We are organizers, transit riders, renters, union members, tech workers, musicians, climate activists; we are passionate about mobility justice, a right to housing, and intersectional communities.

Values

Mastodon Transit Authority builds community and solidarity. We welcome those interested in building thriving communities online and in real-life throughout the Puget Sound Region. We are organizers, nerdy about transit, renters, union members, tech workers, musicians, neighbors, climate activists, mutual aid participants; we are passionate about mobility justice, a right to housing, and cross-race / cross-class / cross-generational / intersectional communities. We endeavor to welcome anyone making a long- or short-term stay here, and make this instance your home.

Code of Conduct

We want people to be curious. To ask questions rather than start with accusations. We also want people to recognize power dynamics and lived experience in terms of their expectations in engaging in online spaces, as they would in face-to-face spaces. If you don’t already practice progressive stack in communities you are in, please take some time to learn what that means and how to implement it. It goes a long way to reducing harm when you’re just starting to build community in person, and online.

We will take swift and clear steps to reduce harmful behaviors. We know harm will happen and we want to make sure you can get help when it does. Moderators on this server will move quickly and seek out additional supports to remove and deter accounts that:

Espouse, or sealion ideals destructive to other people’s well-being, including but not limited to:

• Violence, racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, anti-semitism, fascism, ecofascism, ethno-nationalism, settler colonialism, religious extremism, neurotype supremacy

Carry out online behaviors that harm, or emotionally exhaust other people:

• harassment, brigading (including posts that may encourage others to harass), sealioning, doxxing (weaponization of private information disclosure, such as disclosing or publicizing addresses, email, phone numbers, medical history, private identifying information, etc without consent), spamming, slander, spreading misinformation/disinformation, privacy and consent violations (taking screenshots of “locked” / private-to-follower posts and sharing them publicly without the author’s consent)

Denial of service, proper server operation, and other members’ content readability, including:

• Running automation or bots in a way that overloads the server, or is unpleasantly noisy for other users

This server is hosted in Washington state, United States and content must not violate local laws.

99% of the time, these rules will not be needed because the people here and in the broader community will be awesome. There's always the chance they aren't, so we have rules. Finally, if you run into a problem, reach out to an admin! Someone can probably fix what ails the server or tell you what's going on.

Technical Safety and Privacy

Because of how Mastodon works, no stored communications here are encrypted. Even things that appear private to you, like direct messages or restricted account posts, are not private relative to the server administrators. Server admins are not allowed, by rule of the server owner, to read this content; however this is enforced only by rule. The admins will treat your data with respect and privacy but if you want to make certain no one is able to see your communications with another person, consider other alternatives such as Signal.

While the instance is backed up regularly, please keep a copy of your own data in case the worst happens.

Moderators and Advisors

This instance has six volunteer administrators and moderators who tend to the server, the software, and keeping posts flowing that are consistent with our rules and values. These folks are, in order by user name: @analogist, @Andres4NY (an admin for the underlying server host and not the instance), @danielhep, @kona, @oowm, @rachael. We will do our best to keep an eye on things, particularly abuse reports. There might be a delay in replying if something major happens or if one or all of us are away.

If this list of people changes, we will make an announcement post to let the community know. If you report a post or user, all of us receive it. Any admin can take action on their own, particularly in urgent situations, but we discuss major actions beforehand.

If you have questions for or want to run something past someone who isn't an admin, you can reach out to Laura Loe of Share the Cities Organizing Collective, our IRL organizing home, at info@sharethecities.org

Potentially Harmful Servers

Content Warning! Abusive server names The list of servers and rationale that have been moderated from federation is accessible here.

1. Be chill to each other.
2. No spreading lies.
3. Everyone is welcome, mean it.
4. Do not espouse or sealion ideals that are destructive to other people’s well-being.
5. Do not carry out online behaviors that harm, or emotionally exhaust other people.
6. Do not carry out behaviors that result in denial of service, proper server operation, and other members’ content readability.