blorbo.social

About Blorbo.Social

Blorbo.Social is a community of fandom nerds.

We talk about our favourite blorbos from our shows, create fanart, fanfic, fanvids and other transformative works, and share our weird unique selves.

We follow the Three Laws of Fandom:

• Don’t Like; Don’t Read (DL;DR)
• Your Kink Is Not My Kink (YKINMK)
• Ship And Let Ship (SALS).

We are anti-racist, anti-fascist, queer-friendly, and kink-friendly.

Getting started

A quick intro to Blorbo.Social and Mastodon

There are many other guides available online to help you get familiar with Mastodon and the Fediverse. Here are a few good ones:

• Create an account on fandom masto: a super-simple guide
• Fediverse.info
• Fedi.Tips
• An increasingly less-brief guide to Mastodon

Explaining the rules

All members must agree to follow our server rules before they can create an account on Blorbo.Social. This section supplements and explains the official server rules.

If you are not sure whether something is allowable under the rules, check the explanations in this section, or post your question and tag it with #BlorboMod.

If you break the rules, your account may be limited or suspended, either temporarily or permanently.

Admins reserve the right to revoke any user's access permissions, at any time, for any reason, except as limited by law.

This does not mean you will be limited or suspended over nothing! However, we can’t foresee everything, and there are sometimes edge cases, deliberate skirting around the rules, or other harmful behaviour that we haven’t codified in the rules.

By joining this server, you assert that you are at least 18 years old

This is an adults-only community. Members must be 18 or older.

Use content wrappers (CW) when posting adult content

We encourage you to share adult, explicit, or not safe for work (NSFW) fanart, fic and other fannish content here.

You must use a content wrapper (CW) or sensitive media checkbox for posts depicting nudity, lewd, sexual, or violent content.

When a media attachment is NSFW, but the text is not, you can select the ‘Mark media as sensitive’ checkbox without also using a CW, if you want.

When the text itself is NSFW, use a suitable CW. (Any attachment under a CW is automatically marked as sensitive.)

Don’t put NSFW content in avatars or headers.

No sexually explicit or suggestive images of any person or character under 18

Do not post sexually explicit or suggestive images of any person under 18. This includes art of fictional characters as well as real people.

If a fictional character is considered sexually mature in the original work, but a casual observer not involved with the fandom is likely to perceive the character as being underage, do not post sexual images of that character.

No sexually explicit or suggestive text about any character under 18 unless the character is all of the following: at least 14, fictional, and past the onset of puberty

Do not post sexually explicit or suggestive text about any character under 18 unless the character is:

• At least 14 years old
• Fictional
• Past the onset of puberty

You must use CW on this kind of post.

Sexually explicit or suggestive real-person fic (RPF) about anyone under 18 is never allowed, even if the person is over 18 now.

Do not repost fanworks uncredited, or when the creator has requested no reposts

We want Blorbo.Social to be a respectful, welcoming space for the people who create the fanworks we all enjoy.

Don't take credit for someone else's fanwork, or imply that it's your own work by posting it without crediting the source. If you post a fanwork without credit, many people will assume that you are the creator. That’s unfair to the actual creator.

Instead of reposting fanworks, we recommend that you link to the creator’s work or boost it. That way, the creator gets to see people enjoying their work, and fans can find more of the creator’s work.

Don’t ever repost fanworks when the creator has specifically asked people not to do that.

It's usually fine to post uncredited content from official source material, such as screencaps, official art or photos, panels for manga, manhua, etc. Include credits if you can, but don’t stress if you can’t. Most of your fellow fans aren't going to assume that you're the creator of the official source material.

No hate speech, harassment, threats, or incitement of violence

We don’t allow hate speech of any kind including, but not limited to, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, other types of queerphobia, ableism, discrimination based on religion or nationality, body shaming, slut-shaming, or kink-shaming.

We don’t tolerate micro-aggressions either.

Don’t harass people on this or any other instance in the Fediverse. Don’t insult people, pick fights, or abuse them, in public or in private.

Harassment includes:

• Attacking or harassing people based on what their opinions or taste in ships or fictional content seems to be.
• Inciting dogpiles based on what someone's opinions or taste in ships or fictional content seems to be.
• Posting or reposting call-out posts focused on what someone's opinions or taste in ships or fictional content seems to be.
• Sending someone porn or other sensitive content (written or illustrated) in bad faith with the intent of upsetting them or making them uncomfortable. This includes targeting a known or suspected trigger or squick, but not good-faith social faux pas situations where you genuinely thought the recipient might be interested.

If someone asks you to stop contacting them, respect their request and don’t contact them any more.

Don’t threaten anyone with violence or promote any violent ideologies.

No illegal content

Don't post anything that is illegal in your country of origin, and additionally: Germany (where our server is based) and Australia (where @admin lives).

