Social

Advantages

Users you know

Our users are members of the nearly 25-year old community and chat network now managed by RefChat.

Admins you trust

RazorsKiss and brigand have been community admins here for more than a decade and a half.

Transparent settings on both server and client

Instances defederated or moderated are (mostly) listed on the About page. As a user, you have the ability to moderate your own timeline, as well as a suite of content & user filtering tools at your disposal.

Federation with other instances

We try to maintain federation with as many servers as we can, to allow everyone to freely socialize as they wish, in the manner they wish.

Secured against trolling, brigading and NSFW media

No QTs makes for less meta-drama. Our harassment policies disallow repeated unwanted messages. Incoming media is hidden (when tagged) by default – and we filter media from known NSFW instances.

Features

VanTil Server Specs

Kuyper Server Specs

Federation

Our instance is connected to every instance with users that our users follow – anywhere on the Fediverse. There are no central servers, or even a central platform – just voluntarily connected servers, each with their own sets of users, sharing a communication protocol in common.

Powerful User-Defined Controls

You decide who you follow, how their content is displayed, and what you want to see from whom. Strictly chronological timelines, with no suggestions, ads, or data mining.

FREE

Absolutely free. Always. This is a community project, for our community. Period. We will never serve advertisements, and your data is not for sale; to anyone, for any reason.

FAQ

What is Pleroma?

pleromaPleroma is a microblogging server/client platform that can federate with other Pleroma instances, as well as a variety of other platforms that share the same protocol, ActivityPub. As such, it is part of the Fediverse, a network of federated sites whose clients can all interact with each other.

Pleroma has one of the smaller server footprints in the Fediverse, and scales exceptionally well. It is also unique in that it uses Elixir and Erlang primarily, with a PostgreSQL database component. Pleroma is also built around the ActivityPub protocol from the ground up, so it is a truly native platform.

Federate?

Federation is where separate platforms share the same protocols in order to exchange information. Each server, called an “instance” in the Fediverse, is able to connect with and exchange information with any other instance using that same protocol, called ActivityPub.

There is no central server used by any Fediverse platform. They are composed of a network of independent servers, using a variety of platforms, that can all speak to one another. While on any given server, you have the capability of following, direct messaging, replying, or being followed by any other user of any other federation instance.

What is ActivityPub?

ActivityPub is a decentralized social networking protocol based on the ActivityStreams 2.0 data format. ActivityPub is an official W3C recommended standard published by the W3C Social Web Working Group. It provides a client to server API for creating, updating and deleting content, as well as a federated server to server API for delivering notifications and subscribing to content.

What's the Fediverse?

fediverseThe Fediverse is an ensemble of federated servers that are used for web publishing and file hosting, but which, while independently hosted, can communicate with each other. On different servers, users can create so-called identities.

What are Content Warnings?

Essentially, Content Warnings (or CWs) act much like “spoiler warnings”, in that you have an option as to whether or not you want to see what is hidden behind the warning. They are used for a variety of reasons, but typically because they hide “sensitive” content in some way. It is a general, but not quite universal convention amongst Fediverse participants.

TOS

At base, the rules of this instance are simple. Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, discuss these things and there won’t be anything to worry about.

This being a fallen world, however, it is best to be specific where possible.

Posting Rules

Content Warnings
We require that content of the following types have populated subject lines, or be “tagged” with the appropriate hashtag:

  • Politics – anything with a political overtone. Example subject tags would be #uspol or #frpol
  • Culture War – related to politics, and possibly overlapping – if it has to do with Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Proud Boys, White Privilege, or anything along similar lines – tag it. Example tags might be #uscul, #EUsoc or individual tags like #BLM, #CRT, etc.
  • Sensitive Content – stories about abuse, rape, or violence should be hidden by a content warning, with a short description, so that victims of similar crimes can avoid encounters with it.
  • Links to content with profanity – these are acceptable if and only if hidden by a content warning in the subject field

Forbidden
These are absolutely not tolerated from users of our server. Federated content in violation of these rules will be deleted or blocked from display on our server.

  • Lewd or profane content of any kind. This includes language as well as images. This includes suggestive as well as explicit pornography, or links to same. If you’re not sure whether it is lewd or profane – that probably should tell you it would be best not to post it. This is a Christian hosted instance. If you wouldn’t send it to your elders or deacons, you shouldn’t post it.
  • Antisemitic or racist content. We believe race is an incoherent concept, as did abolitionists throughout history. It has no basis, scientific or otherwise; offers no positive contribution, and has resulted in harm to large groups of people. It is dehumanizing, indefinable, and needlessly divisive. This is not said to downplay the effects of racism, which does, of course, exist; but to emphasize that creating categories out of whole cloth results in moral and societal destruction. We are equal because we are all likewise created in the image of God.
  • Spam, harassment, or doxxing of other users, including federated users.

Discouraged

  • Extensive linking to third-party news sites without commentary on what is linked.
  • Conspiracy theories. High frequency of posts on these subjects will result in warnings.
  • Intemperate language toward others, including public figures.
  • Brigading or dogpiling.

These rules are instituted as protections for civility in interaction, and should be understood as conventions for polite behavior on this instance. Christians, we are called to speak the truth in love. Both of those principles should govern our speech, and our hearts – for from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. If these guidelines do not suit your preferences – that’s okay! The wonderful thing about federated social media is that you can pick a server that is right for you.

Our Covenant To You

We commit to strive to refrain from abuses of power – and to remain approachable to our users. This is a community server, and our goal is to provide a helpful service to our community. Nuclear solutions will only be applied in cases of egregious or habitual violations.

Federation

While we’d love to all join hands and enjoy the open source Fediverse, we reserve the right to choose whom we federate with. Servers with content that is illegal or immoral may be moderated, filtered, or blocked by this instance.

As an instance populated by Christians, and hosted by Reformed Christians, there are some general principles that we all agree with, when it comes to content appearing on our community spaces. Those principles are behind any of the instance-level moderation features we have in place. Our users may also institute client-level filtering, especially for language or images they find offensive.

Admins and users from other servers: While we reserve the right to moderate the content appearing to us, we understand that you have a similar right when it comes to our content. It’s fine, and we understand. Good fences make good neighbors, after all. Let’s all get along, shall we?

I can tell better after I get home,
Better a month from now when cutting posts
Or mending fence it all comes back to me
What I was thinking when you interrupted
My life-train logic. I agree with you
We’re too unseparate. And going home
From company means coming to our senses.
-Robert Frost, Build Soil