Britt DK Gratreak 🖖 @Britt@qoto.org

It's #FollowFriday, so let's share a thing that we are proud of doing this year!

For myself: I'm proud that I attended #SfN22 and presented my early research in-person. I've wanted to go to Society for Neuroscience since I was an undergraduate but never had the opportunity since I worked all through college to stay afloat.

I just joined my lab earlier this year and still managed to have something to talk about and contribute to science. I also had a new chronic illness kick in late this summer, so navigating the extra fatigue, pain, and symptoms was something I was unsure about. Wrapping IcyHot around my legs, taking meds, resting and accepting my physical limits without collapsing or falling into posterboards was a major plus. There is so much more I wanted to see, but I hope next year I will be able to catch up and make up the difference.

It helps tremendously to have a lab that always has your back!

What are you proud of this year, #Academic / #Science mastodon?

#NeuroscienceMigration #Neuroscience #TwitterMigration #RIPTwitter #MedMastodon

Whoa, have y'all noticed how weirdly toxic the cross-posted RTs from Twitter are? It's almost like that place just isn't the right shape to fit here. 😮 #TwitterMigration

I normally put my Twitter @ on my posters at conferences so I can connect with people I meet, or if someone wants to get in touch about my poster later they have an easy, relatively informal way to do so instead of email. Is anyone else considering putting their Mastodon handle on their conference posters?

As I do some last-minute work on my poster for Society for Neuroscience next week, I'm considering putting this with my email address. How about y'all?

#TwitterMigration
#NeuroscienceMigration
#SfN
#SfN2022

So I just saw a professor of general chemistry post a student's exam (handwriting, math, and all) on Twitter to mock it as a bad exam and I think it's a prime example of a bad professor. If someone posted something like that here on mastodon, I imagine they'd have a hard time finding a STEM instance that would want them... #TwitterMigration

A fascinating phenomenon related to building a local online culture like mastoson: I lead a guild in #WorldOfWarcraft and sometimes to fill your group appropriately you need to open your parties/raids to random people across the world. WoW can be an incredibly toxic place (you would be surprised what grown adults act like behind a cute elf avatar), but my guild exists solely to counter that. I set things up so that before people are let into the Discord (for coordination on boss fights) they have to pause, read, and agree to a simple rule, rule #1: don't be an asshole. (Or else Britt will kick you out immediately).There are other rules, but that is the most important one.

At first I thought it wouldn't do anything to temper the toxicity, but it really has largely prevented people from behaving badly! Over the past year we've cultivated a group that is diverse and, more importantly, feels safe hanging out in our little chunk of this video game. People stick around and they consistently come back. Our guild has far more women and LGBTQIA+ people feeling safe to use voice chat than I've ever seen in WoW.

I think this clearly established community standard is present in many mastodon servers and I think it too will prevent many people from behaving badly. I'm very hopeful about this place even though I don't know quite how to use it yet!

#TwitterMigration
#NeuroMigration
#DisabledMigration
#NeuroscienceMigration