a continued lack of transparency, we’ve never really known how much the instance costs to run and how many donations are being brought in. There is no way to tell where everything sits right now.

Stéphanie 20h ago

@erin @david the police has also been noticed so it could become a criminal case.

But yeah, we never had proof of anything. I just know that when we left, there were at least two years of finances secured.

It was sadly always going to be complicated if something happened. No transparency and no clear emergency plan made public.

mapleleafroundel

@stephanie @erin @david And if the servers get seize for criminal investigation, that will likely be the end for that instance 😔

David Harrison 🇨🇦19h ago

@EdwinG @stephanie @erin Exactly, or if Chad needs to sell them to cover costs.

@david selling would be interesting and might cause some ethical questions… because how much of the instance is donor-driven. @EdwinG @stephanie

Stéphanie 19h ago

@erin @david @EdwinG I want to be clear: I'm not accusing him of anything.

However, the case can be made for the police to check into what money was used to buy them. The donations? The allegedly stolen money? It definitely could become entangled during the process (even if he's non guilty).

@stephanie we know you’re not. It would be devastating if the allegations were true, and the part of me that once thought of him as my close and trusted friend doesn’t want to believe this is even a possibility. But it doesn’t negate the consequences that may unfold even just as allegations, and the want to protect the community from further dissolution.

@erin @david @EdwinG Exactly. Court cases almost always get messy, no matter the outcome.

David Harrison 🇨🇦19h ago

@stephanie @erin @EdwinG The simplest take, and the one I am defaulting to, is that it’s hard to see how Chad will have significant time for the instance in the near future given everything that is happening, and that alone is a significant concern. Even that is a reason to make some changes to protect the instance, and he’s been silent on that.

Bowreality 🇨🇦🍁19h ago

@david @stephanie @erin @EdwinG Agree with that.

@Bowreality @david @stephanie @EdwinG a very valid point. His most recent post this morning will give you his answers on that I think.

Bowreality 🇨🇦🍁19h ago

@erin @david @stephanie @EdwinG I see that the postponement is now until sometime in summer. That’s not good. I get he has other stuff on his plate but that’s not going to help people. Also no word about anything re moving the servers or the instance into a more independent situation isn’t going to make people sleep better.

David Harrison 🇨🇦19h ago

@erin @Bowreality @stephanie @EdwinG Agreed, and while I can understand his approach (I would probably do the same), it’s not good for the instance and the community there.

A better approach would have been to at least temporarily hand over the top-tier role to someone else, even if migrating the instance to other hosting doesn’t happen. Instead, it seems like uncertainty for mstdn.ca users will continue, which will likely push other people away.

There’s a real risk of a death spiral.

@david @Bowreality @stephanie @EdwinG

I don’t know where we are in this convo since I’m just catching up. But replying to David and BowReality to say absolutely not good. I also noticed he deleted his long winded post from earlier today about how distraught he is, yet without any acknowledgement about how the instance might be feeling. Felt tone deaf and lacking accountability for the future of the instance. I don’t know if he truly gets the gravity of it all.

mapleleafroundel

@erin I just noticed he erased the posts as well… the post from this morning was indeed inappropriate. Also, he seemed to ‘promise an impossibility’, in the current state of things.

@david @Bowreality @stephanie

David Harrison 🇨🇦19h ago

@erin @Bowreality @stephanie @EdwinG Related: there is now less transparency on that instance. The written “state of the union” was replaced by a now-cancelled meeting with no promise to at least provide some details in print.

And I’ve noticed that it’s no longer possible to follow the local timeline on mstdn.ca without having an account there. This is very unusual, IMO – most instances allow this.

So while I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, this doesn’t make it easy.

mapleleafroundel

@david @erin @Bowreality @stephanie This is where there should have been a board to keep the instance’s admistration accountable.

By lack of that, it’s up to their community to keep the admins to account. The instance wouldn’t survive without their community thriving.

In the case of a hypothetical sale, the Fediverse has mechanisms to protect itself against undesirable actors (aka defederation).

There are many unknowns right now 😕

@david @erin @Bowreality @stephanie @EdwinG I honestly hope this is some kind of misunderstanding that can be sorted out. News dot is throwing an error for me, though the status page says it's up.

🤷🏻

mapleleafroundel

@WTL The news page was up and down throughout the weekend 😥

@david @erin @Bowreality @stephanie

@EdwinG @WTL @david @erin @Bowreality @stephanie I truly do not envy Chad's situation right now. Hopefully he's got friends and family looking in on him.

Right or wrong, the lawyers always win.

I started on the fediverse due to CIRA sponsoring #MSTDNca, however the frequent performance problems had me looking elsewhere, and the allegations and risk of infrastructure seizure prompted me to pull the trigger. I'd heard there was some controversy around Chad's instance, but never actually saw it.

Wonder if we'll ever have a true picture of either situation, wonder if someone will take the instance over (requiring a lot of work and some money) - but unfortunately it cannot be me at this time.

Ms. Que Banh 13h ago

@mWare
Chad deserves overdue consequences for being a pathological liar for years. He swatted me, after I called him a covert racist assbucket. I've been very public about his abuses & ongoing LIES.

https://beige.party/@PhoenixSerenity/116279475389622920

https://beige.party/@PhoenixSerenity/116268551857561967

Ms. Que Banh (@[email protected])

"He's a nice guy." "He was a close friend." "He never did anything wrong, that I saw." "I don't believe he would do that." "He's innocent until proven guilty in court." "I've never seen him treat anyone badly." Statements like these are what supporters of lying scum/criminals say when the person accused is their 'friend'. Statements like these are what many scumbags said & some still say, about Epstein. I don't trust anyone who says shit like the above when trying to defend scumbag liars, who usually also tend to engage in shady activities in the shadows.

beige.party

@PhoenixSerenity oooooooof, that's brutal. And as previously stated, I had no idea.

I know a few people I follow have made allusions to problems, but never said anything specific like you are here. (and I see your other commentary in your TL right now.)

Ms. Que Banh 13h ago

@mWare Now, you know. Do not expect this guy to ever be honest unless you enjoy losing bets.

@PhoenixSerenity Wasn't planning on it! My only relationship was as a user of the instance... no real enagement beyond that and some curiosity about the technical operations - as I work in the field.

Otherwise I doubt I'll ever have any involvement beyond 'maintaining' my archive, for as long as that lasts.

Ms. Que Banh 13h ago

@mWare You're on a good instance. CoSocial is pretty good too ✌️

@PhoenixSerenity Werd.

I suspect @andrew and I will investigate moving Ottawa.Place to an Ottawa Place in a couple months ;)

Andrew Dunham 13h ago

@mWare @PhoenixSerenity Definitely the plan 😃

Human 3500 12h ago

@andrew
I know a guy....
@mWare @PhoenixSerenity

Ms. Que Banh 13h ago

@mWare I don't hold shit against people who never knew what he did to me/my family back then. I do hold shit against people who saw it all, knew about it & still chose to support the white guy bully & not me/my family who were victimized by the fucking liar.