January 2025!
Published on January 3, 2025 by Patrick Dersjant
Happy new year, denizen of the Drum!
I hope 2025 (or (20+25)² for geeks) will be a good year for you, and wish you health, peace, and above all happy personal connections. As the last wish is the main reason I started the Drum more than two years ago: to give a platform for personal connections to those who love Terry Pratchett's work, free from profiling, targeting, and whatever else commercial platforms do with your data!
The Drum has been running quietly in the background while life around it was busy. A huge thank you goes out from me to the moderator team, who have been busy dealing with a record 65 reports this quarter. Thank you Jos, Thomas and Darren!
On the technical side, the Mastodon foundation has released the 4.3 update this quarter. The Drum has not been updated yet, as the underlying platform (yunohost) does not supply that update yet and I did not have the time to experiment (stability first!). Together with the admin team (Ian and Ingvar) we're looking into this, but real life is busy for all of us so I can't make any firm promises.
I've also been approached by the Fedihosting Foundation, the Dutch entity running mastodon.world and lemmy.world to help with their finances and - knowing more about finance than about tech - have accepted. I hope to be able to get some more technical knowledge from this adventure. The Drum will continue separate from this though, so rest assured these will not be mixed!
As donations keep on coming in and the costs are stable, I have as announced donated €200 to the Orang Utan Foundation. I have also made a $100 (€92,03) donation to IFTAS, becoming one of the first 50 supporters. They support the fediverse with independent tooling and support to moderate content, a very useful service.
To finish off this update, here are last quarters financials:
Income
I hope 2025 (or (20+25)² for geeks) will be a good year for you, and wish you health, peace, and above all happy personal connections. As the last wish is the main reason I started the Drum more than two years ago: to give a platform for personal connections to those who love Terry Pratchett's work, free from profiling, targeting, and whatever else commercial platforms do with your data!
The Drum has been running quietly in the background while life around it was busy. A huge thank you goes out from me to the moderator team, who have been busy dealing with a record 65 reports this quarter. Thank you Jos, Thomas and Darren!
On the technical side, the Mastodon foundation has released the 4.3 update this quarter. The Drum has not been updated yet, as the underlying platform (yunohost) does not supply that update yet and I did not have the time to experiment (stability first!). Together with the admin team (Ian and Ingvar) we're looking into this, but real life is busy for all of us so I can't make any firm promises.
I've also been approached by the Fedihosting Foundation, the Dutch entity running mastodon.world and lemmy.world to help with their finances and - knowing more about finance than about tech - have accepted. I hope to be able to get some more technical knowledge from this adventure. The Drum will continue separate from this though, so rest assured these will not be mixed!
As donations keep on coming in and the costs are stable, I have as announced donated €200 to the Orang Utan Foundation. I have also made a $100 (€92,03) donation to IFTAS, becoming one of the first 50 supporters. They support the fediverse with independent tooling and support to moderate content, a very useful service.
To finish off this update, here are last quarters financials:
Income
Donations € 306,59
Expenses
Hosting costs € 128,16
Payment costs € 58,64
Donations €292,03
Total expenses € 478,83
Total buffer: € 554,01 (or 13 months of hosting costs)
Expenses
Hosting costs € 128,16
Payment costs € 58,64
Donations €292,03
Total expenses € 478,83
Total buffer: € 554,01 (or 13 months of hosting costs)