Lemmy 0.19.4 has finally been released! Upgrade will be planned for this weekend in the evening. This upgrade will require a significant database update which will cause a bit of offline time. I'll give a heads up when that will begin.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns!

Test post

Greetings - the Atlanta News Lemmy News Bot is temporarily offline, as the code that had been runnign the News Bot is apparenly incompatible with the latest version of 0.19.0. I'll try to get things back online as soon as feasible.

Hello, your friendly moderator here.

Going forward, any Atlanta News article that is paywalled will be in /c/nonfree_atlanta_news

I've received quite a few kind and unfortunately some angry/nasty comments about articles from the (paywalled) Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) whose headlines are auto-published via bot to /c/AtlantaNews. I hope separating out AJC articles from "free" articles into separate communities will conclude this issue going forward.

As FYI, this Lemmy instance and theATL.social Mastodon instance are funded by subscribers, in a manner similar to how public radio works. If you enjoy the /c/AtlantaNews community, I would encourage you to consider a subscription via OpenCollective.

Second, for people in Atlanta, the AJC is the newspaper of record for the City. They have a paywall because that is how they make money. I don't know what else to say about that fact - it is what it is. Nearly all newspapers in the United States operate an a subscription model.

Finally, there are currently some very intense world events occuring. As a reminder, for any posts to yall.theATL.social, any comments promoting or advocating violence wlil result in an immediate ban from this server. Toxic and trolling behavior will result in post deletion for minor incidents and an immediate ban for severe incidents. All moderator actions will be logged in the modlog for your review.

This community is intended to serve as an information source and discussion board for those living or interested in Atlanta - and in particular for members of the yall.theatl.social Lemmy server.

This board isn't intended to be an outlet for violence, threats of violence, user names implying violence, or toxic/troll-shitposting. I am honestly astonished at the level of anger and violence that I'm reading in the comments.

There is a wide range of speech that is permitted on this server - there is absolutely no need to engage in toxic or violent language to get a point across.

Posts from non-yall.theatl.social users will be deleted immediately, without notice or appeal, for server rule violations. Users with user names that imply violence or violate server rules will be banned immediately.

If you don't like the rules, you don't have to participate on the server. It's as simple as that.

The publisher pushed back on their effort to present a modern picture of life in one of the Blackest, queerest cities in the South, calling it ‘divisive.’ Now, half the staff has quit.

theATL.social LLC Establishment FAQ

(References to “me” or “I” refer to Michael (@michael/@admin)

Additional questions, thoughts, or concerns? Ask away in this post and I'll be glad to answer

1. Why are you forming an LLC?

• To ensure the sustainable operation of theATL.social for as long as users want to use its services.
• To limit my personal financial and legal liability from operating and funding theATL.social services.
• To consolidate theATL.social resources under a single legal umbrella and de-aggregate those resources from my personal financial and infrastructure investments.
• To establish the ability for theATL.social to establish a bank account, enter into contracts, to purchase services as an independent entity, and not in my personal capacity.

2. What will be the impact of the LLC on day-to-day operations of theATL.social?

• The ultimate impact will be to ensure the sustainable operations of this instance as long as users want to use (and fund) it.
• In the next couple of weeks, the OpenCollective fiscal host will shift to the LLC, and other resources related to theATL.social will similarly indicate LLC ownership.
• No other negative operational impacts are expected, but some additional happy feature announcements coming soon!

3. Why did you not choose to establish a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit instead of an LLC:

• The administrative, reporting, and regulatory requirements for the establishment and operation of a 501(c)(3) were beyond the time and personal resources at hand: specifically, the need for a legal advisor and an accountant/bookkeeper. Also, while the State of Georgia does allow the establishment of a non-profit with only one Board member, for practical purposes, additional people would be needed to serve on the Board in a fiduciary capacity.
• Under the IRS regulations governing 501(c)(3) organizations, the ability of those organizations to engage in partisan political speech is restricted. Although theATL.social is obviously not a partisan political organization, I and potential board members could choose to engage in that speech in a manner that could be interpreted as an opinion of the organization. I have found, from my work in other organizations, that the “policing” of speech is a contentious and stressful endeavor. And opponents or detractors of theATL.social could engage in retaliatory behavior on the basis of the organizations’ leaders’ speech.
• The administrative and regulatory requirements for LLCs in Georgia are very simple, and other than taxes and a business license, comprise only an annual renewal.

4. Why did you not establish a Public Benefit Corporation, Cooperative, or similar Corporate Structure?

• Each of the above corporate structures requires a substantial administrative, regulatory, and financial reporting burden. Compliance with those corporate structures, for practical purposes, requires legal and accounting advisory services.
• Each of those structures also requires a set of individuals willing to serve on a Board in a fiduciary capacity, meaning that those individuals jointly hold legal and financial responsibility for the organization's operation. From multiple informal queries, there was no interest from the current set of theATL.social users or participants to serve in this role.
• The administrative and regulatory requirements for LLCs in Georgia are very simple and other than taxes and a business license, comprise only of an annual renewal.

