Update: since writing this I've switched to @sdv@hachyderm.io. I don't know. I'll probably switch again.

This weekend I decided to set up a mastodon instance of my own. I had considered joining an existing instance meant for a specific community like journalism or nature, but decided I'd rather control my own instance.

It took a little over two hours to set up. I used Digital Ocean's marketplace to do the initial install. If I'd seen it sooner I may have used these instructions for deploying on fly.io.

Most of the time in those two hours was spent setting up the domain, email, and object storage services. There was also a lot of waiting for dns changes to propogate so Let's Encrypt could reach the server.

I very quickly chose a very dumb domain: avclub.camp and gave it a fictional backstory:

An audio/video club took a camping trip to a remote location. They got lost. This is their journal.

There's no good reason for that other than I like it.

If a certain entertainment publication is disappointed by this domain choice they can feel free to never contact me.

I'm not convinced that Mastodon is going to work out long-term for anybody, but it seems like a suitable intermediary step away from the bird app.

avclub.camp isn't open to new registration currently. I'm not sure if it ever will be. After a few weeks of using it on my own I'll decide if it makes sense to open it up to others. But if we know each other and you'd like an invite let me know!

This weekend I also made a cohost account, got my youtube account cleaned up and ready for regular use, and set up this website!

I haven't used twitter a whole lot over the past five years. The best experience I've ever had on twitter was when I recently made an account all about mushrooms after discovering that there's a lovely community of people that share their photos of mushrooms and other nature observations.

I hope to find that kind of thing again elsewhere. For now all my new mushroom/nature photos will be posted here: avclub.camp/@sdv

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