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Fediphilosophy: server guide and rules

Welcome to fediphilosophy.org, a Mastodon instance for academic philosophers (broadly construed)!

This page gives server guide and rules for the fediphilosophy Mastodon server only. For a more detailed guide on Mastodon in general, here are some resources to refer to:

An increasingly less-brief introduction to Mastodon

What is Mastodon?

How To Use Mastodon and the Fediverse: Advanced Tips

Table of Content

Getting started on fediphilosophy
Server rules
FAQ
Support the server

Statement Against Data Scraping

Fediphilosophy does not support server’s data being used for any form of machine training

As of July 3rd, 2023, Google announced that it allowed itself to scrape any online content it has access to for the purpose of machine learning algorithm training. The admins of Fediphilosophy would like to state that we are against this practice, even though we currently do not possess the means to stop it.

Please note that Fediphilosophy is currently indexed by Google, with individual account set to indexable by default. You can change this setting for your own account under Preferences.

Getting started on fediphilosophy

Who can join?

We welcome past or current academics (including graduate students) whose work engage with philosophy. You don’t have to be affiliated with a philosophy department.

This is a real identity server. Please have identifying information somewhere in your profile (username or display name or bio).

We welcome accounts from all languages.

Institutional Accounts

We welcome institutional accounts (departments, journals, societies, etc). Since we rely on real professional identity to curb problematic behaviour, we ask institutional accounts to comply with one of the following:

Have a verified homepage that 1) displays enough information about your organization for mods to judge that it fits the target audience of our server, and 2) contains some way of contacting you. (Here is a guide on how to verify a link.)
Identify an individual (either through a real identity Mastodon account or a real name + contact), in bio, that fits our server invitation rules.

How to join?

Go to fediphilosophy.org to request an invitation. Please provide your academic name and a link to your institutional affiliated page. If you are not current affiliated, provide a link that proves you are an active researcher (e.g., google scholar site).

You do not need to use an institutional email. In fact, it’s probably better if you use a free domain email like gmail or hotmail. (Our server domain is new and therefore looked upon suspiciously by institutional mail servers.)

Note that invitations may take some time to be processed.

Getting started

Bios and introduction

After choosing a display name and filling in a bio, you can introduce yourself to the local instance by tagging #introduction to your post. We are working on an auto-boosting intro bot. In the meantime, you can click on the tag to view everybody's introductions.

Finding people to follow

You can browse the Local timeline to see public posts by other users of fediphilosophy.
You can find people on this GitHub page of Academics on Mastodon.
You can browse this list of academic servers, maintained by fediscience.org.

Note: to follow someone from another instance, you need their full account name, which is [username]@[domain name]. Similarly, to have other people follow you, give them [yourusername]@fediphilosophy.org

Restricting interaction

There are many ways to disengage on Mastodon. You can filter content, block users, or block entire instances. You can also limit posts to be visible to followers only, and require potential followers to ask for your approval before they can follow you. For detailed guides, see here.

Features

(If anyone knows how to program bots and would like to help me, it would be much appreciated!)

Server rules

No hate speech, discrimination, or harassment.
Don’t do anything that’s illegial in Lithuania or where you live.
Use the Content Warning (CW) and the sensitive image features in accordance with common sense.
If you suspect someone is impersonating, please notify the admin.
As a general rule, if you dislike someone’s posts, disengage with them first. Only report (and please do report) a user if 1) they are going out of their way to harass you or another user, or 2) you believe their conduct negatively affect the community.
CW feature can be also used to collapse long posts, and is generally a good practice for long discussions on a narrow topic.
Most offenses will start with a warning. Especially egregious offenses may result in immediate bans.
Repeated baseless reporting will be warned and possibly banned, too.

Privacy and security

<aside> It is very important to know that you are using a server that I (the admin) own (well, rent, but same idea). Anything you post on the server, including private messages, are not private to me. </aside>

I won’t want to read your private messages, but I can. If you want to send something truly privately, please use an email or a phone.

I will do my due diligence to ensure the security of your data. But if disaster strikes, or if you are banned from the server, I am not obligated to recover your data. Please don’t use this server to store vital information.

This server endorses freedom of expression in the sense that I will not ban or censor posts (unless they violate server rules). It does not mean that I can protect your online presence from other authorities.

FAQ

Q: Does it mean I can only post professional content here?

A: No. You can post whatever you want, as long as you obey server rules. (Basically, don’t be a jerk!)

Q: What's the difference between Mastodon servers? Should I change server?

A: There are several reasons someone already on a Mastodon server might want to switch to another one (called "migration"):

One server is better supported than the other, such as being on a more stable hosting service and having more active admins.
One server has better configuration than the other.

Since Mastodon is open source, each instance has the liberaty to modify it in a variety of ways. For example, the default character limit for a toot is 500. Fediphilosophy has the character limit set to 10,000. These kinds of changes will be able to display across servers (i.e., a low-limit server can still see the entirety of a 10k character toot... we have an auto-collapse function), but if it's important to how you use Mastodon, you might consider a migration.
You prefer the domain name of one over the other.
Servers are able to ban each other, making it that no one in this server can interact with accounts in the banned server. If your old server has enough bad actors to be banned by a server you'd like to interact with, you might want to consider a migration.

Other than the above, it doesn't make a big difference which server you are on. You can interact with anyone (well, anyone that isn't banned from and hasn't banned your server) on the fediverse.

If you'd like to migrate, follow this guide: How to migrate from one server to another

Support the server

Artistically

It would be really nice if someone can draw me a picture of a philosophizing Mastodon to use as the server icon. Just sayin’.

Intellectually

If you have any great ideas on how to improve the server, let me know! Bonus points if you also know how to implement them. Ideas include but are not limited to:

New bots or modifications of existing bots.
Changes to server rules.
Cool events.

Financially

Please: no financial contribution from precariously employed scholars.

You’re also not at all expected to contribute financially. That said, if you really want to, you can do so here: https://ko-fi.com/fediphilosophy

Credit

Fediphilosophy is created and operated by Kino Zhao (@kinozhao@fediphilosophy.org) and Chrisy Xiyu Du (@xiyudu@fediphilosophy.org)