a blocky 3D environment with a green grid floor and Portal Foxes TD spelled out using grey blocks. several small foxes are standing on different blocks in and on the block letters. one appears to be breathing fire. – Portal Foxes TD by @Alrecenk

Server Migration Wrap Up#

Finishing up the last few tasks from the server migration, domain ownership was transferred over, the DNS servers switched, and database backups set up on the new host.

Wasabi S3#

There is one dangling thread, which will remain for the near future and that is the old media hosted on the Wasabi S3 service.

The new media proxy (media.peoplemaking.games) ensures that media can be moved between providers in the future without breaking links, but unfortunately any posts which have been previously seen and cached on remote fediverse servers before our media proxy was set up at the beginning of June cannot be automatically updated to point to the new server, and will forever contain links to Wasabi’s server (s3.wasabisys.com).

If the Wasabi storage buckets are deleted, any media included in those cached posts will fail to load the next time they are viewed (if the viewer’s server doesn’t also still have the image cached). For context, peoplemaking.games currently only caches remote media for a week, after which it would need to be re-fetched the next time it’s viewed.

To that end, we’re planning to keep the old Wasabi account active for the time being, maybe another 6-12 months. It will cost a bit to keep the old image links alive, but it’s better than more broken images if we can avoid it.

Emoji Cleanup#

I took a pass through the custom emojis on the server to sort them out a bit.

In particular, the entire Mutant Standard Emoji set was included in the emoji picker, and at a bit over 8000 emoji including all of the colour variations, it was a bit unwieldy.

If you really want to use one of the many, many, many hand type and colour variations, like :ms_pinched_fingers_clw_v3: or :ms_vulcan_paw_d3:, they are still available… but you’ll need to type in the full emoji code (ms_ + Mutant Standard filename) as they are no longer all listed in the picker.

pinched fingers purple claw hand

vulcan salute orange paw hand

A few smaller sets like Parrots, Potions, and Pusheen, are now sorted into their respective categories in the picker.

No ChatGPT, LLMs, “AI Art”#

A new rule as been added to the About page clarifying that the use of ChatGPT, LLM, or “AI Art” content is not allowed on the server.

You are of course more than welcome to continue using standard procedural generation techniques, shaders, fractals, etc.

If you would like to post GenAI or LLM output for discussion, critique, etc. then please put it behind a content warning.

Disability Pride Month#

July is Disability Pride Month, so what better time to brush up on your alt-text game.

If you’re already in the habit of using alt-text, that’s great! If not, you are strongly encouraged to add alt-text / image descriptions to any posts containing images or video: Write helpful Alt Text to describe images.

Costs and Donations#

Our bills are mostly in CAD now, but Patreon donations are in USD, so I’ve listed both at the current exchange rate.

Cost spreadsheet, text follows.

Expand Costs Table
peoplemaking.games June 2025
CAD USD
Main Server 12-32GB-512GB -$50 -$37
Main Server Setup One Time Fee -$50 -$37
Media (OVH) 176 GB -$4 -$3
Media (Wasabi) 45 GB + 90 days -$22 -$16
Backups 37 GB -$0.50 -$0.37
Domain Name $37/yr -$3 -$2
Email Server -$5 -$4
Patreon Donations $113 USD $154 $113
Patreon Fees $19 USD -$26 -$19
Monthly Totals
Previous Balance $0 $0
Total Expenses -$162 -$119
Total Donations $154 $113
Balance -$8 -$6

This has been the first full month of cost and donation information for the new server and ownership. A few things are worth pointing out…

There was a small shortfall in donations for the costs this month, but this month also included a setup fee equal to one month of the server cost, that setup fee won’t be incurred in future months, so if donations continue to be roughly the same that means costs should be covered going forward. Yay!

As discussed above, we’re paying for some duplicate storage to keep old media active on Wasabi, which is about 45GB worth. Unfortunately, Wasabi also charges a minimum of 90 days storage for files that are deleted in less than 90 days, so there is around 200GB of cached data that was deleted a month ago, that we will still be paying for for another 2 months. After that the Wasabi costs should drop to the minimum fee, about $7 USD, for as long as we decide to keep it around.

Thank you to everyone that has donated through Patreon. There’s no obligation that you donate in order to use the server, but it is most appreciated!

– Brook

a round black UFO shaped object with a rotary phone like dial on top, and a rainbow coloured stripe of lighting snaking its way back and forth around the edge. – Blobulator by @aubilenon

If you would like to submit a game launch, work in progress, screenshot, artwork, etc. to be featured in a future post, just send a link or image to @brook