Tŵt Cymru | Toot Wales (“Tŵt”) interconnects various services using the ActivityPub standard. ActivityPub provides two layers; a server to server federation protocol so decentralized websites can share information, and a client to server protocol so real-world users, bots, and other automated processes can communicate with ActivityPub using their accounts on servers.
Tŵt curates the third-party servers with which it federates, with the aim to provide a moderate, friendly channel for people to use for all manner of topics and conversations, while observing the general etiquette of being in a public space.
We believe that participation in social media should be a rewarding activity, one that brings joy and connection. As such, while there are topics and content that are worthy of discussion, we hope our members are mindful of those who do not want their social media feed to be divisive, inflammatory, or upsetting.
Tŵt Cymru | Toot Wales (“Tŵt”) is a collection of Web services whose mission is to connect Cymru and its diverse community, at home and abroad, encouraging and enabling the use of the Welsh language online. We strive to provide a welcoming, bilingual platform that is free from hate, discrimination, and harm.
In all cases, when using the Tŵt services we ask you be respectful, be mindful, and be nice. The Community Code of Conduct includes by reference the Tŵt Cymru / Toot Wales Community Participation Guidelines which are attached below.
Discussing politics on Mastodon is fast becoming a hot-button topic. I’ve seen a lot conversation lately about whether or not “politics'' should be behind a CW and there’s one side asking for “politics” to be CWed and another side declaring it to be the most important thing in the world and should never be CWed. (skip the intro and go straight to the play)
I do not see or hear the ninety percent of people who rarely speak up. As with all things, a small selection of voices is speaking up one way or the other (ref. the 1% rule).
We’ve worked hard on explaining the subtleties and expectations in our Community Code of Conduct, but nonetheless it’s important to note two things:
Tŵt is a bilingual online social content platform, very similar to Twitter in some ways, and very much not in others. You may well be thinking the same thing I heard a more than a few times during its development; “do we really need another social media platform?” and I hope you’ll read on to see if indeed there might just be a good answer to that question.
First, the similarities.
Tŵt allows anyone to create a member account and post messages up to 500 characters to the network; we call these “Tŵtiau” or “Toots”. These messages can contain #hashtags and links, as well as video and image files. Members can subscribe to other members on the network, and reply to anything in their content feed.
Familiar ground for many, but what makes Tŵt a meaningful alternative?
Technologically the differences are privacy and ownership. Unlike Twitter, Tŵt makes it simple for authors to control who can see their content, who can follow them, and they can completely remove themselves from the network at will. If desired, all content can be retrieved and even transported to a competing service providing it uses the same underlying software.
Philosophically, Tŵt is completely open source and is operated as a non-profit; no advertising, no dues, no fees of any kind. And Tŵt comes with clear guidelines about what is considered unacceptable content.
A quick note for new members jumping ship from Twitter. First off: welcome! We are incredibly glad you have come to see what Mastodon and Mastodon servers like Tŵt are all about!
In all cases, you will find a community of friendly people ready to help you navigate a slightly different experience than you're used to on Twitter. Ask your questions in the app and you'll have an answer in no time!
This is not Twitter or an attempt to clone Twitter. It's the same but different, and is intended to be so. We are micro-blogging for people who want to control their social media feeds, be free of harassment and abuse, and want to join a more communal, supportive service that is non-toxic, non-corporate, non-surveillance.
Community Requests for Account Suspensions (3 of 3)
[This document will be published in three parts, such that Part 1 can be referenced in future conversations, Part 2 deals with a very specific set of account concerns, and Part 3 addresses some long form questions posted to the moderators on Tŵt.]
Part 3 of 3 Response to community questions
Several members of toot.wales, as well as users from other Mastodon instances posed several questions and comments around our response to their concerns over one of the accounts that some people felt deserved stronger moderation than they were perceiving. These questions are preserved and answered below.