While baraag has remained closed as invite-only, the server is now hitting its limits and I am left with no choice but to make another upgrade soon to keep us running smoothly.
The new server I am eyeing will increase my monthly cost by an additional $300 USD, an amount that I can bear for a short while before it stops being financially sustainable for me.
I hate to make a plea for donations but if you can spare anything to my SubscribeStar or pixivFANBOX pages, I would be forever grateful.
Today marks the 6th year anniversary of baraag.net and the community here. Thank you to everyone that has helped support this instance as a place for artists to share their works and connect with followers. In the face of those who want us gone and wiped from the fediverse, here’s to another year of still existing in spite of the many challenges to come.
i fucking love it when the few people in my audience that are from north jersey read my comic bc they get to have extra understanding using knowledge that is completely useless in any other situation lmao
@Paraportobello I recommend that you block individual users, or blanket block whole domains if you find a particular server is leaving hateful replies to your posts. I do not defederate baraag from other domains unless they pose a threat to us being shut down.
@Ponlets skared posted content that looked like photo realistic children, separate AI generated versions of his DAZ models. While these images were not NSFW, they appeared indistinguishable from real life children.
I refuse to host any content that appears to features what appears to be real life children, even if they do not actually exist and are AI generated. This existing rule is now clarified and further highlighted for all to clearly see at baraag.
I need to update everyone here on an issue that is a side effect of disabling federation. Until I can work out turning back on our ability to federate, the consequence of becoming locally isolated is that all posts can no longer be viewed without logging in. Posts also no longer embed.
I realize this is a major issue for the visibility of many artists here but I want users to be aware of this problem. Registrations will be mostly closed but feel free to DM me for an invite link to give friends.
Since 2017, I never wanted baraag to become a siloed and closed off community. I fully embrace the idea of the fediverse and the different communities that can come together. But it is with a heavy heart that I isolate us down to a local timeline, at least for the time being until the end of this year.
For artists that wish to join a still-federating instance that has a similar policy to baraag for what is acceptable content without needing to censor (like pawoo.net), I recommend aethy.com
To prevent the server from shutting down or otherwise becoming unresponsive, I have turned off federation with all outside instance communities. This means that all communication at baraag is now strictly between local users, no one from any other server can remotely interact with us.
This frees up a tremendous amount of resources and buys me time to figure out the timeframe for when we can pull off the server upgrades necessary for me to enable federation again.
In light of the twitter fallout and a mass exodus of new users being introduced to Mastodon and joining the fediverse for the first time, the server for baraag buckled at the influx of traffic. I thought I had more time to upgrade the server but I am unable to immediately address all this new activity to keep up with it.
@Yokappa AI generated art is allowed here. Although I have not yet formally made any rules on it, I just ask that AI art is disclosed as being generated.
What is not allowed is AI generated NSFW photographic art (or otherwise featuring “hyperrealistic” faces that is indiscernible from a real person).