Server rules

Below is a summary of rules you need to follow if you want to have an account on this server of Mastodon:

1. Do not make oppressive statements (racist, xenophobic, fatphobic, ableist, queerphobic, sexist, antisemitic, etc.), use abusive slurs or spread hate speech.
2. Do not engage in harassment of any kind.
3. Use content warnings especially when talking about sensitive topics or if you are spoiling recent news in your fandom – see more information below.
4. You can post nudity, as long as it is protected by the adequate content warnings. Pornography is restricted to followers-only posts from 18+ accounts. Pedopornography is forbidden.
5. Do not publish private conversations without explicit consent of all parties involved, except to the moderation team if you need to report them.
6. Do not crosspost (from another social network) on the public timelines.
7. Avoid reposting art. Boost the original toot or, if the art is not from Mastodon, credit and link to the artist, and ideally also ask for their permission.
8. Do not create any sort of corporate account for advertising purposes. Artists are of course allowed (and encouraged!) to promote their own shops and commissions.
9. Use of bots on this instance is submitted to admin authorization, including follow bots.
10. Be nice to each other.

Want to join us?

Tell us why you want to join our instance specifically, when there are so many different options on Mastodon! You can tell us about your current fandoms, about your online communities, and even share other social media accounts if you feel like it.

FanDen is a small instance and we try to keep it that way so that everybody can know each other, and for this reason we cannot accept everybody.

We are manually processing each application. This takes time (5 to 10 minutes each), so we process 0 to 25 applications per day depending on our time and energy. Therefore, do not fret if you do not hear back from us instantly, we will send you an email to tell you whether your request has been approved or declined.

As of 19 May 2022 there are 5 applications pending.

What is Fandom Garden?

In Fandom Garden, you are free to gush about the fandoms you like, whether they're related to books, comics, TV shows, movies or music. Come and find fellow fans to share your passion with!

This is a queer, anti-racist, anti-ableist space. We aims to be a sex-positive instance, with a strong opt-in culture for adult content. Our main language is English, and you need to be at least 13 years old to sign up.

We are aware that fandoms can be toxic, but we hope to foster a good environment rather than an abusive one. We believe that you can enjoy content that has flaws (or was made by flawed creators) without glorifying said flaws (or flawed creators). Always prefer calling in rather than calling out, and never harass fellow fans over their interests: if they are breaking our rules, for instance by promoting hate speech, simply report them.

The same goes for writing about fictional abuse and abusive relationships: we recognize the need for this content to exist, but since it is a hurtful topic for a lot of people, proceed with caution, do not glorify known abusers and use content warnings as much as possible.

Do not hesitate to make your experience of this instance more comfortable by muting fandoms, characters or relationships that you don't want to see in your feed! The same goes with users, nobody should hold it against you if you mute or block them.

Moderation

The instance's moderation is taken care of voluntarily by the administrators. They enforce the above-listed rules. To that end, they are free to use all the tools at their disposal.

We also try to block any instances that contradict our rules, as well as those which lack consistent moderation. If you think an instance should be blocked, contact our moderation team.

Fandom Garden is run by @gardener, @ikol, @ariel and @rainbowhalo. Together they speak Dutch, English, Finnish, French, and Italian. You can support the instance by helping with the server costs on Liberapay.

Recommendation: Content Warnings

Content warnings are inbuilt in Mastodon, meaning there is a "CW" button that hides the content of a post under a "show more".

As a general rule, before you post a message, ask yourself whether everybody wants to see what you have posted without warning. Maybe your message will trigger a panic attack for some people? Maybe some folks read Mastodon among their family or at work, and don’t want to see graphic images appear suddenly on their screen?

Having a content warning allows others to choose to confront themselves with topics that can be hard for them, instead of having these topics forced upon them.

Some people also use the CW field as announcement or as title for the topic of their post, or to say that their toot is long: that way, the toot is folded and doesn’t clutter the feed.

A non-exclusive list of topics for which you should use CWs is:

• Spoilers
• Not Safe For Work : sexual content and violent/gore content
• Politics, religion, discrimination (transphobia, sexism, xenophobia…)
• Mental health: depression, suicide, usual phobias…
• Physical health: medical topics, diets…
• Common addictions: alcohol, cigarettes, drugs…
• Food: you can specify whether it's kosher, vegetarian, vegan…
• Violence: physical & mental abuse, toxic relationships…
• Weapons: guns, blades…
• Flashing pieces of media
• Caps: contains at least one word written in capital letters
• Media without alternative text

Recommendation: Image Descriptions

If you have the energy for it, try to write image descriptions of the pictures you post. This can be done by clicking on the image in the Compose Box (on the Mastodon web app it's the Edit button, on Tusky it's a round A with a checkbox).

Image descriptions can be a few words (“Books on a shelf.”) or several sentences (“Four books on a shelf. From left to right: […]”). The text should convey what the image mean. If it’s a picture you took, explain what drew your eye; if it’s a graph, explain its behavior and key numbers. You don't have to talk about all the details; just explain what matters to you!

If the image is a long text, you can try to use Mastodon's text recognition if you use the web app. Otherwise, you can mention @OCRbot and it will reply with its text recognition. Be mindful that OCR doesn’t always work, and it’s best to copy and edit the output of the bot rather than letting disabled users try to decipher what the text says.

If you don’t have the energy to write an image description, you can write so in the CW, use the :helpDescribe:​ emoji to invite people to add one, or tag the @imagecaptionpls group which will notify everyone who follows the group that there’s someone who needs an image description.

If you see an image without description, you can reply to the post, remove the mention of the OP, and write the image description.

Privacy Policy

You can choose the privacy level of each of your toots (direct message, followers-only, public). We do not process or sell your data in any way. However, every toot, even sent in private, can be seen by the moderating team if there is a report against it. This means that toots are not encrypted and could be accessed by a third party in case of malicious attacks or legal actions. Therefore, if you wish to discuss sensitive topics, we recommend you use another medium.

Credits

This instance is set up thanks to MaaStodon, which handles the server.

Our mascot (the raccoon reading a scroll) was designed by Mirima.

The banner was drawn by Kaerhon.

This instance uses emojis from several sources:

• Mutant Standard emoji, which are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
• Blob emojis from the Blob Emoji Community. They are licensed under the Apache License 2.0, and are inspired by Google's Noto Emojis.
• The Marvel, OFMD & rainbow eyes emojis are made by ikol, under the CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0 license.
• The sparkling pride hearts were made by Kat, licensed under CC0 (free distribution).
• The other queer emojis were made by Zoë Bijl. They're all licensed under CC0, and you can find some of them in their QueerCats project.
• The blobCheer emojis were made by Shiro, the blobDisapproval and blowTmi emoji were made by Kuro. They are all licensed under the CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0 license.
• The raccoon emojis were made by Claire, based on the Google blob emojis.
• The Sushi Cats emojis were made by @kkcake and are free to use as emojis.
• The lookalike Red Velvet logo was made by @rainbowhalo, under the CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0 license.
• The emoji to indicate an image description is needed was made by @t54r4n1 and is free to use as an emoji.
• The blobs holding kpop band lightsticks were made by @Sapphaos

Moderated servers

Mastodon generally allows you to view content from and interact with users from any other server in the fediverse. These are the exceptions that have been made on this particular server.

Limited servers

Posts from these servers will be hidden in public timelines and conversations, and no notifications will be generated from their users interactions, unless you are following them:

Suspended servers

No data from these servers will be processed, stored or exchanged, making any interaction or communication with users from these servers impossible: