This is a queer-friendly federated Mastodon instance. You may use it as a personal account, and jokes are definitely encouraged, but the focus is on academics. Real names and credentials are encouraged so that everyone is clear about who is talking and where they are coming from; however, we understand that publicly posting with real names is less safe for some scholars than others, and so they are not required. IN GENERAL, this server is governed by norms (standards of behaviour which we want to uphold, and hold each other accountable for) rather than rules (requirements which are enforced with the threat of punishment). If you are new to Mastodon, you may find
this guide useful. You can also find more in-depth information on the Fediverse at
joinfediverse.wiki.
Encouraged uses of this server: - Brag about your publications
- Share references and resources
- Network with other academics
- Put it on the last slide of your conference presentation
- Recruit participants for academic surveys—formal, IRB-approved ones or even informal ones (just make sure to CW them so that others can consent and don't get too obnoxious about it; see the full Terms of Service for details about other research on members)
- Satire and activism are welcome here, but they must make a good-faith effort to punch up. ("Punching up": making jokes or criticism at the expense of those with more power, higher status or greater privilege.)
- Non-academic, "off-topic" stuff is allowed, and even encouraged. However, if you need to be told that proselytisation is not appropriate, then this is probably not the server for you.
Who is welcome on this server? Do I need to be a full-time student, teacher or researcher? The "topic" for this instance is the academic study of religion, broadly construed. You do not need an advanced degree to join (or any degree, for that matter). If you consider yourself a scholar of religion in any capacity, and you are willing to engage with others respectfully, and you will respect our community's efforts to make this a safe space for queer people and other minorities, you are absolutely welcome here. This instance was specifically started to provide a safe space for minorities in academia. Due to the antagonistic relationship that law enforcement has often had with these groups, police officers and employees of any law enforcement or intelligence agency are not welcome on this instance.
Institutional Accounts As Mastodon grows, more institutions, learned societies, research projects, and publications are seeking a home. We recognise that there is a large difference in the budgetary and technical capabilities of various entities, and that self-hosting is not an option for everyone. We will review requests for these accounts on a case-by-case basis, and are more likely to approve accounts for smaller learned societies and research projects where the timescale and budget make self-hosting impractical than for entire departments or societies large enough to employ their own staff. In order to permit proper moderation, we do require assurance that each account will be run by a single, named individual rather than shared amongst a group. In order to minimise the demand such accounts make on server capacity, we request that they run primarily as announcement accounts. We do request that societies which choose to make this instance their permanent home consider a small donation to hosting costs. This policy is subject to periodic review as Mastodon grows and changes. Owners of institutional accounts will be consulted in advance of any changes which would result in their use being restricted.
Introduce yourself! After signing up, post a message to the Local Timeline telling us who you are, what your academic interests are, and helping us to get to know you better. Please tag your post with #introduction. It's also useful to tag it with #Religidon so that the wider community of religion scholars on Mastodon can see it.
Content Warnings (CW's) Please add CW's (content warnings) that are accurate and descriptive enough to enable reader consent to the following types of posts:
- rants,
- selfies,
- current events (includes: US or non-US, local, national, international, and should be applied regardless of whether sources are academic or non-partisan),
- high-conflict or otherwise exhausting issues of popular debate (e.g. climate change, GMO's, privacy issues, elections, etc.),
- mentions of death or violence,
- references or links to Facebook/Twitter/other big tech companies,
- spoilers of popular and recent TV shows or other media,
- ASCII art (this one is important to ensure that someone using a screen reader doesn't have to listen to an attempt to read out a bunch of obscure symbols)
- stresses particular to academia such as grades, exams, thesis progress, academic job market prospects, and
- anything else where another user might want to decide for themselves whether or when they want to interact with your post.
In general, think of your posts not just as shouting out into the void, but as communication with real humans on the other side of the screen, and try to be considerate of those real humans. There is a setting in your preferences to open all posts with Content Warnings automatically, if you don't want to click through each one.
