Embed Notice

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.