Everything you post here must be legal to post. This includes any Direct post with a privacy setting of ‘mentioned people only’.

Don’t spread disinformation

We won’t tolerate people wilfully spreading disinformation. No conspiracy nuts, anti-vaxxers, or anyone who describes other people as 'sheeple' who need to 'open their eyes'.

COVID is real, vaccinations work, your government almost certainly isn’t injecting you with nanobots, and the earth isn’t flat.

No spam, scams, corporate advertising, or shilling crypto or NFTs

Don’t post anything that treats other people as resources to be exploited for profit.

However, if you are an independent creator or a small business, you are welcome to promote your own work or services.

Do you have a book to sell, an Etsy store, or a fan event to promote? Are you an artist open for commissions? Tell us about it!

There is a tradition of mutual aid on parts of the fediverse. You can post occasional mutual aid requests on behalf of yourself or others.

We don’t allow accounts that only post mutual aid requests or only promote things for sale.

Community guidelines

Our community guidelines are not rules, but instead describe our community norms and recommendations. You don’t have to remember or follow all of them.

Have fun

Share your fandom passions, interests, and loves. Tell us about your blorbos. Your love for your blorbos is why Blorbo.Social exists.

Show us your weird unique self. We're all here because we love our blorbos, but each of us is a complex person with interests other than fandom. You can and should post about non-fandom stuff too.

Be silly, or serious, or both simultaneously.

Tell us what you’re grateful for, what you’re excited about, what worries you, how you get inspired, what keeps you going, what discourages you.

Ask questions. Answer other people’s questions. Cheer others on. If you’re interested in what others are saying or doing, tell them! Human connections make this place special.

Engage with others and make friends, or sit quietly and observe. It’s all good.

Don’t attack other people’s fun

Antis are not welcome at Blorbo.Social. If you think that it’s sick and wrong to imagine your favourite fictional characters or celebrities in sexy situations, this is not the place for you.

If you adore a particular Blorbo, but hate the idea of your Blorbo in a relationship with OtherBlorbo, put your rants about the BlorbOther pairing behind a suitable CW, and don’t tag it #BlorbOther. People looking at the #BlorbOther tag aren’t (usually) looking for BlorbOther hate.

Be cool about Who Tops and Who Bottoms. It’s okay to have your own preferences, as long as you respect that other people can have preferences different to yours.

Be kind

Arguments and disagreements happen. Assume that most people are engaging in good faith, and treat them with kindness and respect even when you disagree with them.

Don’t take offence too quickly when other people disagree with you, or when they have opinions that you don’t like.

Everyone has grumpy days. It’s okay to be grumpy sometimes, as long as “Grumpy Arsehole” isn’t your entire personality.

It’s not okay to consistently bitch and moan, make fun of people, belittle others, or insult them.

Tag and wrap your posts

Whenever you post something that someone might have an intense reaction to, it’s considerate to use a CW.

We require CWs (or sensitive media tags) for nudity, lewd, sexual, or violent content. We recommend that you use CWs for spoilers and sensitive content that other people might not want to see right now. Noelle’s guide has some good examples of when to use CWs.

Be specific in your tags and CWs so that people have a good idea of what to expect when they click.

If you’re describing something that contains NSFW content, but the post itself doesn’t contain the NSFW content, you don’t need to use a CW. For example, you can post a link to an explicit fic or fanart, and describe what people will find there, without having any explicit content in the post itself. We recommend that you still use the NSFW hashtag on posts like these, so that people can filter out these posts if they want.

We have some more guidelines and advice about tagging and wrapping your posts.

Add alt text to images

When you post images, add an alt text description to each image, if you can. This helps people with visual impairments, and has other benefits too. Here are some guidelines for writing good alt text.

If you can’t write the alt text yourself, you can add the #alt4me tag to your post. People who follow that tag may then suggest alt text suitable for your image.

Control what you see

Curate your own experience. Follow people whose posts you like. Search for and follow hashtags for your favourite topics.

Mastodon has many features that enable you to control what you see. Filter, unfollow, mute and block when necessary.

Sometimes people suck. They might deliberately try to rile you up, act in bad faith, lie or misrepresent facts, or attempt to manipulate you or others. When this happens, it can be hard to step back, but that’s what we recommend.

If the person’s posts are breaking our rules, you can report the posts in question. A moderator will investigate and deal with it.

If you don’t like someone, but they aren’t actually breaking our rules, don’t file a report against them. Just mute or block the person instead.

Don’t police others’ use of CWs, alt text, or tags

Whilst we have some guidelines around when to use CWs, alt text, and tags, we only have one rule about them: Use CWs for adult or NSFW content.

You can politely ask other people to use specific CWs, alt text, or tags that you prefer, as long as you don’t state your preferences as absolute rules or requirements.

