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1. Embed this notice
   Erik Uden 🍑 (erikuden@mastodon.de)'s status on Saturday, 02-Dec-2023 07:37:23 JST Erik Uden 🍑

   Vodafone executives when Erik Uden hosts side-services of mastodon.de on a 1Gbit/s private contract instead of a business contract

   • :blobcathug: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Erik Uden 🍑 (erikuden@mastodon.de)'s status on Saturday, 02-Dec-2023 07:37:21 JST Erik Uden 🍑

     in reply to

     I was called on my personal phone number this evening by a group of 10 people from the Fediverse threatening to report to Vodafone that we are disobeying their terms of service (side-services of mastodon.de are hosted behind a 1Gbit/s private connection instead of a business contract).

     The motivation behind this was simply to annoy me. I know the people, we had a slight disagreement on the Fediverse recently. Regardless, we have planned to move completely to the cloud soon.

     Honest to god, mastodon.de is a donation-funded project. Me and a couple of friends do this honorarily and we do our best to be as transparent about our expenditures as possible. I do all the finances, all public texts, all management, calls, etc. I do this next to studying Computer Science in university, next to my honorary political / environmental activist work, next to having friends or sleeping which often comes too short.

     I'd love to have the life of people that can take the time out of their day to call someone at 11 pm simply to annoy them due to some internet argument that started and ended over a week ago. Truly, if I'd have that kind of time I'd be happier in life. Annoy billionaires and politicians, but not some guy who has spent all of his time, effort, and money into something that is for the common good.

     :blobcathug: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     :blobcathug: (jain@blob.cat)'s status on Saturday, 02-Dec-2023 07:38:03 JST :blobcathug:

     in reply to

     • :verified_2:防空識別區𝒔𝒐𝒄𝟶
     @adiz @ErikUden :blobcatgoogly:
   • Embed this notice
     :verified_2:防空識別區𝒔𝒐𝒄𝟶 (adiz@soc0.outrnat.nl)'s status on Saturday, 02-Dec-2023 07:38:05 JST :verified_2:防空識別區𝒔𝒐𝒄𝟶

     in reply to

     @ErikUden@mastodon.de We got fediblocked on an old instance domain for ".us TLD registration abuse" since the registree wasn't/isn't a USA citizen.

   • Embed this notice
     :blobcathug: (jain@blob.cat)'s status on Saturday, 02-Dec-2023 07:40:07 JST :blobcathug:

     in reply to

     • :blobcathug:
     • :verified_2:防空識別區𝒔𝒐𝒄𝟶
     @adiz @ErikUden :blobcatgooglynotlikethis: We live in a weird world...
   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 02-Dec-2023 19:11:59 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     @ErikUden Bloody hell, Erik… no good deed goes unpunished, eh? I’m so sorry you had to waste your time like that. That collection of ten asshats has now been blocked from my end.

     Life’s too short. If it was me, I’d tell them where they could stick their collective entitlement, hang up, block, and move on :)

     Hope you’re having a better day today.

     Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

     *hug*

   • Embed this notice
     gnutelephony (gnutelephony@floss.social)'s status on Saturday, 02-Dec-2023 19:56:21 JST gnutelephony

     in reply to

     @ErikUden I actually do not know who you are or what you do, but I also see nothing wrong about what your doing with your instance, in the sense of why someone would even bother to harass you like that. So I am not sure why this dispute even crawled into my timeline, but I do find agreement with you that it seems absurd in the first place.

   • Embed this notice
     Erik Uden 🍑 (erikuden@mastodon.de)'s status on Saturday, 02-Dec-2023 19:56:22 JST Erik Uden 🍑

     in reply to

     Memory log of the call:

     "P" for person calling, and "E" for me, Erik Uden

     P: Hello?

     E: Hello!

     P: Yes, is this the phone support of mastodon.de?

     E: Um, not really. This is my private phone number. Hello!

