Here is an annual update for Alaskan.Social!🎉

Published on December 3, 2023 by Kyle Mielke

Accomplishments:

We successfully launched the instance in June of 2023.
As of November 12, 2023 we have grown to 113 accounts, of which 75 are active.
We have been able to connect with @[email protected] to get our instance featured on the regions section https://fedi.garden/tag/alaska-usa/

Challenges:

One challenge we faced was getting the word out about Alaskan.Social. Many users spread the word on other social media platforms so that people would know that an instance centered around Alaska and run by Alaskans was now available.
Another challenge was dealing with trolls and harassment. These issues typically took the form of reports of or from users from other instances, and were dealt with collaboratively by the moderation teams
We also had some technical challenges, such as performance issues during an influx of users as well as implementing text search. Our team communicated with the hosting provider to resolve these issues.

Learnings:

We learned that there is a lot of interest in Alaskan.Social in Alaska.
We learned that it is important to have a strong community to support an Alaskan.Social instance.
We researched how to improve user safety and successfully implemented block lists shared by other servers like ours to deal with trolls and harassment.

Changes and growth:

We have grown from a small group of volunteers to a larger and more diverse group.
We have developed a strong community of users and supporters.
We have learned a lot about running the Alaskan.Social instance.

Plans for 2024:

We plan to continue to grow our community and promote Alaskan.Social in Alaska.
We plan to partner with other organizations in Alaska to promote Alaskan.Social.
We plan to continue to improve our instance and make it more user-friendly.

We are so excited about the future of Alaskan.Social in Alaska and we are grateful for the support of our community.

Thank You,
The Alaskan.Social Team