Mastodon servers like Metafilter

October 29, 2022 4:34 AM

I’m moving on from Twitter for obvious reasons, and am looking for a Mastodon server to occasionally toot from about civic tech, gardens, and dogs. With this whole federated situation, I’m looking for a server that has a strong focus on community safety and a sustainable model for operation.

I’m basically looking for something along the lines of Metafilter but for Mastodon. I know that there will be hate and intolerance and fascism in the broader mastodon world, but I want a community that specifically does not welcome this. I am also interested in joining a server that has a sustainable model that is not dependent on ads or the goodwill of one person, which probably means a paid membership model.

posted by rockindata to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Best answer: I personally use social.coop for this reason.

More info.
posted by brainwane at 5:36 AM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

I like tech.lgbt but it may be a little too much "goodwill of one person". There's 3000 users and a Patreon of about $200/mo funding it now. the admin seems like a good person and the server is well run, but it is not a big service.

Choose carefully. My last Mastodon server failed one day - the admin couldn't apply a crucial update. It was a huge PITA relocating to a new server. I managed to get a data backup out of the old server and set up a new account following all the same people. But with the old server down there was no way to use the "tell all your followers about your new account" feature. Even if that worked it's not great, pretty clumsy. Just saying switching servers has a significant cost so you're smart to pick some place that looks sustainable.
posted by Nelson at 6:52 AM on October 29, 2022

Best answer: When deciding to move from another Mastodon server, I posted a thread where I asked for recommendations (I eventually chose social.coop).

Here's a live stream of public posts on social.coop.

Wandering.shop has strong moderation and may appeal to you. Here's a live stream of public posts on Wandering Shop.
posted by brainwane at 7:15 AM on October 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

You probably know about these already, but if you use the Metafilter Social Explorer for Mastodon and hover over the little M icons, you can see which servers Mefites with mastodon accounts are on.

I believe the JoinMastodon server list already has a policy of only listing sites that have policies against hatred and fascism, so you can scroll through there and you won't find anything too bad.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:11 AM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]

I'll second Wandering.shop. I haven't been a very active community member there in the last 5 years, but everything I've seen there the members are very kind and thoughtful.
posted by past unusual at 11:29 AM on October 29, 2022

I am on social.chinwag.org, which is based in Australia and I a not; but I really like the moderation, the admin, and rules. And the owner also has set up an XMPP chat service etc for members.
posted by terrapin at 2:38 PM on October 29, 2022

Response by poster: I’ve got a request in to join social.coop, we’ll see where it goes from there!
posted by rockindata at 9:32 AM on October 30, 2022