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Sbectol :twt:

@brembs @fnwbr in essence the fediverse means taking on the admin responsibilities we once we happy for twitter to do (for example with respect of security and safety). A question researchers need to think about is whether the university is really capable of doing that.

For me that’s several levels higher than for email. Hence one needs to think it through carefully, ideally with the labour union.

7 comments
Björn Brembs

@Sbectol @fnwbr

It seems to me you have a point there. More reasons to have a "Mastodon committee". Tying in @leonido here who may enlighten us how his university is handling these issues?

Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK

@brembs @Sbectol @fnwbr @leonido

if the instance is also open to use by undergraduate students, at least in UK a portion of them could well be minors (its not that uncommon for an intelligent pupil to move up a school year and thus complete their A-levels and go up to University at age 17) - which would also create further safeguarding requirements..

Sbectol :twt:

@vfrmedia there are lots of resources available about running a mastodon/fediverse instance. There’s not a lot I’ve seen specifically about the issues with a large (or fairly large) one run by a university.

@brembs @fnwbr @leonido

Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK

@Sbectol

I've seen a few uni instances on Mastodon since 2017, mostly from Northern European countries; but many seem to be mostly only used by academics and/or as a PR/marketing vehicle for the University (not that its a bad thing, they often toot some interesting stuff)

@brembs @fnwbr @leonido

Sbectol :twt: replied to Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK

@vfrmedia for sure I’ve no issues with that either.

I think the issues are more concentrated when researchers are encouraged to join and use the instance (so it becomes much wider than the uni marketing itself)

@brembs @fnwbr @leonido

Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK replied to Sbectol

@Sbectol @brembs @fnwbr @leonido

The Netherlands already has a Mastodon instance for Universities to use (including students), the way this is run seems to be a good way to start..

social.edu.nl/about

Knut Morå

@Sbectol @brembs @fnwbr To emphasize this, my experience is that universities are racing to offload the responsibility to host their own email servers also, I would be very happy to see this trend reversed

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