flipping docs

Happy New Year, everyone! 🎆

After a lot of discussion and reflection, I've decided to ditch the rule about marking Public images of spiders, snakes, etc., as sensitive. I think there are good arguments both for and against it (which are better described at greater length elsewhere). Ultimately what changed my mind was that the rule was putting off the very people I wanted to stick around.

Instead, I'd like users to simply mention what's in the photo in the body of the post or in hashtags, so other users can filter out the posts if they want. For example, a post I'd ask the author to re-draft:

Found this beauty in the yard today! [photo of crab spider]

But either of these versions are acceptable:

Found this beautiful crab spider in the yard today! [photo of crab spider]

Found this beauty in the yard today! #spiders #CrabSpider [photo of crab spider]

I still think hiding images for people with phobias has value, and obviously flipping.rocks users can still do so if they want. I also want to start a hashtag (either a weekly thing or just a general one) specifically for such posts, so they're easier for people to find and follow. (I just need to settle on what to call it!)

In related news, Darius Kazemi is currently working on a new version of Hometown which is based on Mastodon 4.0. So when that lands, flipping.rocks will get hashtag following and other Mastodon 4.0 features.

A few recent developments you may have missed:

• I've created an official admin account, @a@flipping.rocks, for server news and announcements (so it's not all mixed in with whatever I'm posting about). Please follow if you haven't done so already!
• We are pretty much fully funded for the next year. So if you haven't donated but were meaning to, don't worry, there's absolutely no rush. I'm extremely grateful for everyone who's donated; thank you for keeping flipping.rocks going.

—Neville Park