This is especially important when marginalised people speak about their experiences of marginalisation. For example, if you are not BIPOC, don’t tell BIPOC to hide their experiences of racism behind CWs.

While we strongly recommend that you add alt text to images, it’s not always possible. There are people with disabilities that make it difficult for them to write alt text descriptions themselves. Sometimes accessibility needs are conflicting, and that’s okay.

If other people choose to use CWs, alt text and tags differently to how you’d prefer, that’s up to them. You can always filter, unfollow or block people who post in ways that you don’t like.

Find another community if this one doesn’t suit you

This community can't be all things to all people for all time, and we don't want it to be.

If at any point you find that Blorbo.Social isn't a happy place for you, it’s okay to take a break or to leave. Maybe you're just not that interested in fandom any more, or you're not feeling the blorbo vibe.

No hard feelings! You can move to another instance that suits you better, or leave the Fediverse entirely.

Moderation

Blorbo.Social has a team of volunteer admins and moderators. They manage our community, set our server rules, investigate reports, and take action when people break our rules.

If you see someone breaking the rules

If you believe that someone is posting content that violates our rules, report the post in question. Select the three dots (...) on the post, then Report. Include your reason for reporting.

We take all reports seriously. A mod will investigate and decide what to do.

We cannot comment on the outcome of any particular investigation.

If the person seems to be acting in good faith, it’s okay to drop a friendly reminder about the rules, but this isn’t required or expected.

If someone is hostile to you, we recommend that you report their posts, then ignore and block them. If you feel a need to respond and defend yourself, try not to escalate. Responding often inspires harassers to continue their harassment.

Consequences for Blorbo.Social members

If you break a rule, a mod will contact you to explain how you broke the rule and what the consequences are.

Consequences can include:

• A gentle reminder
• A warning
• Temporarily limiting your account
• Temporarily suspending your account
• Permanently suspending your account.

When deciding on consequences, we consider:

• The importance of the rule
• How hard you broke it
• How others are affected
• Whether this is the first time or it's part of a pattern
• How you respond to being called on it.

Consequences for people on other instances

If the poster's account is on a different instance, we may:

• Do nothing
• Reject the person’s media (images, etc) so that they don’t display on our instance
• Silence the person, so their posts are no longer visible on our federated timeline and can’t be boosted here (people here can still opt in to follow them)
• Suspend the person’s account from our instance, so it’s no longer possible to follow or interact with them from here.

In addition, if we find that the person’s instance accepts behaviour that breaks Blorbo.Social’s rules, we may decide to reject media, silence or suspend the entire instance.

Federation

Our moderated servers list is visible to logged-in members only. We have chosen not to publish our reasons for moderating specific servers.

Our general guidelines on federation are:

• No limits: Default. Also applies if we don’t especially like an instance, but they're not actually breaking any of our rules.
• Reject media only: If they allow Loli/Shota or un-CWed NSFW media but otherwise are cool, e.g. a lot of porn & kinky instances. However, if they also regularly post un-CWed NSFW text, we’ll silence instead.
• Silence: If they don’t follow some of our rules, but also don't tolerate illegal or harmful behaviour, hate speech, or deliberate trolling. If an instance is struggling to keep up with moderation, we may silence temporarily to give them a chance to fix it.
• Suspend: If they tolerate or encourage harmful activity, harassment, hate speech (TERFs & racists etc), fascists, CSAM, shitty bots, deliberate trolling.

Technical

Blorbo.social is a Mastodon instance hosted on toot.io as part of their Managed Mastodon Hosting service.

Our Mastodon server configuration includes:

• A 3000-character limit per post
• Default file attachment limits as detailed in Mastodon documentation.

Posts on Blorbo.Social, including Direct posts, are not secure or encrypted. Admins can read your posts, although we will not normally do so unless needed for investigating claims of abuse or harassment.

Contributions

Blorbo.Social is a volunteer-run and community-funded project.

We plan to keep this community free for members. If you have spare funds to throw at hosting expenses, here’s our Open Collective (but there’s no expectation or requirement).

Financial contributions make no difference to our members' rights or responsibilities.

Content ownership

You retain the rights to any original content that you post on Blorbo.Social.

You grant us the right to publish and share the content in accordance with the post privacy options that you select.

Credits

We use custom emojis on this instance, including some by:

• @ikol (Our Flag Means Death and Marvel, licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0)
• @Raene (some Modao Zushi and Chen Qing Ling (Untamed)(the CQL sect emojis are colourized versions of images from suibianjiejie), some Final Fantasy & oujo)
• Blob Emoji community (most blob, blobcat and blobhaj)
• Mingilicious (skzoo)

Our Privacy Policy is based on the terms initially published by eupolicy.social and made more accessible by the Mastodon Privacy Policy Generator in its version v1.1 as of 22 November 2022.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.