Should this instance be managed, operated by niven... - Online Poll - StrawPoll.com
strawpoll.com
What's your opinion? Vote now: Yes! I would feel more confident if a non-profit foundation is running this, No! I want this instance to be completely independent...

Please participate in the poll. Question is whether we should migrate control, maintenance, community operations etc to Nivenly (Hackyderm) foundation.

  • Vorpal@lemmyrs.orgEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    Well, it is hard to answer this. It just raises questions:

    • Who is hosting/admining this right now? One of the r/rust mods? Or someone else?
    • What would happen if this organisation went bad/went under? Would anyone be able to take back control?
    • What would happen if the current hoster/admin went AWOL/hit by a bus/etc? Is there anyone else (preferably in a separate country) with enough access to take over and sort things out?
    • What would be gained from this? E.g. do they provide any specific services to the community?
    • lemmyrs@lemmyrs.orgOPMEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I agree, many questions to answer (which is why I made the post :)).

      Here we go:

      Who is hosting/admining this right now? One of the r/rust mods? Or someone else?

      Me, just a regular engineer, not a r/rust mod. I’m hosting this because:

      • I like self-hosting and wanted to participate in the fediverse
      • I write Rust professionally and very much enjoy the community around it but the recent Reddit fiasco made me realize that I need to do something about it

      What would happen if this organisation went bad/went under? Would anyone be able to take back control?

      By “this” you mean Nivenly? Yeah I don’t know about that. I think it’s best to have redundancy if we are to migrate entirely away from Reddit, presumably Nivenly takes care of that? Once I/others get in touch with them, we can answer this better.

      What would happen if the current hoster/admin went AWOL/hit by a bus/etc? Is there anyone else (preferably in a separate country) with enough access to take over and sort things out?

      So yeah, if I get hit by a bus, this instance will likely be dead as it stands right now. I’m working on potential mod/admin applications and will post something in the next couple days on some sort of streamlined public process so a few folks (other than myself and ideally in different time zones) can maintain the instance in my absence.

      What would be gained from this? E.g. do they provide any specific services to the community?

      Presumably:

      • Transparency
      • Governance
      • Maintenance and uptime
      • Server Costs(?)
      • More outreach?
      • Vorpal@lemmyrs.orgEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        That was a pretty good answer. It is still difficult to make a choice from that. And presumably we would still need mods etc to actually handle things, build community etc. Having a good non-profit behind this seems beneficial though, but we need to have an escape hatch should things go south. Rebuilding a community again every few years is not productive.

        That said, since you do not (from my understanding) have a background in running and moderating a community, it might be… interesting to see what happens when the first big controversy happens. (Not if, something is going to happen eventually. Either external causing heated discussions, like recently with the pulled talk. Or something internal, like a disagreement that leads to heated words. That is just human life.) You might want to have some mod(s) with experience at that point. And it is going to be the moment that decides if this community floats or sinks.

        (I’m NOT volunteering btw, I absolutely do not have time or energy, nor the inclination to mod. Been there and done that back in the day on an IRC network, wasn’t for me.)