Purpose – What is the purpose of RCsocial.net?
RCsocial.net is a Catholicism focused instance of the Mastodon social network. This is a place for folks interested in Catholicism to thrive. Everyone – Catholic or not – is welcome to join the discussion.
For Whom – Who may use RCsocial.net?
RCsocial.net is a friendly social networking space for those with an interest in Catholicism. Being Catholic is not required – all seekers of truth are welcome here. We ask only that everyone be respectful of each other, remembering always that God created every person in His image and with equal human dignity.
This service is for personal, non-commercial communications. Our only “rule” is to respect Christian values (so show civility towards each other, no NSFW content, etc.). Feel free to discuss topics outside our primary interest area whenever you wish.
Unique – How is RCsocial.net different from commercial services?
The purpose of the big commercial services (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter) is to exploit you for financial gain and to isolate you from any information contrary to their now extreme political, God-less worldviews (via very aggressive censorship and banning). Think of RCsocial.net as the opposite of that.
Thankfully there are now many sites in the “federation” (interconnected, independent social media sites). Each have their own primary areas of interest. Ours is Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, although you need not be either to join us.
While Catholicism is our primary area of interest, you are free to civilly discuss any topic that interests you. We hope that you feel welcome here and will make RCsocial.net your social media home.
Years – How long has RCsocial.net been in service?
RCsocial.net began service on July 4, 2018. We are now in our 4th year of service.
Privacy – Is my activity on RCsocial.net private?
Unlike the tech giants, your data here is not sold or made available to any 3rd parties. Trackers are not used. Very good security measures are in place. In short, your privacy is respected.
However, there are points within the service where unauthorized access could occur. They can not be eliminated completely without negatively impacting the nature of the service. They are few and would be difficult to exploit, but not impossible. Truly confidential communications should be conducted by other means.
RC – What does “RC” in RCsocial.net mean?
Finding an available but good, mnemonic, short, memorable, easily communicated domain name is challenging! This name is a compromise. RC stands for Roman Catholic, which unfortunately is not Catholicism in general as it does not encompass Eastern Rites including Ukrainian Greek, Syro-Malabar, Maronite, Melkite, Chaldean, Armenian and others. This service is – and has always been – focused on all of Catholicism, including our Eastern Rites.
Politics – Is RCsocial.net liberal or conservative?
In a nutshell: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)
RCsocial.net, like Catholicism itself, has no political ideology. Our ideology is truth, as revealed by Jesus Christ, preserved and taught by the Church He established to do so. It is our deepest hope that individual users always seek that truth and always view politics and culture in light of it.
Politics with the demands of the culture, for many quickly becomes an idol – placed ahead of God Almighty whose commandments and revelations are subjugated to it. That is profoundly backwards!
Tech – What is the technology behind RCsocial.net?
TLDR: beefy hardware and software. For more detail see our technology page.
Version – What version of Mastodon does RCsocial.net use?
RCsocial.net is (mostly) a functionally unmodified, up-to-date instance of Mastodon. It tracks new Mastodon releases closely, often within hours of new upstream releases. The Mastodon and RCsocial.net release numbers are displayed in the footer of those pages that contain one (such as the About page).
However, RCsocial.net offers some unique features: light and dark purple themes (to represent the sovereignty of Christ), Holy Spirit dove with branch in the primary liturgical color for each day, an appropriate “anonymous” avatar, improved text throughout, the maximum post size is increased to 2,022 characters (from 500), polls may have up to 8 options (increased from 4), an uptime monitor, the Lord’s Prayer is embedded in every page’s metadata, this user guide and more.
All enhancements are fully interoperable with other federated sites (including all Mastodon instances). Therefore, while they may be limited to 500 character posts (for example), they will display complete posts received from RCsocial.net users.
By Whom – Who is providing RCsocial.net?
George Sipe (@[email protected] or via contact form), a 2010 Protestant (Lutheran) convert to Catholicism. This is 100% self-funded, with no plans for that to ever change.
As we grow additional administrators and moderators may need to be brought on board, but we are nowhere near that point.
FWIW, my hope is not only for RCsocial.net to grow but for many more faithful Catholic and other Christian-focused instances to emerge and thrive.