5. Are you starting the LLC for personal financial gains, profit, or motive?

• No. At present, theATL.social is almost breaking even, not including my personal labor and the labor of others towards the operation of the instance. I do not intend or expect this LLC to provide a source of income above and beyond expenses for the time being, nor do I intend to pay myself for the operation of the instance.
• In the event that theATL.social receives enough funds and is engaged in enough activity such that operating the instance becomes a full- or part-time job for myself or future employees or contractors of the LLC, compensation proportional to work provided may be considered. Any compensation will be fully disclosed via an OpenCollective expense.

6. Does this mean you will start charging people to use theATL.social?

• No. I do not plan to charge people to use theATL.social. There may be some “freemium”-type services above-and-beyond what is offered in the core Mastodon or Lemmy software packages offered to contributors, but all core services will continue to be open to all.

7. Would you consider changing the legal structure of theATL.social in the future?

• Yes. Circumstances change, and additional funds or additional individuals with an interest to put time and resources into a more appropriate structure could require a re-evaluation of the existing legal structure.

8. If you are now for-profit, is a contribution a purchase? Or, what’s going on?

• theATL.social will functionally operate as a business that sells no products but does receive and solicit voluntary monetary contributions (well, “tips”) to operate the site and to provide site services to others.

9. How will you ensure transparency in governance, process, and trust and safety?

• With the establishment of the LLC, an operating agreement will be established. For LLCs, the agreement is typically an internal document that details day-to-day operations of the business. - Although this document is not required to be filed with the State of GA’s Secretary of State, this document is valid for legal purposes. I intend to both make public relevant sections of this agreement and utilize this agreement to establish advisory committees and procedures viewable by all users.
• Included in this agreement will be a re-written Privacy Policy, on which I would look forward to working with users to develop.

10. What if someone wants to buy the LLC? What happens if Michael doesn’t want to operate the service any more, or gets “hit by a bus”?

• I intend to establish procedures in the operating agreement to address parameters for the transfer of theATL.social’s assets in the event that I am unable or unwilling to continue operating the site.

Hi yall.theatl.social friends:

I am cross-posting to /c/announce, but wanted to share here, since this is the most active community on this Lemmy instance.

As the admin of this instance (and theATL.social Mastodon site), I take pride in establishing an online community where political dicussion (among other topics) can occur without interference by me or my own political views and opinions.

However, there are a few red lines around that principle, and one of those is a prohibition against violence or promotion of violence. Two comments were removed from /c/AtlantaNews that clearly violated that rule.

For the detailed server rules, visit the Legal page for this site. For any questions or clarifications, feel free to reply to this post.

It's been super nifty watching seeing how both theATL.social (Mastodon) and yall.theATL.social (Lemmy) are being utilized to share information and news during all the...umm...current events in Atlanta.

All of the traffic, however, has increased usage on some of theATL's server infrastructure - specifically, the primary database. Provisioned resources for this server were increased this afternoon to accomodate. As a result, all services should be operating considerably faster.

The server runs on contributions from users like you! Both expenses and contributions are available on OpenCollective. Thank you in advance for you consideration - and thank you to all patrons of theATL.social!

This only impacts articles from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as far as I'm aware. For any suggestions on new non-paywalled sources, feel free to send a note, and I'd be glad to add to /c/AtlantaNews

Reading some of the comments on bot-posted articles to /c/AtlantaNews, I'm also reading some frustration regarding posts that link to paywalled sites/articles.

The paywall under question is primarily the Atlanta Journal Constitution ajc.com. I'm not inclined to circumvent the paywall and post the article text for various reasons.

However, going forward, I propose that links to paywalled articles will indicate as such in the article title, such as [$], so you won't waste time clicking into an article you can't read. And, I will try to curate more news sources that are not behind paywalls. If you have some sources you'd like me to include, feel free to reply to this thread, and I'd be glad to add.

Finally, all the news bots are currently posting to this single community. Maybe there should be multiple communities for different categories or sources of news? I don't yet have any strong thoughts on this, but your thoughts and feedback are welcome and appreciated 🤗

Greetings!

This post will be the first in a series of ongoing financial reports for theATL.social's services, which primarily include theATL.social (Mastodon) and yall.theATL.social (Lemmy) sites.

But first, thank you 🤗 to the contributors that fund operations of theATL.social. Without you, the services provided on these sites would not be possible.

To establish or change your contribution, visit the OpenCollective contributions site

Expenses this month totaled $231.02, an increase from last month's $197.46. The increase was due to an upgrade in specs for the Mastodon API Server, the server costs for the Lemmy Server (currently housed on only one server), and a $10 Patreon donation to the Mastodon organization.

Pledged Contributions (net of Stripe processing fees) are $148.98, for a monthly deficit of -$82.04.

Additional contributions to make up for this deficit are greatly appreciated! Even a $5/month contribution can make a difference.

On the server costs, they're too damn high. I've tried running lower spec-ed servers, but doing so was resulting in multiple multi-minute outages per day when the Mastodon API was unable to manage temporary increases in traffic. Glad to answer any questions on this.

I have seen some promising 100% compatible Mastodon forks and API implementions that address the relatively high computing overhead needed to operate a Mastodon instance. Although none are immediately implementable, the development direction is trending positively.

And in any event, the upcoming version 4.2.0 of Matodon utilizes Ruby 3.0, whose improvements vis-a-vis Ruby 2.x should allow the de-scaling of servers, based on dramatic improvements in Ruby on Rails efficiencies.

Comments? Questions? Feel free to ask away in the thread below!