Welcome to theATL.social

About

theATL.social provides ad-free user-supported social media services for the Metro Atlanta region.

Support the operation of the server (and view monthly expenses) via our OpenCollective portal at opencollective.com/theatlsocial ❤️

Services Provided

Questions about Mastodon, the Fediverse, ActivityPub, and all the other tech word things? Check out fedi.tips.

Primary Admin Contact

Secondary Admin Contact

Additional Information

theATL.social News and Announcements

For up-to-date announcements, visit yall.theatl.social: /c/theatlsocial

This page, about.theatl.social, will be updated periodically.

Status Page

The status of theATL.social services may be monitored at status.theatl.social

Mission Statement

Provide a reliable, accessible, and prudently moderated online space for those living, visiting, working, or otherwise interested in Metro Atlanta, Georgia (USA).

Suggestions or Feedback?

Privacy and Security Advisory

  • All content, including direct messages (“DM"s), posted to theATL.social Mastodon or Lemmy Instances should be considered public information that could be traced back to the content author.
  • Due to the federated nature of Fediverse services, content is duplicated across multiple servers on an automatic basis. Even if a post is “deleted”, it is almost certain that a copy of a post has been retained as a backup on a server.
  • All reasonable efforts to protect personal data, including but not limited to email addresses, passwords, and client logs of IP addresses are taken. These efforts include encryption of data at rest and in transit.
    • Security vulnerabilities in the Mastodon or Lemmy software, virtual server providers, and/or other third-party providers may pose a risk of data exfiltration despite the reasonable efforts noted above.
  • theATL.social services operate in the State of Georgia in the United States and are subject to Federal and State law. As such, in the event of lawful requests from authorities, theATL.social is required to provide any requested information.
  • Users are permitted to utilize anonymous accounts and access via VPNs if they wish to hide their IP address or any other personal identification. However, theATL.social cannot provide any guarantees of anonymity to users.

Moderation and Operating Philosophy

  • The operating philosophy of theATL.social is to provide an open forum where content may be posted by users without undue interference from instance moderators and administrators.

  • The personal and/or political beliefs of moderators should not interfere with users’ ability to post content, news, or links.

  • Server rules are clear and transparent. Prohibitions against violence, hate speech, and trolling are intended to ensure the physical safety of users (and those individuals under discussion), promote civil discussions, and mitigate the likelhood of law enforcement involvement or inquiries in response to posted content.

Server Rules for all theATL.social Services

The following server rules apply to any services provided via:

  1. No Violence
    • Users may not advocate or promote violence against an individual, groups of individuals, (profit or non-profit) organizations, governments, elected officials, or government officials/employees.
  2. No Doxing, Trolling, Toxic Behavior, or Hate Speech
    • No trolling, doxing, dogpiling 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 their personal characteristics.
  3. No Illegal Content
    • Users may not post content that is illegal in the United States or the State of Georgia.
  4. 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.
    • This rule does not preclude the creation of anonymous accounts, or accounts intended as parody.

Mastodon Server Rules

The Mastodon Server rules refer to theATL.social site.

This Matodon server abides by the Mastodon Server Covenant

In addition to the guidance located in the Covenant, the following additional rules apply:

  1. 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.”

Lemmy-specific Rules

  1. NSFW Content Is Permitted, but Must be Labeled Accordingly:
    • “Not Safe for Work” content is permissible on yall.theatl.social, however, content must be labeled appropriately in the Lemmy interface and only posted to a community permitting NSFW content.
    • Posted content must not contradict server rules or Federal and State laws.

Moderation Actions

  1. Rule violations on any theATL.social services
    • If theATL.social server admins observe content in violation of the rules, or if 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.
    • In extreme situations, admins reserve the right to take immediate action, should the safety of persons, the integrity of computing resources, or other critical assets are threatened by user activity.
  2. Rule violation reports from other Mastodon/Fediverse servers.
    • theATL.social seeks to be a good citizen on the Fediverse. theATL.social users are kindly requested to review server rules on other servers with which they interact. Some server rules may be more strict or otherwise different from rules on theATL.social.
    • If admins are contacted by another Mastodon or Lemmy 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.

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.

Sunset Plan

Required as per Mastodon Server Covenant

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.