Server rules

Below is a summary of rules you need to follow if you want to have an account on this server of Mastodon:

1. Discrimination & Bigotry Won’t Be Tolerated. We're not a free speech absolutist. We're not interested in Nazis, TERFS, or hate speech.
2. Respect Other Users. This instance is meant to be a friendly, welcoming space to all who are willing to reciprocate in helping to create that environment.
3. Consent is Important in all contexts. If you’re ever unsure, ask first. Use content warnings (CWs) where required.
4. Listen; Don’t Make Excuses. If you’re accused of causing harm, either take some responsibility or ask moderators for help.
5. Use the Report Feature. Our moderators are here to listen and respond to reports.

*Due to increased bot signup, manual approval is required. Please write some applicable request text on signup with why you want to join. Submissions that fail to do so will be denied.*

This Mastodon instance is for tech workers, academics, students, and others interested in tech who are LGBTQIA+ or Allies.

Wondering what Mastodon is? Check out joinmastodon.org! In essence, Mastodon is a decentralized, open source social network.

Attributions

Props to @bleeptrack@chaos.social for the Mastodon art!

This instance uses Mutant Standard emoji, which are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Blobhaj emoji by @heatherhorns@plush.city.

Code of Conduct

Short Version

We try to handle moderation ASAP, but we may not see reports for several hours. We will get to all reports though!

We're not a free speech absolutist, and there are instances available for that. We're not interested in Nazis, TERFS, or hate speech of any sort, which we will define at our sole discretion as moderators. No homophobia, transphobia, queerphobia, racism allowed.

This instance is meant to be a friendly, welcoming space to all who are willing to reciprocate in helping to create that environment.

Long Version

Borrowed and modified from the mastodon.social instance information

The following guidelines are not a legal document, and final interpretation is up to the administration of tech.lgbt; they are here to provide you with an insight into our content moderation policies:

1. The following types of content will be removed from the public timeline:
   1. Excessive advertising
   2. Uncurated news bots posting from third-party news sources
   3. Untagged nudity, pornography and sexually explicit content, including artistic depictions
   4. Untagged gore and extremely graphic violence, including artistic depictions
2. The following types of content will be removed from the public timeline, and may result in account suspension and revocation of access to the service:
   1. Racism or advocation of racism
   2. Sexism or advocation of sexism
   3. Discrimination against gender and sexual minorities, or advocation thereof
   4. Xenophobic and/or violent nationalism
3. The following types of content are explicitly disallowed and will result in revocation of access to the service:
   1. Sexual depictions of children
   2. Content illegal in Germany and/or France, such as holocaust denial or Nazi symbolism
   3. Conduct promoting the ideology of National Socialism
4. Any conduct intended to stalk or harass other users, or to impede other users from utilizing the service, or to degrade the performance of the service, or to harass other users, or to incite other users to perform any of the aforementioned actions, is also disallowed, and subject to punishment up to and including revocation of access to the service. This includes, but is not limited to, the following behaviors:
   1. Continuing to engage in conversation with a user that has specifically has requested for said engagement with that user to cease and desist may be considered harassment, regardless of platform-specific privacy tools employed.
   2. Aggregating, posting, and/or disseminating a person's demographic, personal, or private data without express permission (informally called doxing or dropping dox) may be considered harassment.
   3. Inciting users to engage another user in continued interaction or discussion after a user has requested for said engagement with that user to cease and desist (informally called brigading or dogpiling) may be considered harassment.

These provisions notwithstanding, the administration of the service reserves the right to revoke any user's access permissions, at any time, for any reason, except as limited by law.

Content Warnings and Sensitive Images

Content Warnings (CWs) are a feature of Mastodon that enable you to hide the body of a "toot" (post) behind a line of text. The intended use of this feature is to provide a way to discuss sensitive and/or potentially harmful topics without causing duress or harm to anyone who might stumble upon it, though it may be used for many other things.

Images can be marked as sensitive; this is a feature which hides an image until a warning banner is clicked. Images may be marked as sensitive separately from Content Warnings, though using a Content Warning automatically marks the toot's images as sensitive.

Clearly communicated and accurately labeled content warnings and sensitive image settings are required when having public conversations involving any of the following topics or content:

• Sexual or Adult content
• Detailed descriptions of harassment as outlined above in the definitions of harassment
• Political Commentary of any kind
• Drugs or Drug Use
• Advertisements for Corporations
• "Rage" toots and Toots using exclusively capital letters
• Excessively Long Toots (longer than ~15-20 lines)

Staff

This instance is administered by the site owner, @david. Additional moderation support provided by:

• @prehensile
• @bluestarultor
• @spicytamazon
• @categorille
• @shooshy
• @amandag

Funding

This instance is funded in part by Patreon donations.

Blocked Instances

We maintain a blocklist of instances that we do not federate with. If you believe that an instance should be added to this list, please contact an admin or moderator.

The list is visible for logged-in members under the heading Unavailable content below.