2 ms·

Another Mastodon instance hosted in Germany with the same copypasted left-leaning AUP[] from all the other Mastodon instances. What's the reason for this to exi

Another Mastodon instance hosted in Germany with the same copypasted left-leaning AUP[] from all the other Mastodon instances. What's the reason for this to exist when all Mastodon instances are linked to each other and this instance has the same ruleset and is hosted in the same country than the rest of instances? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding the way Mastodon works and instances are not linked? []https://metalhead.club/about/more https://metalhead.club/about/more

runyor 8y ago
A little less sceptical but still I wonder about the same thing. If all are connected, why care for which server I connect to? Are there filters between each server? Is my data only hosted in this server and goes down with it when the server hoster decides he invested enough into his hobby?
- stoerfall 8y ago
  > If all are connected, why care for which server I connect to? Mastodon is like E-Mail: You chose who hosts your profile. YOu can send messages to people on other servers, but still the server which hosts your account, is your "home server": If it goes down, your account/profile is lost. Also choosing your Mastodon server is about your personal interests: Mastodon servers have local timelines, which only show posts by users on the same server. These timelines often are topic related. E.g. on metalhead.club you will find more metal music content compared to e.g. mastodon.social. Mastodon servers / instances group users by interest and still let all Mastodon users communicate with each other. Btw: I don't consider the terms of use "leftist". They are quite neutral and generally "human friendly". Metalhead.club is not political, but the Terms of use try to prevent hate speech.
  - drngdds 8y ago
    >They are quite neutral and generally "human friendly". They are certainly reasonable and human-friendly! But "you shouldn't be xenophobic or transphobic" is still, unfortunately, a relatively left-wing idea. It excludes people who openly hold beliefs that are very popular within the mainstream American right.
    - laumars 8y ago
      No, it's not. It's asking you to simply not post nasty stuff. It doesn't mean you have to embrace other cultures, sexualities or whatnot. It doeesn't even mean you have to like them. It just means keep any nasty comments about such things to yourself (or go say it elsewhere). It's a really sad time for humanity if common courtesy is now considered "left-wing".
      - gfwhukku 8y ago
        >It doesn't mean you have to embrace other cultures, sexualities or whatnot. The rules literally say: >You shall Fight racism and discrimination Which, on my book, is left wing. (And open to be arbitrarily enforced. How do I prove I've been fighting discrimination?)
        Digit-Al 8y ago
        This is only a guess, but from the context I would assume that he means that if you see someone posting racist or other discriminatory toots(?) that you should challenge them.
        gfwhukuu 8y ago
        So if they check server-side that I've read a "discriminatory toot" (whatever that means) and I haven't "challenged the guy" (whatever that means) or reported him I can expect to be banned?
        laumars 8y ago
        Clearly the intent of that line is just that people should feel encouraged to report any hate speech. I don't really understand why you've taken such an objection to the very concept of keeping hurtful comments to yourself on some specific public forums; but in any case I get the feeling that you're now just arguing for the sake of arguing.
    - nerdponx 8y ago
- stoerfall 8y ago
  > Are there filters between each server? There _might_ be filters. Mastodon server admins can filter posts from certain foreign servers. For example the metalhead.club administrator chose to filter some instances which spam a lot or post extremist text and /or child pornography. Often these filters are necessary for legal reasons, e.g. some jananese servers allow sketches of naked children ("loli"), which are considered child pornography in Germany and are therefore illegal in the server's home country.
- drngdds 8y ago
  Each server can have its own rules and can choose to block whichever other servers it wants. But besides that, they're pretty similar. The big draw of Mastodon is that it doesn't really matter that much which server you use. If the admin of your server starts doing stuff you don't like, you can move to another server and direct your followers there. (Compare this to centralized social networks like Twitter and Facebook. If you don't like what their owners do, your only option is to leave and lose access to the network entirely.)
- nindwen 8y ago
  In addition to the other replies: one big draw of specific servers/instances is the local timeline, a feed of every post on a server. While you can connect to anyone, discovering new people is much easier on the same instance. For this reason people prefer small, specific instances. The Mastodon culture is also fairly opposed to large instances. Mastodon.social (the "flagship") is widely criticised for allowing itself to grow much larger than other instances. The community prefers small, homely intantances, median size is probably about 500 users, like this one. This may seem weird to outsiders, but instances like this one are one of the main draws of Mastodon.
sascha_sl 8y ago
That's not copypasted at all, what the heck are you on about?
amiga-workbench 8y ago
I noticed that too with a lot of instances, the one I settled on has rules that sets off less red flags (and honestly, I'm really tempted to self host)
- gfwhukuu 8y ago
  I am very interested; I've been unable to find an instance with rules that are not involved in politics. What's that instance?
  - amiga-workbench 8y ago
    http://layer8.space http://layer8.space The rules boil down to "Don't be a dick"

runyor 8y ago

A little less sceptical but still I wonder about the same thing. If all are connected, why care for which server I connect to? Are there filters between each server? Is my data only hosted in this server and goes down with it when the server hoster decides he invested enough into his hobby?

