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Hi #Fediverse, I've got myself into a bit of a bind 
I have been working with a local primary school to try to get them to adopt the fediverse either through Pixelfed or Bookwyrm.
However it's become clear that this exposes the users to too much risk if I use an existing instance.
So....if you were to be setting up a fediverse instance for a class in a primary school, what would you choose (Pixelfed, Bookwyrm, Mastodon etc) and has anybody done this before?
Many thanks for guidance!
For instance - if I went with a small Mastodon instance and didn't federate with anybody, presumably that would work? Same for other platforms? And then (potentially) could federate with other classes in the same or different schools?
@davidoclubb you can run Mastodon in limited federation mode. GoToSocial also does this and is a much more lightweight solution. This means it would be a private instance that would require allow listing specific domains to federate with.
@davidoclubb and if you want to take a more hands-off approach to setting it up I recommend @mastohost . They might be able to set it up in limited federation mode.
@jcrabapple @mastohost Thankyou, I'm just in the process of setting up with them. I think this could be an interesting case study for other schools so I'll try to make some useful notes
@davidoclubb seconded. It will require careful moderation, security protocols, etc., and definitely defederate from everything not at that particular school/district, including former students (perhaps an alumni server).
@davidoclubb
I read that #tootik is designed to be nonaddictive, but it's probably then a bad example.
Setting up under 18s on the fediverse feels really dangerous though and at primary school age doubly so, even unfederated. You'd probably be better with a traditional web forum since that's easier to moderate (especially if you disable PMs)...
@dheadshot I will be trying to learn lessons for others from this...aware of potential pitfalls!
it is a great idea to set up Fediverse instances for classes, where all their friends are. They will stay there forever.
@davidoclubb I think a mastodon server may be your best bet because it is compatible with Pixelfed feeds but is more maintained.
You probably want to unfederate from everyone for privacy concerns.
I will be doing a similar setup soon and am thinking to run it on a raspberry pi at work but I am looking at using a service called syncloud for easy set up.
Later I can always switch things later. But a simple setup to test things out first before your actual final setup may be a good idea.
@bigTanuki I'm going to do a mini 'Mastohost' as an experiment. I'll write a blog post about my experience.
Thanks for the feedback!
@davidoclubb I would love to follow your process. What is your blog?
@bigTanuki it's at Https://clubb.cymru but I don't post very often!
@davidoclubb there's a line of work by @thisisaaronland of a minimum necessary ActivityPub server used to provide feeds for museum objects, it _might_ suit here?
@ultrazool @davidoclubb happy to talk through things but it sounds like what we’ve built is probably not the right fit unless you want a system that is largely publish-only / details here – https://millsfield.sfomuseum.org/blog/tags/activitypub
Can't help you with your questions ... but ... thanks for posting this issue. I now have a better understanding of how Mastodon works.
It certainly got me thinking about creating a federated instance that's more private in nature.
@davidoclubb I'm running a GoToSocial in allowlist mode. That is, I only federate with instance the admin (also me) put in that list (using the web UI).
That way you have some control over the topics shown.
The question then becomes: favour more and smaller instances which are niche but might not reflect the potential as well?
Or go with bigger ones that are more avtive but also less likely well moderated?
GtS implements a good chunk of Mastodon API.
With all time of the world and unlimited ressources you would install all Servers and let Them decide.
In fact you should use one of the proposed ones.
The good thing is, and I bet it will be real in 5 years, EVERYTHING could be exported.
This is something what will never happen outside the fediverse.