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 1d 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 1d 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 🇨🇦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.

@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 1d 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 🇨🇦1d 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 1d 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.

Stéphanie 1d ago

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

David Harrison 🇨🇦1d 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 🇨🇦🍁1d 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.

David Harrison 🇨🇦1d 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