stoerfall 8y ago
> If all are connected, why care for which server I connect to? Mastodon is like E-Mail: You chose who hosts your profile. YOu can send messages to people on other servers, but still the server which hosts your account, is your "home server": If it goes down, your account/profile is lost. Also choosing your Mastodon server is about your personal interests: Mastodon servers have local timelines, which only show posts by users on the same server. These timelines often are topic related. E.g. on metalhead.club you will find more metal music content compared to e.g. mastodon.social. Mastodon servers / instances group users by interest and still let all Mastodon users communicate with each other. Btw: I don't consider the terms of use "leftist". They are quite neutral and generally "human friendly". Metalhead.club is not political, but the Terms of use try to prevent hate speech.
- drngdds 8y ago
  >They are quite neutral and generally "human friendly". They are certainly reasonable and human-friendly! But "you shouldn't be xenophobic or transphobic" is still, unfortunately, a relatively left-wing idea. It excludes people who openly hold beliefs that are very popular within the mainstream American right.
  - laumars 8y ago
    No, it's not. It's asking you to simply not post nasty stuff. It doesn't mean you have to embrace other cultures, sexualities or whatnot. It doeesn't even mean you have to like them. It just means keep any nasty comments about such things to yourself (or go say it elsewhere). It's a really sad time for humanity if common courtesy is now considered "left-wing".
    - gfwhukku 8y ago
      >It doesn't mean you have to embrace other cultures, sexualities or whatnot. The rules literally say: >You shall Fight racism and discrimination Which, on my book, is left wing. (And open to be arbitrarily enforced. How do I prove I've been fighting discrimination?)
      - Digit-Al 8y ago
        This is only a guess, but from the context I would assume that he means that if you see someone posting racist or other discriminatory toots(?) that you should challenge them.
        gfwhukuu 8y ago
        So if they check server-side that I've read a "discriminatory toot" (whatever that means) and I haven't "challenged the guy" (whatever that means) or reported him I can expect to be banned?
        laumars 8y ago
        Clearly the intent of that line is just that people should feel encouraged to report any hate speech. I don't really understand why you've taken such an objection to the very concept of keeping hurtful comments to yourself on some specific public forums; but in any case I get the feeling that you're now just arguing for the sake of arguing.
  - nerdponx 8y ago
stoerfall 8y ago
> Are there filters between each server? There _might_ be filters. Mastodon server admins can filter posts from certain foreign servers. For example the metalhead.club administrator chose to filter some instances which spam a lot or post extremist text and /or child pornography. Often these filters are necessary for legal reasons, e.g. some jananese servers allow sketches of naked children ("loli"), which are considered child pornography in Germany and are therefore illegal in the server's home country.
drngdds 8y ago
Each server can have its own rules and can choose to block whichever other servers it wants. But besides that, they're pretty similar. The big draw of Mastodon is that it doesn't really matter that much which server you use. If the admin of your server starts doing stuff you don't like, you can move to another server and direct your followers there. (Compare this to centralized social networks like Twitter and Facebook. If you don't like what their owners do, your only option is to leave and lose access to the network entirely.)
nindwen 8y ago
In addition to the other replies: one big draw of specific servers/instances is the local timeline, a feed of every post on a server. While you can connect to anyone, discovering new people is much easier on the same instance. For this reason people prefer small, specific instances. The Mastodon culture is also fairly opposed to large instances. Mastodon.social (the "flagship") is widely criticised for allowing itself to grow much larger than other instances. The community prefers small, homely intantances, median size is probably about 500 users, like this one. This may seem weird to outsiders, but instances like this one are one of the main draws of Mastodon.

sascha_sl 8y ago

That's not copypasted at all, what the heck are you on about?

amiga-workbench 8y ago

I noticed that too with a lot of instances, the one I settled on has rules that sets off less red flags (and honestly, I'm really tempted to self host)

gfwhukuu 8y ago
I am very interested; I've been unable to find an instance with rules that are not involved in politics. What's that instance?
- amiga-workbench 8y ago
  http://layer8.space http://layer8.space The rules boil down to "Don't be a dick"