One year of Genealysis.social

Background

Like many others in October 2022 I discovered Mastodon as I looked for an alternative to Twitter. I had been on Twitter for over ten years but had over the previous few years found interactions to be poorer quality, with more promoted content and people desperate to be influencers. The final straw for me came as Elon Musk took over Twitter and started to make bizarre changes. He sacked 50% of the workforce almost immediately, stopped paying bills to suppliers and landlords (there are many lawsuits against Twitter for debts), and he showed his true colours as a ruthless businessman, with no interest in people or product unless it was his own work. I think it’s summaried as an egotist.

Jumping into Mastodon opened my eyes to a much wider Fediverse – a massive network of linked products, often dis-similar but could all communicate. This entire Fediverse run by decent people, volunteering, developing new tools, running servers for us all to use. No charge. No adverts. No profit margins. No investors to please. Amazing. I was hooked.

Launch

My background is Computing, as a career and a hobby, and I like to keep my skills fresh. I looked into the background and wondered if I could help by running a server for the influx of people from other commercial services to Mastodon and the Fediverse.

I played with the server setup for a while, then decided to step out into the public. I wanted a slightly niche service where people with similar interests could feel safe and supported.

I’d been working my family tree for 20+ years on and off, and loved interacting with, but more importantly learning from, others. It seems the perfect synergy.

I had come up with the name ‘Genealysis’ many years ago. Genealysis was a mash-up of the words Genealogy and Analysis. I always intended, and still hope to, develop some software tools for genealogy people like myself – amateurs.

I registered an new domain name with the .social ending (top level domain). I purchased dedicated cloud server space and installed Mastodon and announced it to the Fediverse using the tag #genealogy.

14 November 2022 was launch-day. And here we are, one year on.

The story so far

It’s been great. I have enjoyed every minute of it. People started to sign up and learn how it worked.

There’s no denying it was new to many. Some found it simple. Others were confused, but they asked questions and I helped where I could; other people started to step in with suggestions to. It was exactly what I want it to be – I helpful community.

Of course, some people signed up and never came back. They hated it, or didn’t understand it. They wanted ‘what they had before’. Life’s not really like that. Things change. People Change. We move and adapt. Personally, I think it keep us young. However, I accept that you can’t please everyone.

Financing

In terms of financing it, my view was that I would commit to the running costs of this, like so many other Fediverse server administrators like me. After a few months I created a facility to allow anyone who wished to make a contribution to these costs. I said that if I covered my costs and had reserves of more than a further month I would donate surplus to charity. That situation has not arisen but stills sits in my mind for the future.

I published a graph each month showing my outgoings and donations. I purposely did not show the actual figures as I did not wish to influence what people would like to donate. I’m very aware that many will not, or can not, donate or have very limited spare funds. I want this to be open to everyone and there be no pressure to donate.

That being said, I have decided to summarise the costs for the year at the end of this commentary as I wish to be open and transparent at all times. If anyone asked me specifically on costs, I was happy to give them details.

I get nothing from running the service; other than the joy and fun. There is no financial gain to me, but you will see that!

Day to Day

Genealysis.socail runs well – I have very few technical issues or down time, other than system upgrades. It’s important to me that it’s always there for you.

On a typical day, I get a few private messages to respond to. I run over the “local feed” to check what has been posted. I boost some things to generate more interest. I interact with people. I also check for any post that break the server rules around decency and civility. There have only been a handful I have removed in a year. I check the backups have run. Periodically I restore the entire backup to a blank server to ensure I am happy that the backups are working well. It’s vital to check backups often. I respond to any ‘reported’ accounts where you feel the content is inappropriate.

More recently, I have found spam accounts being created on the site. I spot most of them, but I am always thankfully for those who report them to me too. Depending on the account I will restrict it until I contact the owner, or simply delete it if it clearly violates our rules. At the moment, I get near-daily sign-ups from betting services! Delete!!

There’s been lots of chat lately on “de-federated” servers across the Fediverse. This is where a sys-admin (like me) decides to block an entire server so none of the server’s content will appear on ‘my’ server. There’s a place for this blanket-ban, but I believe some admins make it too personally about what they want. While this could be argued as fair as it’s “their” server, I am running this for a community. For me, generally if I want to block an entire server I would consult with my user base. So far, I have only blocked four servers for extreme pornography. I don’t think this needs discussion as it’s so far away from our (the genealogy communities) purpose. If someone wants a more general feed, they can join a general server.

The Future

Who knows? There’s a limit to what Mastodon can do. I’d like to offer a few more features to help our community so I am always thinking about you and trying to spot your needs.

I’d like people to continue to feel safe, and able to be themselves – maybe share more about their other passions, but respect their own and others' privacy.

And finally

If you’re still reading this!! Some stats:

→ Genealysis.social launched 14 November 2022 at 8:10pm UK

→ David, that’s me (system admin) is based in Scotland.

→ The server and the data is in a data centre in London, UK

→ We have 563 registered users.

→ 185 are considered active users.

→ Measuring active users can vary, but this number is people who have interacted at least once this month. Some people are on every day, or several times a day. Others might only jump on every month or two as they dip into their projects.

→ We have made 24,456 posts.

→ The server has processed over 38 million posts, likes, boosts, follows as you interact with the Fediverse

→ Our most active language is English, followed by German, then Dutch

Income and Expenditure

Income is only via the generosity of our local user base. Some people donate as a one-off, others make a regular donation. In total 38 people made donations.

A recent new feature on Mastodon allows me to set a ‘badge’ on user profiles, and I have asked each donator if they are happy for me to acknowledge their donation via this badge. Some of our users now have ‘Donor’ or ‘Regular Donor’ as a badge.

Some of the costs are in US Dollars, but I have converted to UK Pounds as that what I pay in

Overall, there was a funding deficit of £436.18

So there you have it, a year on genealysis.social. Mastodon and the Fediverse is not perfect. It's young, growing, and learning but hopefully I've helped you on your journey.

Thank you for being part of a great community.

Have fun and stay safe. Feel free to message me publicly or privately on Mastodon, or email, if you have any questions.

David
13 November 2023
david@genealysis.com
@david@genealysis.social