Jay The Tiger

Mastodon is different from any popular social media you are probably accustomed to- tumblr, twitter, instagram, reddit, etc. It’s different in that mastodon is free software that can be set up and run by anyone. Mastodon is based on an open standard (called Activitypub) designed to be able to freely share Content in between “federated” servers.

If those words flew over your head, I’ll give an example. Basically, just imagine mastodon like e-mail. There are thousands of websites out there that you could sign up for to get an email address, such as gmail, yahoo, outlook, protonmail, etc. You could even set up your own email server if you have the technical know-how to do so.

Yet, despite the fact that all of these individual websites are owned and operated by different companies/groups, all with varying rules and methods of operation, no matter what email service you sign up for anywhere on the internet, any email address can send emails to anyone else on the internet, regardless of where they’re signed up for.

Mastodon works the same way! So, mastodon is not a single website, but a “federated network” of many different “instances” that all have their own staff, moderation policies, etc. Anyone can start up an instance at any time for whatever they want.

There’s no single person or group that controls the mastodon network as a whole, and therefor no single point of failure for it. There are simply many instances with many different rulesets and communities, and if you find out an instance you’re on allows for nasty stuff to be posted or shared, you can just jump ship to another instance. There are tools they give you to do this easier, as well.

https://joinmastodon.org/ explains a lot about how mastodon works if you’re not satisfied with my explanation.

Most popular mastodon instances have very strict rules against pedophilia, as well as even fascism/nazism or hate speech, much stricter than you would ever find on twitter or tumblr. There are in fact instances that allow such vile content, but most popular instances block the other instances that do allow nazism/cp outright. If the instance you are looking into is lax on pedophilia then just join another instance.

As you can see in the screenshot in the previous reblog, someone explains that the instance mentioned by the op is blocked outright by mastodon.social, the “flagship” mastodon instance. So even the most populous general-use mastodon instance blocks that kind of garbage.

NO, mastodon is not perfect. It has many flaws and problems with its core infrastructure that make it hostile to creative types hoping to get discovered on mastodon, and a lot of the lead developers make some (imo) pretty stupid decisions at times, sometimes dragging the whole community back. But, I dunno about you, but I’m not asking for perfection. Just something that works and is based on values which give more power and discretion to the end user.

I was just semi-complaining that I was still looking for a decent way to backup my +4k posts without having to use paid services or even just wordpress (which has an import from tumblr tool that asks for permission to access your blog and also make posts), when I decided to actually put some effort into my google search. 

Results were positive: I have successfully backed up my blog* 

*By which I mean: everything that I have ever posted.  Not included: drafts, queue, likes, followers, following, comments, notes, chat. 

I followed this method (word by word), and now have a 450 MB folder on my computer with the name of my blog on it containing: 

1. Folder “Archive” (contains .html files listed by month) 2. Folder “Media” (contains gifs and images, mine has +1k files in it; might contain also audios but I have no way of confirming that because I’ve never reblogged an audio post from this blog) 3. Folder “Posts” (contains single .html files, each one a post; I have +4k files in it) 4. Folder “Theme” (contains only my avatar, but it might be a matter of if you have personalized themes or not) 5. .html file “Index” (by opening it it will give you the archive of your blog organized by month; clicking on a month will open up the archive for that month, and you’ll be able to read all the posts for that month as if you were on your blog**, except sans your theme graphic, with each page containing 50 posts)

**I can see gifs, links, embedded videos, tags, number of notes (but I can’t open up the notes, clearly), text is also correctly formatted. 

So yeah, in case anyone wants a very quick way to back up their blog, it took me less than 10 minutes. 

The door to your office opens up, letting in a flood of bright light from the world outside your cave, and a messenger stands squarely in the middle of the door frame.

“Telegram for giant jester!”

You walk over, take your telegram, and read.

“READ FIRST SENTENCE AGAIN STOP”

You smile confusedly and think it might be a mistaken delivery. You throw the telegram into the bin beside the door. The deliverer still stands like a gatekeeper, blocking the exit.

“Another telegram for giant jester!”

You think this is all very strange. People usually don’t send two in a row, and now this messenger won’t leave you alone. You are beginning to sweat lightly in your cheap cotton suit. You open this new telegram and read it.

“REDISTRIBUTION INVOLVES TAKING MONEY FROM PEOPLE WHO HAVEN’T WORKED FOR IT YOU THINK JEFF BEZOS MOVES EVERY PACKAGE HIMSELF THE BASTARD SITS THERE AND MAKES THE SALARIES OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE IN A MINUTE ALL BECAUSE HE EXPLOITS THE TIME AND ENERGY OF HIS WORKERS HOW IS THAT NOT STEALING WHY ARENT THE WORKERS GETTING PAID FOR THE EFFORTS THEY GIVE IN FULL”

You have no idea how the sender got all this text on one telegram sheet. You’re feeling queasy from this anomaly. The text is clearly too much for the sheet but it hovers delicately off the edge anyway. Youre unable to process the contents of the message due to a dark, evil sickness in your stomach. The sentry stands tall and firm at the doorway.

“One last telegram for G. Jester!”

Your shaking legs buckle and you fall to the oak floor and slowly rest yourself on your side. You pray to all the gods you know (and a few you don’t) that everything will be okay. You don’t understand what is happening. The messenger turns to you and begins to speak the telegram:

“No one was talking about stealing or redistribution anyway. You believed you were reading between the lines when in actuality you read past it, drifting off into space instead of staying with earthly affairs. And now you lay on the ground and beg with tears and snot soaking into the floor beams that we may spare you. Pathetic, isn’t it? You swung at a dummy and still managed to miss. Where is your sense of self respect? Of keeping your mouth shut when you need to? Did you lose it somewhere? Did you never have it in the first place? Why did you comment on this post in such a way as to assume the intent of its author when you clearly know so, so little about the world, about people, about yourself. We will leave you for now to contemplate on this.”

the tag “fur-ry” (minus the dash) is among those in the site-side blacklist, and is why so much artwork and so many blogs are suddenly invisible from the search.

provided this isn’t a temporary measure, i strongly advise to remove the “fur-ry” tag and use stand-in tags such as “anthro” and “kemono”, since neither are affected. 

blacklisted furry furries cleanfur cleanfurs female furry femfurry furry male furry female

unaffected anthro anthro art anthropomorphic avian clean furry cleanfurry cute furry femalefurry furry art furryart furry oc furry sfw furry fandom furryfandom fursona fursona art kemono male furry scalie sfw furry sfwfurry safe fur work

the tag “fur-ry” (minus the dash) is among those in the site-side blacklist, and is why so much artwork and so many blogs are suddenly invisible from the search.

provided this isn’t a temporary measure, i strongly advise to remove the “fur-ry” tag and use stand-in tags such as “anthro” and “kemono”, since neither are affected. 

I would say Pete Hines is more culpable and at fault for the mess regarding refunds of 76, the nylon bag issue of the power armor edition. And So On.