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April 2024 Connect Community Round-Up

Welcome to the inaugural ‘monthly round up’ blog, where I briefly recap the highlights of the previous month in a (hopefully) easily digestible short post. If you have any ideas for improving this blog, or any questions at all, please let me know in the Community Feedback Forum, or message me on the Fediverse (the link is in my profile). Thank you!

With IFTAS Connect opening its doors to allow invite-only moderators in for the first few weeks, we’ve had a fantastic opportunity to look around and give feedback on the usability of the site, as well as to comment on the things that could be improved. Jaz and the web team have been great at taking this constructive criticism on board, and have made several structural alterations and upgrades already based on our collective input, so thank you for taking the time to do so.

IFTAS is planning to go live in a fortnight or so, with press releases and Fediverse announcements, so hopefully the IFTAS Connect family will continue to grow and expand as more users discover it. With current membership standing at 41 (as of 8th May 2024) we are already in the privileged position of knowing our way around the site, and will be a welcoming and helpful panel for any newcomers who might need a little guidance.

Some useful conversations have taken place already over in the groups and forums. Some of them include the following:

  • A link to a discussion about Twitter bots taking up huge amounts of server storage space.
  • An articulate write-up of one moderator’s approach to antisemitism, Israel, Palestine, and the war in Gaza.
  • An interesting discussion about how to manage the drip-feeding of negativity towards moderators while the actor remains inside the Code of Conduct/rules of that server.

On a personal note, I’m really enjoying using the IFTAS Connect site. I find it intuitive, and the library is a fantastic resource for everyone – I personally found this group of Mastodon-focused articles really helpful. I’m looking forward to having more conversations here, and sharing my own experiences while also learning from others.

My own moderation experience over on toot.wales has been quite quiet this month, bar the odd bit of spam coming through, and occasional report. We’re having some reports regarding the war in Gaza (see the link I highlighted in the ‘useful conversations’ paragraph for advice if you’re having the same issues), but nothing too taxing in terms of how we deal with that. All in all, it’s been pretty low-key this April.

Thank you for reading, and I look forward to ‘seeing’ you in the Fediverse!