erin1d ago

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

Show threadStéphanie1d 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

Show threaderin1d ago

@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.

Show threadStéphanie1d 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.

Show threadDavid Harrison 🇨🇦1d 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.

Show threadInnocuous In Innisfil1d ago
@david @stephanie @erin
I had the same thought David. Transfer the instance to FediHost. Turn it into community funded (like cosocial) and recruit a volunteer board from its members for administration. Administration duties would be directed towards stability and growth as FediHost would handle day-to-day tech and moderation.
Show threaderin1d ago

@PaulBusch mstdn.ca is community funded currently, just on a volunteer donation base. Everything you’re saying outside of the hosting was what the initial intentions were for Mstdn.ca, it just never happened, and likely will never happen without a change in leadership.

@david @stephanie

Show threadInnocuous In Innisfil1d ago

@erin
I'm a monthly donor to mstdn, but most aren't, hence financial challenges at times. No one wants a for-profit model as that drives wrong behavior. But if you value your Mastodon community, funding to maintain it is a must. Two-tier is fine but IMO the lower tier is not free. And I think the funding model, and associated member privileges to impact current and future operations, is moot without the one important factor you've mentioned - a change in leadership.

@david @stephanie

Show threadrhempel

@PaulBusch @erin @david @stephanie I paid the fee for cosocial.ca today and moved instances.

I donated a similar amount to mstdn.ca and I hope that the data on the servers and control of the mstdn.ca instance are transferred before the assets are seized or before the Internet service is cut off.

I'll pay for transparency and stability - it's not fair to ask for free service unless you really can't afford it and need support. Our local Y has that model and I'm happy to support that.

Mar 23 at 6:10pmWeb
Show threadDavid Harrison 🇨🇦22h ago
@rhempel @PaulBusch @erin @stephanie The incremental cost per user on Mastodon has to be pretty small, particularly for people who aren’t heavy users and don’t follow a lot of people from other instances. So I think there can be paths to offering free access – but unless an instance has a separate revenue/funding source, revenue needs to be a part of the planning, not something that happens every few months with an “emergency plea”.
Show threadStéphanie21h ago
@david @rhempel @PaulBusch @erin I would like to say that when we left the moderation team (Erin, me, Jace), there was a constant stream of donations - enough to sustain the instance for multiple years. That was a couple of years ago.
Show threadrhempel21h ago

@stephanie @david @PaulBusch @erin I'm going to let the courts figure out what the outcome should be for Chad - when there were difficulties with keeping the server up a few months ago I donated without thinking too much about issues like governance and stability.

Once a news story like this breaks and there is no apparent plan for handling the risk, then I've got no qualms about moving to a more transparent instance.

My comments and posts on mstdn.ca are there for as long as the server is up.

Show threadStéphanie21h ago
@david @rhempel @PaulBusch @erin I should be more clear. When the comms were good, the money was totally not a problem, even with the huge size of the instance. The problems were technical back then.
Show threaderin16h ago

@stephanie @david agreed we were in a good place as of mar 2023.

Edit; from what I was told. I never saw details.

@rhempel @PaulBusch

Show threaderin16h ago

@david and emergency pleas should come with comprehensive financial statements. At minimum there should be at least an annual financial statement.. I have never seen any details, not even when I was mod.

@rhempel @PaulBusch @stephanie