     P: How is this not the telephone support of mastodon.de? But that's what it says - in the costs it says here that mastodon.de can also be reached 50% of the time by telephone. Right?

     //Break//
     [The context here is that €35, or 50% of the total cost of the Vodafone contract, is listed as part of the expenses of mastodon.de. Since some of the servers are located in my private home and use a large part of the bandwidth, we pay for them. This contract is a bundle and also offers a phone number, this is the phone number of Uden UG (haftungsbeschränkt), listed on our website. The people who called me simply called my private mobile phone number].
     //Continue//

     P: Which number do I call if I want to contact mastodon.de support?

     E: Ehm... you can... so basically the phone number is only given because of the imprint and so on.

     P: That's in the operating costs. And 50%. So I'm actually expecting support, yeah?

     E: Because it's a bundled contract with the-

     P: Yes, but a private connection like that is not so nice if you do it with Vodafone, they actually have something against it. So this is actually the official business support, isn't it?

     E: This is my private telephone number -

     P: So this is the support for mastodon.de now?

     E: No, this is my personal phone number, the number on my profile.

     P: But it's there now, it says "Vodafone connection".

     P: Yes, it's on the website. If you click here on mastodon.de. Then it says something about costs. Then it says something about 300€. Internet, electricity and domains. Then it says here: since mastodon.de can also be reached by telephone via this combined contract, it is also fair to charge 50% for this. So I already expect telephone support if 50% goes out for it.

     //Break//
     [Context, the full quote is as follows:

     The servers are operated in the private home of and therefore also use its Internet connection for more than 50%, but let's say as a fictional value that MastodonDE is only charged 50% and the other 50% continues to be used privately. Since MastodonDE can also be reached by telephone via this combined contract, it is also fair to charge 50% for this.

     I would also like to point out that mastodon.de is managed by Uden UG (haftungsbeschränkt). The phone number mentioned here is used by Uden UG (haftungsbeschränkt), i.e. me, for business purposes, e.g. to talk to Vodafone support when things don't work, to call Hetzner, or yes, to be reachable for Mastodon-specific things. For example, if a university etc. wants to invite one of us as a guest speaker.

     The expectation to be reachable on a number which is listed as a cost is a legitimate one. However, not at Friday 23:00 on my private telephone number. The actual number that is paid for with this contract is listed on the website of Uden UG (haftungsbeschränkt) and has clear business hours. My private number has no business hours.
     //Continue//

     E: The combined contract is also an Internet contract, that's Vodafone Red ehm...-

     P: Then mastodon.de can also be reached by phone, right?

     E: Yes, definitely. This is just my private phone number.

     // End

     From there it continued for another 18 minutes. And yes, the whole conversation was as aggravating and as intently misunderstanding and this short section. This was obviously not well intended. I do not understand why one would bug open source maintainers that manage a donation funded project with no profit motive or ads or personal gain like that. I wish I had that kinda time.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 02-Dec-2023 20:15:20 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     @ErikUden ⛄️💕

   • Embed this notice
     Erik Uden 🍑 (erikuden@mastodon.de)'s status on Saturday, 02-Dec-2023 20:15:22 JST Erik Uden 🍑

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan

     @aral Thank you, Aral <3. It's wonderful to have your support in a moment like this.

     I'm usually entirely with you - this is not worth anyone's time. I should know better not to take obvious attempts at annoying me serious enough to let them affect me, but in that moment I was just too surprised that this was happening I was willing to let it go through. Going forward I'll follow your advice! Again, thanks a lot.

     I'm having a wonderful day today!! I'm currently in Prague and there was incredible snowfall during the night- something I haven't seen up north where I live since my earliest childhood.

     So, don't worry! I'm having a wonderful time and am willing to leave this discussion behind (again). I honestly forgot this was a thing as the original discussion happened over a week ago - in a week I will not care again. I'm going to build another snowman today and maybe go over Charles Bridge or to the castle! Love this city!! :ablobcatsnowjoy: :blobcat_santamelt: