Events

An event is a post with a date and a place: a concert, a meeting, a book club, a protest. Catodon shows events from other servers (Mobilizon, Gancio, Friendica, Hubzilla and others), lets you post your own, and lets people say whether they are coming.

This page is for people who use a Catodon server. Administrators: see Events: for administrators. What other servers do with Catodon's events, and Catodon with theirs, is in Events: federation notes.

Reading an event

A post that is an event carries a card under its title with:

• the date and time, in the event's own time zone, and in yours when your clock differs;
• the end time, when the organizer shows one;
• each place with its address, and the link of an online event;
• its status, when it is not simply scheduled: a cancelled event is struck through, and a postponed, rescheduled, tentative or moved-online one says so;
• how many people are going, and the buttons to answer (below).

A place with coordinates links to your maps app and to OpenStreetMap; a place with only an address opens an OpenStreetMap search. Nothing is loaded from a map service until you follow one of those links, so viewing an event tells no third party about it.

Add to calendar downloads the event as an .ics file that calendar apps import with its time zone, place, link and status.

Events from servers that send no time zone (Gancio is one) are shown at the offset from UTC their start time is written in, labelled like "GMT+2", when it is a whole number of hours; otherwise, and for Z or +00:00, in your own time.

Finding events

The Events page lists the events that have not ended yet, soonest first, starting with the ones under way. In the navigation bar it is under Show more. If your navigation bar was set up before events existed, Events is added to that list once on each device; if you remove it in the navbar settings, that device does not add it again, and Import more there brings it back.

• All: every public event this server knows about.
• A tab for this server's own public events, and Following for the accounts and forums you follow. Following includes followers-only events you may read. Each tab appears once it has something to show.
• My events: the events you answered, the invitations you haven't answered yet, or the events you organize (Show).
• Upcoming / Past on every tab, and Filters for a category or a hashtag.

A profile with events still to come has an Events tab, and so does a forum.

To follow someone's public events in a calendar app, use Subscribe in a calendar app on their Events tab. It copies the address of a calendar feed (/@user/events.ics) holding their public events to come and those of the last 30 days. Followers-only, unlisted and private events are never in it.

Events on Mobilizon

Mobilizon only lets you follow groups (and whole servers), not people. To get a Mobilizon group's events, follow the group: its events then arrive with the member who created them as the author and the group as the forum. Following a Mobilizon person is refused straight away with a message saying so, because Mobilizon would never answer the request.

You can still open a Mobilizon person's event by pasting its address into the search.

Answering an event

Under the event:

• Attend: you are going.
• Maybe: only on events from servers that have a "maybe" (Friendica and Hubzilla). Mobilizon and Catodon events don't.
• Can't go.

Click your answer again to take it back.

What happens next depends on the event:

• Open to everyone: you are in at once, as long as there are places left. A full event shows Full. On an event from another server, such as Mobilizon, that server lets you in, usually within seconds: your answer shows Waiting for the organizer to accept you until it does, then changes by itself.
• The organizer approves each person (a Mobilizon option): your answer shows Waiting for the organizer to accept you until they decide. You get a notification when they accept or decline you.
• People sign up on another site: Sign up on the organizer's site takes you there. Nothing is sent from here.
• Don't ask who's coming: there are no buttons.

How many people are going is public. Who is going is visible only to the organizer.

Answering from a server without events

Someone whose account is on a server without events, such as Mastodon, can still answer an event of this server: they send a private message (on Mastodon, a private mention) to @events.bot@<this server> saying "yes" or "no" and the event's link, for example:

@events.bot@example.social yes https://example.social/notes/<id>

The account replies in the same thread with what it recorded and how many people are going. Replying "yes" or "no" to that reply changes the answer, with no link needed, and deleting the message takes the answer back. There is no "maybe". If the event's time, place or status changes, or it is cancelled, the people who said yes this way get a message in that thread.

An answer by message counts like one given with the buttons: the organizer is told, and the count follows. A full, finished or cancelled event refuses a yes.

Mastodon shows an event of this server with its title, when and where, a sentence saying how to answer it this way, and its link. Signed out, the event's page here shows the exact message to send, with a button to copy it.

This works only for events of this server. Someone on Mastodon cannot answer an event on Mobilizon, or on another Catodon server, by writing to this server's account: they write to the account on the event's own server, if it has one. Mobilizon has none.

Posting an event

In the post form, open the … menu and choose Event. Fill in:

• Event title, Start date and Start time. Add an end time if you want one shown.
• Time zone: yours unless you pick another.
• Venue and Address. Type an address, or search for it with the magnifier or Enter. Picking a result fills in the address (and the venue, if you haven't named one) and puts a pin on a map, which you can drag to the exact spot. The search and the map go through your server, so your browser never contacts OpenStreetMap.
• Online link, for an online event or one with a stream.
• Category. Mobilizon needs one to list an event.
• How people answer: Anyone can attend here (the default), People sign up on another site (with a Sign-up link), or Don't ask who's coming. Maximum attendees limits the places.
• Private event: see below.

The text of the post is the event's description. A post is an event or a poll, not both, and a reply can't be an event. Drafts and scheduled posts keep the event.

Your server's administrators decide who may post events (the Can create events role setting). In a forum, only moderators can post events unless the forum allows everyone (Only moderators can post events in the forum's settings), since an event in a forum presents the forum as its organizer.

Changing or cancelling an event

Edit the post. Besides the date, place and the rest, the editor then has a Status: set it to cancelled, postponed, rescheduled, moved online or tentative. Everyone who answered (going, maybe, or still waiting) is told when the start, end, place or status changes, and gets a separate notification for a cancellation.

Who is coming

On your own event, Attendees lists who answered and how: Going, Maybe, Not going. Only you see this list. Creating an event doesn't make you one of the people going: you answer it like anyone else, and only then are you listed under Going (or Maybe, Not going) in your own list, take one of its places, and count in the number going.

Inviting people

On a public or unlisted event, anyone who can see it can use Invite on the event card to invite someone:

• Someone on this server gets a notification ("invited you to an event") with the answer buttons, and the event under My events > Invited, not answered.
• Someone on another server gets a direct message from you with the title, when and where, and the link. On a Catodon recent enough to know these invitations, they get the notification instead.
• Each person is invited to an event once, by whoever does it first. Nobody is invited who has already answered, who can't see the event, who blocks you, or who mutes you.

A private event's invitees are chosen by its creator only, as below.

Private events

Private event in the editor makes an event that only the people you invite can see and answer. You pick them in the post's recipients bar, which then reads Invited. Each invitee gets a notification ("invited you to an event") with the answer buttons in it.

• Invitees don't see who else is invited. The post shows each of them only themselves, and on other servers each server is sent the event addressed to its own people alone.
• The invitation list, with each person's answer, is yours, under Attendees.
• You can add or remove people by editing the post. Someone removed loses their answer and gets no further updates.
• Whether an event is private can't be changed after it is posted.
• A private event never appears on the Events page tabs for other people, in calendar feeds, or among direct messages.

On other servers a private event's reach depends on the software there; see Events: federation notes. Mastodon users, for instance, see it as a direct message with the title and a link.

Notifications

In Settings > Notifications:

An event open to everyone doesn't notify you when you are let in, since that happens within seconds; it does when you are turned away (the event was full or closed).