Image descriptions It is a norm on this instance that you add accurate descriptions to all images and video that you post to aid in accessibility. (A description like "image.jpg" that does not aid in accessibility would not meet this expectation.) If you post an image of a screenshot of text, it is a norm on this instance that you transcribe the text in the image description.
The Local Timeline Posts on the Local Timeline (ones with the "Public" privacy setting) will be checked to ensure that Content Warnings are applied, images are described, and other norms are adhered to. Unlisted posts will not be proactively reviewed, but will still be subject to rules regarding abuse and other hate-speech. NOTE: The "official" Mastodon app is NOT recommended for use on this instance, as it does not allow for posting using the "Unlisted" privacy setting. Consider using a CW if you're not sure that your post is "on-topic." This instance is not meant to be a current events news aggregator, and if your post seems to fall into this category, you are likely to receive a gentle request to delete and re-draft it with a CW or as an Unlisted post. Let's try to avoid turning the Local Timeline into the same rehashing of the outrage-of-the-day that we see on Twitter! Not every post on the Local Timeline should be CW'd, but most should. Do your best to try to accommodate each other, and try to be understanding when there is a clash of expectations or needs.
Unwelcome conduct The following will result in: a warning from the admin or having offending posts deleted, possibly without prior notice, depending on the severity of the issue.
- Providing unsolicited advice to strangers (see exception below)
- Inappropriate un-CW'd posts on the Local Timeline (see above for CW policies)
- Posts with un-described images or video
- Shortened links, e.g. bit.ly, t.ly, tinyurl.com, goo.gl, ift.tt, lnkd.in, is.gd or t.co (These are considered malicious because link-shorteners track users without their consent and obscure the destination address, which also prevents users from being able to decide whether they want to visit the link beforehand)
- Advertisement or apologia for cryptocurrencies, NFT's, or multi-level marketing schemes. (This is the one that's most likely to lead to summary deletion.)
Exceptions:
- DOI links (e.g. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k959) are allowed but the post must accurately describe the title/author/journal to allow the reader to decide for themselves whether they would like to follow the link. (In cases of very long titles, you may truncate it, and in cases of long author lists, "First-Author et al" will do.) Posts with DOI links where the target of the link is not described, or not described sufficiently, may be deleted without warning.
- Unsolicited advice is allowed if its purpose is providing help to new users (e.g instructions on how to use CWs or image descriptions)
Things that will get your account closed, possibly without warning These are the things that are not open to negotiation.
- Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, able-ism, etc. (will result in a permanent ban, you may not receive a prior warning)
- Serious dishonesty that is hurtful to others (e.g. falsely representing oneself as a member of a minority; services offering to write academic papers to help students cheat; vaccine denialism; predatory conferences or journals; overt pseudoscience such as flat-earther-ism etc.)
- Anything that could be described as "spam"
- Impersonating other people
- Harassment of any kind. This includes heckling, sea-lioning, and continuing to push a "robust debate" past the point that the other party has indicated that they are done.
- No bots and no "institutional" accounts operated by non-members please; this instance is for people
- Tools that repeat a Twitter account must post as Unlisted, not Public. Mirroring Twitter must not be the sole purpose of an account.
Regarding attempts to abuse these anti-abuse tools and policies Do not attempt to weaponize our Community Standards or anti-abuse tools/policies against marginalized groups such as people of colour, women or queer people. Users are expected to have the literacy to understand that "reverse discrimination" is not real, and so attempts to re-centre discussions of marginalized people around the feelings of the privileged will be taken as manipulative behaviour undertaken deliberately in bad-faith. (E.g. white people should not demand that people of colour put CW's on every discussion of race; a straight person who reports a queer person for writing "I hate straight people" may find their own account suspended.) We recognise that the world is large, and there are indeed some contexts in which Christians do constitute a marginalised group, but Europe and North America are not among them.
More information may be found in our
Terms of Service.