Considering that there don't appear to be any open-registration Mastodon instances which line up exactly with the policy and standards we have grown accustomed to over here on Hexbear, I have taken the initiative to set one up myself. The basic functionality of the instance appears to be working. I created a couple accounts, I'm able to post, the server is sending e-mails properly. A couple extra features like full text search haven't been set up yet, but more or less its looking pretty good.
Before pulling the veil off of this thing, I figured it might be a good idea to get a proper discussion going about what this community would expect from a mastodon instance. Things like rules, federation, open/closed registration, open/closed post listings, potentially overlooked security details (for instance: nginx logging IP addresses), etc.
To be clear, this is something I just went and did. I didn't run it by any of the Hexbear staff and don't intend to brand it as "the official Hexbear mastodon instance" or anything like that unless it gets some kind of official endorsement. I just think it would be good for us to establish a foothold in the fediverse and start interacting with some likeminded Twitter refugees, especially considering the World Cup is going to nuke the site on Sunday.