Welcome!
bear.community is a Mastodon server built by @urso to the gay/bi audience, a place to meet other bears, chubbies and chasers.
Feel free to get in, make some friends, engage in the community and, of course, see some nudes and some porn!. But first: read this document through the end. It contains all the rules you need to know and a few tips to improve your experience by the end. If you have any questions, contact one of the moderators, listed at the end of this document.
Also, please remember that bear.community is not a business, we're not taking any profit from running this server. If you enjoy it and would like to help maintaining it, consider becoming a patron.
Rules
In order to be part of this community, you MUST follow these rules:
- You must be at least 18 years old.
- Illegal content like child pornography is forbidden and WILL get you suspended right away. Illustrations depicting minors also fall in this category
- Have some common sense, please. Racism, homophobia, sexism et al. are not cool and can get you suspended.
- When posting explicit content, do use CW and tag images as sensitive. "NSFW" is often good for a Content Warning. Do put all the text and hashtags _under_ the Content Warning, too! Tip: if you are always posting sexual content, there's a setting in your profile to always flag new uploads as sensitive by default, and we suggest you use it. We're not alone in here, and some folks from other servers will appreciate the care :)
-
No public straight NSFW content. If you intend to post content not related
to the server's main focus, please bear in mind that
this is a gay-centric server, and thus people are here to share and
consume gay oriented material. If you do post or share straight content,
you are still free to do so, but please note:
- All NSFW straight content MUST be unlisted. Warning: If you keep posting straight NSFW content on the local timeline, your account will get silenced.
- If you're boosting someone else's third party content, it MUST be under an obvious CW hinting that it is straight NSFW. Warning: If you keep boosting third party content without following these rules, your account will get banned.
- Use a SFW image for your avatar and header. The reason for this is that we're federated with other servers that have different audiences, and it's not possible to hide these in any way. By doing this, you make it easier for people on other servers to follow you and consume your content.
-
Avoid flooding the servers with posts. It is subjective, but no more
than a handful of third-party NSFW pictures in rapid succession. Violating this
rule will get you silenced. By the same rule,
if you intend to have a bot here, pay attention to this!
- If the profile doing the flooding belongs to this community, they'll be silenced right away, without forewarning. An admin will notify them of the measure afterwards. The decision can be reversed by talking to an admin.
- If the profile belongs to a federated server, however, it will not be silenced. It will be each person's duty to filter out the content they don't want.
- The silencing only affects the federated timeline for profiles from federated servers, or the local timeline for local profiles. Boosting will not be affected, nor will be private/personal timelines.
- Last but not least, be excellent to each other!
Feel free to report users or content that should not be here.
Admins of this site reserve the right to revoke any user's access permissions, at any time, for any reason, except as limited by law.
Guidelines on posting content, and a note on flooding and posting third-party NSFW content
These are merely guidelines for posting content, not rules. They'll help us build a healthy community.
⚓When posting third-party NSFW content
Strictly speaking, you are free to do so, however, these kinds of content are fairly easy to find and come by anywhere on the Internet. When excessively sharing them here, they have a tendency of burying original content from the timeline, and since our goal is to foster a safe place for bears, chubbies and chasers to meet and talk, it doesn't do us any good to freely allow these profiles to existe and proliferate.
You will not be banned for posting third-party NSFW content. Provided that you don't break other rules, your profile might only get silenced at the discretion of an admin.
If your profile only posts third-party NSFW content, it will be silenced right away with no forewarning. The admin will let you know of the decision afterwards.
Be mindful that, whenever possible, you should try to put the source to where you found the content, assuming it's a publicly accessible URL. If it's a private URL or resource, do not post it.
If your profile, however, does post original content - your own content, that is - you are free to occasionally share third-party NSFW content without the risk of being silenced..
When posting your own content
We'll be a bit more lax on the flooding rule when the content is your own, but please, don't push it :)
And why not flooding again?
Our reference is Tumblr, the land we all came from after we got mercilessly purged. There you could follow anyone and your timeline was your own: if you didn't like the frequency of a certain blog, you could just unfollow it and that was it.
Mastodon works differently. Here we have not one, but two "shared" timelines, Local and Federated. When someone floods their profile with content, it'll also fill up everyone else's timeline. It makes navigating them a chore, and puts the burden of tidying it up to every user, which is why we, the moderators, are watching over that issue.
Tips on usability
If you are here to consume adult content, there's a particular setting in your preferences page that can be turned on to always expand CW-ed* toots and to always show sensitive media. It'll save you a fair amount of clicks when reading your feed.
If you are here to post adult content, there's another setting in your preferences page to auto-tag all uploaded media as sensitive for you. Helps a lot in case you forget and end up getting reported due to a silly mistake :)
The moderators
If you ever have a problem with a particular content or profile, use Mastodon's default reporting tools. If for some reason they're not enough for your case, or you just want to ask something, these are the moderators:
- @urso; also the server owner
- @dnkedanke; a moderator