Choosing a Mastodon instance and why i joined Social.coop

Update, new tool: https://fediverse.observer/

Today i was asked:

I’m not on Mastodon yet, since I wanted to be picky about joining an instance that would make a good home. Are you happy with social.coop?

I responded:

Are you into cooperatives?

And have you tried https://instances.social/ to filter by some preferences and search (general search) to find closer interests/identity etc?

you can run any instance you find by me and i can check to see if they have a way to be clear about who is running it, how it’s funded etc. That’s what’s so cool about social.coop — it is itself a cooperative, so you’d be getting that experience! It is democratically run (and funded) by its members (but you can get on the instance without paying… uh i’m going to hastily become a paying member right now). > But yes social.coop is cool, i don’t think it’s at the top of the game in defederating from fascist / white supremacist instances, but your experience is based on who you follow across all instances anyway. I would say social.coop is a very good home base.

But of course social.coop says the reason to join better itself and maybe the real reason is the excellent Social.coop Code of Conduct and Social.Coop Wiki | Bylaws For Social.coop.

My application statement:

People should have control over everything that affects their lives— so workplace democracy and co-operative platforms and neighborhood assemblies and all that is a must. Would like to see us work on ways of deepening but also scaling democracy.

[Wonderful person’s name redacted to protect the innocent] at the Allied Media Conference just asked about joining social.coop and i realized i should finally make myself an honest member.

Also, into joining cooperatives: https://agaric.gitlab.io/raw-notes/notes/2020-06-29-cooperatives-agarics-belong-to/

… used the link because tying out just some of the co-ops i’m in broke the character count.

Member of Agaric, a worker-owned cooperative. In Minneapolis i’m in the Northeast Investment Cooperative and Fair State Brewing Cooperative; in Boston Agaric is in the Boston Chamber of Cooperatives; nationally i’m in Digital Federal Credit Union and Agaric is in the USFWC.

Cooperatives joining cooperatives! https://members.webarchitects.coop/t/mastodon-co-operatives-and-the-fediverse/50

I can’t find the toot listing cooperatively-run instances, but here’s a discussion on a Mastodon instance that is democratic and cooperatively run discussing supporting the movement:

https://sunbeam.city/@socalledunitedstates/101444672770126707

Aha maybe this is the one i was remembering:

https://social.coop/@dazinism/101666311886270279

That mentions these cooperative Mastodon instances:

Mentioned, but not Mastodon instances:

Which is from this thread, about an adjacent topic:

Owen Jacobson @owen@mastodon.transneptune.net

I want a deployment platform for apps that operates as a user-owned cooperative rather than as a privately-owned, for-profit enterprise, but I’m not aware of anything in the space operating that way. Open-source platform systems like Flynn are the closest, but to me part of the value prop is in centralizing expertise while distributing risk, and open source doesn’t scratch that itch. Feb 11, 2019, 22:48 · 0 · 0 Feb 11, 2019 Owen Jacobson @owen@mastodon.transneptune.net

Given what I know about group consensus and decisions, I feel like I might be able to help found just such a cooperative - but I don’t know who else is interested. 1 Feb 12, 2019 kit ✅ 🌞😷 @wlonk@mastodon.transneptune.net

@owen I feel like you, @elplatt, and @turtlebird should all talk about this stuff. 1 Feb 12, 2019 Edward L Platt @elplatt@greatjustice.net

@wlonk @owen ::waves:: 1 Feb 15, 2019 Owen Jacobson @owen@mastodon.transneptune.net

@elplatt @wlonk Been chewing on this since I posted it. Couple of threads, still in need of development:

@elplatt @wlonk My hypo is that a democratic organization of users could operate a platform, delegating the work based on expertise, funding the underlying pieces & peoples’ time and energy through membership fees. I’ve got some personal prefs around the structure of that organization - I think the classic board-of-governors model isn’t necessarily a good fit - but I want to bounce this off more people before I really flesh them out. 1+ Feb 16, 2019 Edward L Platt @elplatt@greatjustice.net

@owen @wlonk do you mean mastodon specifically? It something else? 0 Feb 27, 2019 𝒅𝒂𝒛𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒎 @dazinism

@owen

Also into this kind of thing

Not sure exactly what you thinking, a few things about that may be worth looking at-

Co-ops based around mastodon instances - social.coop #SunBeamCity #GreatJusticeNet darkpeak.org (also does other stuff)

Other stuff- diglife.com - coop that researches, develops, funds and supports Tech We Trust

ecobytes.net - Non-profit, community-supported and -oriented IT collective for hosting & services @elplatt @wlonk 1 Feb 27, 2019 Owen Jacobson @owen@mastodon.transneptune.net

@dazinism @elplatt @wlonk Extremely here for this. Thank you. I had also been looking at miraheze, which isn’t quite a co-op but could be turned into one with some political nudges. 1 Feb 27, 2019 𝒅𝒂𝒛𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒎 @dazinism

@owen

We been chatting on social.coop matrix/riot about governance/funding/volunteers/our offering recently

A load starts here https://matrix.to/#/!akkaZImONyQWKswVdt:matrix.org/$15495330151457801YmxZL:matrix.org

Also some here https://matrix.to/#/!aIpzDTRzEEUkMCcBay:matrix.org/$155076770648280nutYm:matrix.org @elplatt @wlonk [matrix] matrix.to 0 11m benjamin melançon @mlncn

@dazinism @owen @elplatt @wlonk

I just scrolled through a year-and-a-half’s worth of Owen’s (excellent) posts to get here… i do wish Mastodon made it easier to go from public post found online to interacting-with-it-on-ones-own-instance. But would love to know what further cooperative Mastodon instances have been found, and what other infrastructure coops have been identified or started!

Glad https://darkpeak.org/ was already mentioned. https://www.webarchitects.co.uk/ is a multistakeholder coop Dark Peak darkpeak.org 0 7m benjamin melançon @mlncn

@dazinism @owen @elplatt @wlonk

New on the scene, with a specific focus but lots of infrastructure focus, is https://www.meet.coop

Meet.coop provides audiovideo chat services on par with Zoom (for a more limited number of people sharing video all at the same time) using the open source free software Big Blue Button Open source cooperative video conferencing platform, meet.coop www.meet.coop 0 5m benjamin melançon @mlncn

@dazinism @owen @elplatt @wlonk

And, of course, if you don’t already know about it:

https://ioo.coop/directory/

can be filtered for “cloud” in Activities and for “platform co-op” as a Category. #PlatformCoop Directory - The Internet of Ownership The Internet of Ownership 0 2m benjamin melançon @mlncn

@dazinism @owen @elplatt @wlonk

Good grief, that list reminds me reminds me— May First Movement Technology is great, and i’ve been a member for going on 15 years, and they became a cooperative just last year:

https://mayfirst.coop

Definitely not generic web services, but in addition to basic website hosting they provide NextCloud to members and Jitsi for all, among other services. 0 20s benjamin melançon @mlncn

… and used to do an non-Mastodon ActivityPub server, but i think has shut that down and not transitioned to Mastodon yet. Ping @mayfirst@social.mayfirst.org ?

Finding a Mastodon instance for the Twin Cities Workers Defense Alliance

Candidates: