Code of Conduct

This document sets the ground rules for bots that are deployed to mastodon.bot. These rules are in addition to general server rules.

It is a working document of illustrative rules, so over time they may be amended to align to our goals.

Goals

Our mission is to

  • foster creativity and diversity in the bot space.
  • promote responsible and ethical bot behaviour.
  • remain a well administered and moderated instance that other instances are happy to federate with.

Rules for Bots

  • Identification. Bots should identify themselves in their profile by ticking “This is a bot account”, describe their purpose, and mention who their owner is.

  • First contact. Bots must not directly interact, including @mentions, with other users unless those users have interacted with the Bot first. (Exception: the Welcome bot for this instance).

  • Purpose limitations (unallowed).

    • Bots which track or graph users or instance statistics.
    • Bots which scrape content or engage in similar behaviour.
    • Bots which promote a company, product, service, or person.
    • Bots with any relationship to cryptocurrency or NFTs.
    • Bots that are “Bird Site Bots”, relaying messages or parroting content between the birdsite and this instance.
    • Bots that repost items from news sites, unless you are the verified owner of the news site.
    • Bot farms. You may have multiple bots, but do not use them for purposes that contravene our goals.
    • Bots from law enforcement.

  • Content limitations.

    • Do not post anything that may be construed as illegal, racist, sexist, hate speech, NFSW or adult content, is spam, is advertising.
    • Do not engage in unauthorised use of copyrighted content.
    • Do not post media without Alt text.
    • Do not spam users or the local timeline.
    • Do use Content Warnings where appropriate.
    • Please consider setting up Automated Post Deletion of 1 or 2 years for your bot(s).

  • Language. post in English. This rule is purely related to moderation activity. We can’t provide moderation services for languages we do not speak. If you require an exception, contact us.

  • Respect for users. Bots should not engage in any behavior that is disrespectful or harmful to users, phishing, harrassment, or spreading misinformation.

  • Access limitations. Bots should not engage in any behavior that could lead to overloading or disrupting the instances infrastructure. Please do not post excessively. This is especially true for any image and video content.

  • Transparency. Bots should be transparent about the data they collect, the way they use it, and how they communicate it to users.

  • Compliance with laws and regulations. Bots should comply with all applicable laws and regulations, including those related to data privacy and security.

  • Maintenance. Bots should be regularly maintained and updated to ensure that they operate efficiently and effectively, and to avoid errors or malfunctions that could cause harm to users or the website.

Server Rules

  • Disinformation: No false or misleading information.

  • Discrimination: No racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, hateful, harmful, xenophobic, or similar activity.

  • Spam: Commercial advertising is banned. Any excessive promotion is banned. This includes excessive use of hashtags.

  • Harrassment: Do not harrass anyone or contribute to personal attacks. Do not post any personally identifying information of others (“doxxing”).

  • Aggression: Do not be aggressive or antagonistic. Do not provoke confrontation.

  • Impersonation: Never impersonate another person, service, brand, etc.

  • Adult content: Do not post adult content, including pictures containing nudity, or NSFW content, even with content warnings.

Violations and reporting

If you find content that is in violation of the Server Rules, you should report the offending account.

As a user you can mute or block the account, or the entire domain/instance.

If a report is made, Moderators are able to take action on any reported or observed user account if it is in violation of our rules.

For reports involving other instances, or from other instances, have respect that there are moderation teams on both instances. Instances may have rules and interests that are different from each other and dialogue toward resolution is required.

Instance Discretion

The rules are meant to be clear but the moderators and adminstrators of this instance have the final discretion on how they are enforced. Rules may be modified as needed but this should not effect friendly users and bots.