Server rules

Below is a summary of rules you need to follow if you want to have an account on this server of Mastodon:

1. Be Decent: Do not insult, doxx or harass.
2. Be Sentient: Do not create bot or brand accounts without permission.
3. Be Active: Crossposting is only allowed if you regularly check your account.
4. Be Lawful: No illegal content, no sexual content without content warnings, no sexual content involving minors.
5. Be Mindful: Respect the needs of other users. Use content warnings and describe your media.

The Dragon's Cave is a Mastodon/Hometown instance hosted by Talon the Dragon. It is primarily meant to be a cozy place to chill for friends and people from the blind and visually impaired community in general. But even if you aren't one of those and want to join anyway, as long as you're a kind and friendly person, you'll fit in just fine!

Are you curious about why you should join this instance over all the others out there? Here are some of the things we offer:

• A cool domain name (at least if you like dragons, but who doesn't?)
• A small and pleasant local community -- with an option of local-only posting if you're feeling shy -- as well as plenty of friends awaiting you in the vast Fediverse outside of it.
• Two mostly-benevolent admins who regularly check and respond to reports, questions and requests.
• A larger character limit, 1000 instead of 500, so you will always have enough space to express your opinions clearly.
• A few useful features added by the Mastodon fork Hometown (developed by Darius Kazemi), such as the aforementioned local-only posting and bigger character limit, as well as exclusive lists, two more themes and better formatting of posts from other software in the Fediverse.
• A small collection of custom emojis, which we'll gladly expand upon request.

If this has convinced you, please familiarize yourself with our etiquette and then send us an application! Remember to put in at least a little effort; applications that look like spam will be rejected.

The Dragon's Cave Etiquette

We want this instance to be a welcoming and comfortable space for everyone. To achieve this, please keep these 5 things in mind.

1. Be Decent

Do not harass, insult, or otherwise intentionally harm other users of any kind, local or federated. Do not discriminate against people based on any of the various things that make humanity so beautiful and diverse, including but not limited to: age, appearance, disability, ethnicity, gender, nationality, race, religion or lack thereof, sexual orientation, etc.

Do not deliberately spread misinformation, including pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. Given the dangers of the current situation we find ourselves in, COVID-19 related misinformation will be dealt with especially strictly; do not post or boost any misinformation minimizing the virus's impact, accusing the medical community or affected people of lying or discouraging social distancing, vaccinations and the wearing of masks.

2. Be Sentient

Avoid creating bot accounts on this instance without permission. There may be exceptions, however it's best to consult with either of the administrators before going ahead. Specialized instances exist for bot accounts that are a better place for your bot, both for visibility and discoverability, as well as the health of this instances timelines and federation.

3. Be Active

Cross posting is only allowed if you regularly check your account here and interact with notifications. Please set cross posts to unlisted or stricter.

4. Be Lawful

Do not post links to illegal content, or post content that you do not have permission to share. Illegal content includes anything that could get us hit with a violation of copyright. If you're not sure whether or not to share something, it's likely you should not.

Do not post sexual content without a content warning. If you regularly find yourself wanting to post content of sexual nature, this may not be the best instance for you. Do not post any sexualized depictions of minors, regardless of whether they are real or fictional.

5. Be Mindful

Politics, Religion, and other shaky topics should be posted behind a content warning. Be mindful of people you interact with, as they may have had experiences drastically different from yours, including severe psychological or physical trauma. Content warnings are no inconvenience for you as a user, and will provide a much higher well being for individuals that might want to read your content, but prefer not to get involved in those topics due to various reasons.

Please try to describe your media posts to the best of your ability to accommodate disabilities such as blindness and deafness. If you cannot do so, there is nothing wrong with asking for help. Currently, tagging @ImageCaptionsPls@gup.pe is the best way to do so.

Instance Administration

Dragon's Cave is moderated by two people: talon and Mayana. We do our best to take care of the instance, but we are both just volunteers, and only human. If you come upon any objectionable content, please report it, and we will respond as soon as possible. Additionally, feel free to reach out to us -- preferably both in the same direct message -- if you would like us to change something about the rules above, the instance moderation actions below, or anything else related to the instance.

Emoji Credits And Descriptions

Most of the custom emoji on this instance are from Mutant Standard, and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. All the Mutant Standard emoji are gender-neutral.

The dragon emoji were drawn by Chr@scalie.business and are provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. They are cute, sweet minimalist flat style emojis of yellow, western-styled dragon heads. You can read the descriptions of individual emojis on Chr's Github

The eyeless smileys -- descriptions here -- were kindly gifted by LJWrites@rage.love. The eyeless blobcats were made by Pixouls@post.lurk.org; they can be downloaded on their Github.

Lastly, the interaction permit/refusal emoji (at, boost and favorite OK and no), as well as the local_only emoji, which makes it possible to post locally even on clients that otherwise don't support it, were made by Pfx.rage.love. You can find their descriptions in these toots.

Moderated servers

Mastodon generally allows you to view content from and interact with users from any other server in the fediverse. These are the exceptions that have been made on this particular server.

Filtered media

Media files from these servers will not be processed or stored, and no thumbnails will be displayed, requiring manual click-through to the original file:

Silenced servers

Posts from these servers will be hidden in public timelines and conversations, and no notifications will be generated from their users interactions, unless you are following them:

Suspended servers

No data from these servers will be processed, stored or exchanged, making any interaction or communication with users from these servers impossible: