Hello! Long post incoming, but please do read and we'll get it all over and done with in one go 😅
So a lot of you already know that I've been appointed at least temporary mod while our community owner is inactive. I'll do my best to keep things ticking along while they're away, and we'll just see how things develop from here. Happy to report my mod status has now actually federated out to my own server so I'm able to pin things, hurrah!
For those I've not already chatted with, hi! My name's Michelle, I learned to knit in about 2013 and quickly became obsessed, and now do all kinds of crafts (including but not limited to the stitchy ones). I am also chronically online since about 2001, so should be able to deal with any mod reports within a reasonable timeframe, but as we grow if it's still just me I'll probably need to look for help from folks in other timezones.
You'll see me posting both from this account and from Mastodon as @[email protected] because being able to interact cross-platform is really cool, and also it helps spread the word about this place to the larger Mastodon knitting community!
Now, one thing that's been missing from the community so far is any actual rules being set (yes I can hear you booing me from all the way back there). I figure even though we're all lovely and self-governing at the moment, it's probably best to just have the common-sense stuff written down for future reference.
So here are my thoughts, feel free to chime in with your own:
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All instance rules apply: see mastodon.world/about <-- these can be summed up as "don't be awful and don't spam"
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WIP/FO Posts should include a pattern link or at least the name of the pattern & designer. <-- this isn't always possible and I'm not gonna give people too much grief for forgetting but it is quite helpful for people seeing the pics and thinking "ooh, pretty"
And that's about it! I'd like to know what you all think about allowing commercial posts, too. For example designers posting about their own patterns, the sticker shop post we had the other day, etc etc. Allow? Ban? Some rule that lands somewhere in the middle?
Suggestions welcome on this, as well as what you'd like to see from the community in general. Go forth and have your say!
I’m pretty cranky about commercial posts, although I do think there’s a big difference between someone who is an active community member sharing a pattern they are selling and someone that just posts when they’ve got something to sell. The sticker post seemed to me to fall into the second camp - posted twice (different but similar usernames), posted across many different communities, etc. Honestly I don’t know how you write rules for that, though - get out the calculator and check ratio of helpful posts to commercial? Sounds like the Reddit minimum karma for posting rules that end up prompting a bunch of generic comments just so people could get their numbers up.
I left an in-person knitting group a while back after it seemed it was just becoming a captive audience for member’s MLM sales, so maybe I’m more sensitive than most. There’s always the block button, though.
On the other hand, banning commercial posts can end up with those “covert ads” - people posting products and then acting coy when asked for the source - “can’t say here, but I’ll send you a DM”, etc.
I bought a book about overthinking this morning… (that is not a covert ad)
Honestly I'm right there cranking (and overthinking) with you, that's exactly why I thought it was best to get this sorted out sooner rather than later. I don't think you're overly sensitive at all, there's a tendency for spaces that do allow self-promo to end up becoming basically all self-promo over time.
Whatever we decide it's going to take some careful wording and probably a few judgement calls, some of which will end up being right and others wrong, and we'll just tweak things over time.
Thanks for the input, I'm gonna leave this up for a couple of days before even thinking about making any decisions so we'll see what the consensus ends up being!
One of the issues is lack of transparency in promotions, not just self-promotion, but also influencers who are receiving free stuff from stores, pattern companies, yarn companies etc.
There was a post on one of the board games communities recently about legal duty to reveal promotions and influencing. Basically, there’s a duty to reveal a benefit even if you’re not promoting your own personal product or business. Goodreads manages this well when its members have to reveal that they had access to free advance copies.