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 Innisfil23h 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 threaderin23h 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 Innisfil23h 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 threadDavid Harrison 🇨🇦22h ago
@PaulBusch @erin @stephanie I think we have a different perspective on free users, but other than that I agree completely. A leadership change has to happen for anything else to improve, and without assuming any guilt on his part, his statement today makes it clear that it’s going to be the status quo for (likely) many months.
Show threadGreg Burrell 🦞🚴🥔22h ago

@david @PaulBusch @erin @stephanie Personally I think we've seen multiple examples of how social media doesn't work if you require users to be paying members. It especially ought not to work for Mastodon because what is a paid server going to do to stop people interacting with it from free servers, without defederating?

I would immediately leave an instance that offered any sort of benefit to paying members, even just trifles like profile badges. That's a very short road to in-groups and out-groups and social stratification on lines of wealth, and that's what I came to Mastodon to get away from.

Whether or not I contribute financially, or whether or not anyone else contributes financially, is nobody's business.

Show threadTim Bray

@ivanvector Hmm, I look at the data and draw the opposite conclusion: That social media doesn't work if it's free. The old cliché is true: If you're not paying, you're the product. Obviously, there are exceptions: Academic institutions and political organizations should have instances available for their communities.

@david @PaulBusch @erin @stephanie

11:52pmWeb