do you prefer nntp's hierarchical tree-style format for groups, e.g. alt.binaries.warez.ibm.pc.old, or reddit's flat organization of /r/mysubreddit? how about fidonet-style?
what's a reasonable character limit on group names? e.g. reddit enforces a 21 character limit on subreddit titles.
"'The threadiverse', aka #fediverse group servers like #guppe, #lemmy and #kbin are all based on the premise that each community is hosted on one instance, but users and posts can come from all over. So it's like any normal #phpBB-style forum, except you use your own user instead of having to register and check everywhere.
Makes sense to me, and I'm not saying that they should do it any other way, but this is exactly how mailing lists work."
Ok think I’m gonna be over here more until I find a better alternative. Between tw*tree turning into a walled garden and the ‘rate limits’ it’s not just toxic it’s becoming unusable #rateLimitExceeded#needMoreOptions#usenet#bbsing
while i'm sad to see #reddit circling the toilet, it only reminded me of how urgent it is that we finally ditch centralized social media. reddit itself isn't the problem - it's a symptom of a much more generalized problem we've had since FB became a thing in the late 00's.
i've spent the past week re-purposing, patching, porting, and expanding a great piece of software based on the same #nntp protocol that #usenet uses, for creating discussion groups. i'm calling it "tomo" (友 - 'friend') bbs.
some time soon folks can spin up their own tomo shards, create discussion groups in a similar manner to reddit, decide whether they want to keep the group restricted to their shard, or share the group with other tomo shards in a public network of discussion groups called tomonet. completely decentralized private or public discussions without supercorporation bs.
best of all, since it is based on plain 'ol usenet-like nntp, you can read and post to discussion groups from a 1977 VAX mainframe, a 1984 IBM PCjr at 2400 baud, an Apple Newton, or a brand new phone.
i can't wait to bust out forté free agent for windows 3.11 and get posting this weekend. 😎
We really should consider services that are not #ActivityPub based but still a federated to be part of the #Fediverse and promote them accordingly. Self-hosting is a plus.
#Usenet is also federated and has been since 1979! There are free providers: https://www.big-8.org/wiki/News_service_providers. If one excludes binaries groups, it's possible to peer with other providers via #NNTP. Posts and groups are linkable in HTML.
So are #SSB, #NNTP and #ActivityPub the main #social protocols to keep an eye on right now or are others also pretty active and/or with interesting features?
one tiny step at a time, developing a not- #usenet nntp reddit-like network, that can be accessed from any newsgroup reader, or a reddit-like web interface
today i made the first successful reply via the web interface!
was quite serious that starting our own user-run and user-owned newsgroup/bbs network that's not #usenet would be a viable alternative to reddit
after two days of research, here's my first step towards making that happen :) big thank you to steve gibson at grc.com who patiently answered a lot of basic questions about how news servers work.
using off the shelf, #foss tools like INN on nothing-special hardware. this is stuff you could run on a 486 with a 250 meg hard drive.
fwiw - the server is not open to the outside world for now. still lots of configuration to do!
I predict that what will happen to #Reddit is the same thing that is happening to Twitter and has already happened to Facebook and frankly, actual shopping malls. The business side of things will churn along divorced from the content which will become ever more generic and culturally irrelevant.
i can't believe i'm saying this - i just realized that i want #usenet groups back.
edit: before i get more replies, i've been a usenet user/subscriber for 30 years, and i still use it daily. i'm very aware that it's still in heavy usage.
to clarify - I'd like to see a usenet back, minus the "big 8" cabal, minus 200TB / day binaries, and all of the ugly crap we've seen since the 80s.
i'd like to see something like a new usenet offering activitypub integration, minimal data transfer (text-only), and easy group management.
I'd actually prefer something like #usenet newsgroups or generally threaded mailing-list type discussions instead of #reddit and the now emerging reddit-ish implementations speaking activitypub, but the aforementioned often lack proper moderation concepts (manually confirming each message as a moderator isn't feasible) and aren't too accessbile for a non-tech audience. I think that UX/UI for casual users is in fact the primary reason why centralized corporate social media got immensely big as of the late 2000s.
I don't know what Meta will call their Activity Pub client, but I'm calling it MetaPub for now. Do you think MetaPub can enshittify and it won't matter to us here? Let's say MetaPub grows and becomes hugely popular despite being prudish. Next someone will gin up a moral panic about BLM or LGTBQ or p0rn here on Mastodon and convince ISPs to stop carrying our packets. Think that can't happen? Go read about how USENET was axed. If you don't remember, USENET was a federated network that contained messages around various topics. It looked a LOT like Reddit does but without ads. MetaPub will be the only game left and final stage enshittification will ensue. #Meta#Facebook#USENET#ActivityPub#enshittification
There is another big advantage of #usenet tech. It can work in store-and-forward like the old BBS did. One does not need a permanent connections between the instances. In the western world that's not so much of an issue but in many places it still is. Additionally, it's very resilient and could provide communications in case of major disasters. In worst case you sent someone with an USB-thumbdrive on a bicycle to the next node. Or you are using #hamradio, dial-up phone or whatever. Usenet is not bound to the Internet.
For less developed areas there can be a small server powered by solar. The bus passing by daily can have another small computer and each time those nodes see each other they exchange messages. People can come with their mobile phones to this local server, exchange messages via WIFI and go home. Next day they come back, send what they wrote and get new messages.
@SteveBellovin I enjoyed reading this. Thank you. I started using #USENET (aka #netnews) back in the early to mid 80s and remember net.comp, net.singles, and net.jokes particularly fondly. 🙂
Has anyone used this? I haven't seen it recommended before in the typical arr stack and it seems like its infinitely more useful for those who are trying to easily maintain ratio on private trackers.
I wonder if I can just go ahead and make the book fullly available at this point. It earns O'Reilly next to nothing I'm sure, but may be helpful to some who are now building what was once called groupware.
I did it with #Facebook. I did it with #Twitter. I just did it with #Reddit. Tossed it into the bin and walked away.
Sad but not regretting it.
In my ideal world #Usenet would be revived (handwavy motion) as an #ActivityPub application. I like #Mastadon a lot but I'm missing long-form articles and topic-identified feeds.
Playing around with #usenet, and wow, it feels like it's 3AM, I have a Surge (remember Surge?), some Portishead going, nowhere to be, and I'm listening to the chirps of a modem. The history here...
Plex doesn't play John Wick 4 I got from radarr
So I downloaded 3 different versions of John Wick 4 at this point... 4k h265 from PsO, the same from CONTiNENTAL and the 1080p from CONTiNENTAL....
GitHub - autobrr/autobrr: Modern, easy to use download automation for torrents and usenet. (github.com)
Has anyone used this? I haven't seen it recommended before in the typical arr stack and it seems like its infinitely more useful for those who are trying to easily maintain ratio on private trackers.