Mastodon – The Map Room

Cartography and Geospatial Accounts on Mastodon

Jonathan Crowe — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 13:05:18 +0000

If you’re trying out Mastodon in the wake of Twitter’s latest fail (and given the uptick in new followers I’ve seen over the past few days, it seems more than a few of you are) but aren’t sure who to follow, here are two curated lists of cartography, geospatial, GIS and map-related accounts on Mastodon for you to follow: one from Florian Ledermann, the other from Jorge Sanz.

(The Map Room’s Mastodon account is on both lists. If you’re looking for an instance to join, mapstodon.space is aimed at map and geospatial professionals and enthusiasts.)

Previously: The Map Room on Mastodon; Mastodon for Mappers; A Mastodon Update.

State of The Map Room

Jonathan Crowe — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 15:04:29 +0000

Assume I’m no longer on Twitter. While my account is still there, and I check in very occasionally, it’s very much in read-only mode to catch things I might otherwise miss. The account is locked and I stopped posting to it in December. While I still cross-post to the Facebook page and Tumblr, the best place to follow me on social media is on Mastodon.
Back to blogs. My blogroll page is always (a) out of date and (b) a mess, and needs keeping up to date (and cleaning up). If you have (or know of) a blog that should be listed, drop me a line.
That goes for podcasts too. I’m only aware of a few of them. Podcasts: links: send them to me.
Old posts going offline soon. To keep my hosting costs under control, I have to more or less break the old, Movable Type-based archives. These are posts made between January 2004 and June 2011. (They’re running on a different hosting plan, I unwisely coded them with hard server links, moving servers breaks those links, and I can’t edit the templates directly any more, not in Movable Type anyway.) These posts don’t get a lot of page views any more and I assume most have dead links; even so, a lot of them are worth keeping, so at some point I will be moving at least some of them into the current system. There are 4,004 posts involved so this will be a time-consuming task, and I’ll be doing it in chunks. In the meantime I’ll put up a placeholder page.
I really need to find a better design template for this site.

A Mastodon Update

Jonathan Crowe — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 21:34:59 +0000

The Map Room’s Mastodon presence has moved to @maproomblog@mapstodon.space. It just seemed more sensible to be on an instance that focused on the mapping and geospatial community. (By the way, mapstodon.space’s admin has a Patreon to cover the hosting costs: running a Mastodon instance is rather more expensive than running a website.)

Previously: Mastodon for Mappers; The Map Room on Mastodon.

Mastodon for Mappers

Jonathan Crowe — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 14:46:42 +0000

There is now a Mastodon instance—mapstodon.space—for map and geospatial professionals and enthusiasts. If it had been up and running when I started The Map Room’s Mastodon account (previously), I might have signed up for it there. (Update Nov. 20: In the end, I’ve moved there: @maproomblog@mapstodon.space.)

It doesn’t matter that much which instance you sign up at (you can connect to any other Mastodon account on any other instance, unless your instance blocks that other instance, which happens when, for example, an instance is full of racist trolls), but instances have local feeds, which is nice when your instance is full of people who share your interests. I’ve already found several familiar faces and/or institutions at mapstodon.space.

The Map Room on Mastodon

Jonathan Crowe — Sun, 30 Oct 2022 13:11:55 +0000

Given what’s been going on with Twitter recently, I figure that a Mastodon account for The Map Room might be useful, at least for those who feel the need to jump from Twitter to Mastodon. You can find it here: ~~@maproomblog@mastodon.social~~ Update Nov. 20: I’ve moved it to maproomblog@mapstodon.space.

I have no plans to shut down any of The Map Room’s other social media presences (Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter)—not at this time, anyway. And you can always subscribe via RSS or email—no intermediating platform required.