Welcome to theATL.social
Contribute to theATL.social’s operations via Patreon ❤️
About
theATL.social is a growing Mastodon server focused on the Atlanta, GA region.
Questions about Mastodon, the Fediverse, ActivityPub, and all the other tech word things? Check out fedi.tips.
Primary Admin Contact
- Email: michael@theatl.social
- Mastodon Username: @michael@theatl.social
Secondary Admin Contact
- Email: theatl_admin@sigler.io
- Mastodon Username: @r@theatl.social
Why have an Atlanta-focused server for Mastodon?
People typically join small- to medium-sized servers based on some aspect of a server that personally appeals to them. Those aspects have included professions, cities/regions, or interests.
There was not yet an Atlanta, Georgia-focused Mastodon server, so I decided to create one.
Additional Information Pages
Status Page
The status of the service may be monitored at status.theatl.social
Principles and Rules
Tl;dr: Be a good citizen, foster positive interactions, and don’t post illegal or inappropriate content.
Suggestions or Feedback?
Background
Every Mastodon server chooses a set of principles, rules, and operating values. For servers that wish to connect to other servers in the Fediverse, there are some minimum standards of “good citizenship.”
Above and beyond these principals, server administrators may establish the ground rules that the server users must abide.
Privacy
Operating Philosophy
The operating philosophy of theATL.social is to provide an open forum where content may be posted free from censorship and/or interference from admins.
- ✅ Accounts for self-promotion (e.g., artists, businesses, etc.) are OK.
- ✅ Accounts for Commercial Purposes, or on behalf of for-profit organizations are OK
- 🛑 Spam accounts are not OK. Please refer to the Spam account policy below.
The Rules
This server abides by the Mastodon Server Covenant
- No Violence
- Users may not advocate or promote violence against an individual, groups, (profit or non-profit) organizations, governments, elected officials, or government officials/employees.
- No Pornography or Graphic Sexual Images
- Users may not post pornography, including graphic sexual media or text.
- Users may not solicit or offer sexual services in their posts or statuses.
- Users should label posts with a content warning if the post does not include graphic sexual images, but would be considered “not safe for work.”
- No Copyrighted Material
- Users may only post content for which they have a legal right to post.
- No Illegal Content
- Users may not post content that is illegal in the United States or the State of Georgia.
- No Doxing, Trolling, Toxic Behavior, or Hate Speech
- No trolling, doxing, dogpilling or related behavior, please.
- Users may not post content that advocates or espouses discrimination, bigotry, or hate against individuals (or groups of individuals) based on personal characteristics or attributes.
- No Inauthentic Accounts or Behavior including misleading identity, purpose, or origin of the entity that they represent, AI-generated faces misrepresenting the account, or accounts created with the intent to engage in abusive or spam-like behavior.
Spam Account Policy
Defintion
- Spam accounts are defined as having one or more of the following characteristics:
- Inauthentic accounts representing fictitious individuals or organizations. The creation of inauthentic accounts may include the use of scraped images/text to falsely establish identity.
- Accounts created for malicious purposes or for purposes of abusing server resources through mass DMs or other related activities.
Detection
- Automated methods are utilized to screen for spam accounts. Accounts detected through automated methods are manually reviewed before further action is taken.
Mitigation and Appeal
Under most circumstances, if a spam account is detected, an email inquiry to the account’s email address will be sent. If a response is not received within 7 days, and/or if responses do not provide satisfactory information, accounts may be subject to freezing and/or suspension.
Egregious examples of spam accounts will be subject to an immediate suspension. Upon suspension, the affected account will have the opportunity to appeal the suspension.
Reporting
- Reports on the number and reasons for account suspensions will be provided on a periodic basis via newsletters or related communications.
Moderation Policies
- Rule violations on theATL.social identified by admins or theATL.social users
- If theATL.social server admins observe content in violation of the rules, or of admins receive a moderation complaint, the offending post will be hidden, and the user contacted for follow-up. Users will be provided the opportunity to appeal post removal, however, the admins reserve the right for final adjudication of the matter.
- Rule violation reports from other Mastodon/Fediverse servers.
- theATL.social seeks to be a good citizen on the Fediverse. While other instance’s rules may be different from theATL.social rules, users are asked to be mindful of other instance’s rules and practices.
- If theATL.social server admins are contacted by another Mastodon server and informed of abusive behavior or violations by a user of theATL.social, admins will contact the user to determine the nature of the complaint. Except in extreme situations, users will have an opportunity to appeal or contest complaints from other servers.
- If the complaint is justified, admins reserve the right to take action to ensure that theATL. social is not de-federated by the other instance. Admins also reserve the right for final adjudication of complaints from other Mastodon servers.
Sunset Plan
While all current plans for theATL.social are geared towards growth and expansion, there is also the unlikely possibility that in the future, circumstances would require the server to be shutdown.
In lieu of shutdown, server admins pledge to identify alternative server admins or owners.
However, should shutdown be unavoidable, server admins commit to providing at least, but not limited to, a three month (90 day) notice to current users of shutdown. This notice is intended to provide adequate time for users to transfer their accounts.