Welcome to Ceilidh.OnlineI am Tiesa Meskis, the owner and primary administrator of this instance, and I am a transgender woman who is actively involved in the LGBTQIA+ community. Open Source flows through my veins as I have worked with numerous projects since 1992ish. I chose the name Ceilidh, pronounced Kay-lee, from the Gaelic language as it means Social Gathering. My goals for this site are to offer a place where people can take part in the greater #Fediverse and have a say in the policies of the instance. The initial rules that I have come up with are based on acceptable use from other instances and I intend to add and update rules as needed and with the approval of those using this instance.
Please donate if you are ableUsage of this instance will always be free and no features will ever be locked behind a paywall. Even so, it does take time and money to keep things going and this is the only place where you will be asked for help to pay the bills. Our goal is to use 1/3 of any donations to split between the open-source initiatives that keep our instance going. The remainder will be used to maintain and upgrade resources and probably buy the admins and mods a beverage of their choice now and then. Please use the following links to make a donation that works for you:
Payments are processed through my main business
Spectrum Business Technologies using the secure payment processor
Stripe. This is to ensure that your payment information is kept safe and secure and with their fee structure, we can use more of the money collected to improve this instance.
How We Intend to Keep Things Running SmoothlyWith the influx of new users across the #Fediverse, many instances have gotten overloaded or moderation has become difficult because the number of reports is too much for their moderation team to handle. This is not meant to cast shade on my fellow instance admins, but to explain how it can become overwhelming if a policy is not put into place to keep things in check. This is the policy we currently implement in order to keep things working well:
New Accounts Must Be ApprovedAs you noticed when you created your account you had to go through a small approval process in order for your account to become active. By doing this we can help weed out those that would try to misuse this instance and limit the total number of users that are actively registered to the instance.
Problematic Instances Will Be SuspendedWe keep an eye out for instances that get mentioned using the #Fediblock hashtag. If we know and trust the source of the report then the server is put onto our Suspended list.
Otherwise, we look into the report as we can and make a determination if it is a problematic instance or a handful of users that the instance admins are hopefully in the process of moderating. If we don't see appropriate moderation then the instance will be Suspended.
We Will Actively Moderate Your ReportsWe take your reports seriously and will act on them as quickly as is humanly possible. Any reports of a user in this instance being violent to anyone here or elsewhere will result in a suspension while we look into the report and a ban will be put in place should the report be substantiated. Reports of remote users being problematic are extremely helpful as we can determine if it is a single user that is at fault or an entire instance and put controls in place accordingly. If you feel that a moderator is being problematic then please alert one of the Admins as we want to make sure our moderators are being fair and not showing preference.
Modifications to Our Policy Are OngoingAs this instance grows our policy will need to change in order to be beneficial to all that choose to call this home. Any changes will be done in order to ensure that this space remains welcoming and peaceful. If you feel a policy is problematic then please discuss it with a moderator and we can start a discussion with the rest of the instance so it can be reworked to better fit the needs of all users.