RC02 Members,

In an effort to expand the reach of members’ announcements and articles written for the newsletter, RC02 now has a home on Mastodon. If you’re already familiar with Mastodon, find us at @rc02@botsin.space (https://botsin.space/@rc02).*

For those curious, here is a brief introduction: Mastodon is an open-source social networking platform that anyone with the time, technical know-how, and server space can set up — called an “instance". There are thousands of instances, and administrators can set rules for who can join theirs. While these “instances” are operated independently by their administrators, people on each instance can still interact with those in other instances (i.e. they are federated). Moving your profile from one instance to another while keeping your followers is also fairly easy. In short, it is a radically different way to organize social media than the familiar centralized alternatives — of substantive if not practical interest to RC02 members!

If you’re interested in signing up and unsure which “instance” to choose, https://sciences.social/ is a great place to start out. You can find me at https://fediscience.org/@dustinstoltz.

Best,

Dustin Stoltz
RC02 Secretary

* If you’re wondering about the domain name, we currently use social media in a semi-automated matter, therefore we set up a profile on an instance established for “bots.”