Mastodawn

Kbin Roadmap 2023

A certain stage of development has ended - a prototype was created that allowed me to verify whether such a form makes sense in the #fediverse. Until now, it was a project that I developed in my free time. Now, thanks to the great people from Nlnet, I will be able to devote much more time to it. This time, we have already... #kbin #fediverse

https://kbin.social/m/fediverse/t/511

Kbin Roadmap 2023 - Fediverse - kbin.social

A certain stage of development has ended - a prototype was created that allowed me to verify whether such a form makes sense in the #fediverse. Until now, it was a project that I developed in my free time. Now, thanks to the great people from Nlnet, I will be able to devote much more time to it. This time, we have already...

cragsand May 1, 2023

Very impressive for a prototype 👏 Excited to see where this project is headed 👀 #kbin #reddit #redditalternative

stonedonkey May 1, 2023

Looks really interesting! Is there a way to create magazines on kbin.social yet? Looks like most of the existing ones are moderated by ernest which I'm assuming is by design :)

ernest May 1, 2023

Yes, you can create a new magazine here: https://kbin.social/newMagazine - there are some time limitations. Don't worry, all the magazines will be handed over to the community. I have a lot of work to do with the code, so I will definitely need help here ;)

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stonedonkey May 1, 2023

Very cool thanks!

SoupGod228 May 1, 2023

Looking forward to seeing how everything plays out in the future.

Montag May 2, 2023

It looks good and provides a much-needed service. Thanks for the effort

Montag May 2, 2023

How do favourites and up/down votes work? What are the different purposes of each?

I see this post is current at +24 and has 12 favourites. If I click on favourites (or boosts) at the bottom then I get a list of who favorited it. But if I click on favourite in a comment, it just adds 1 to the favourite count.

ernest May 2, 2023

The up arrow is the equivalent of a boost on Mastodon, adding to favorites is represented by a star. The down arrow is equivalent to the Dislike button on Lemmy and Friendica, Mastodon probably doesn't have an equivalent (Dislike will be federated this week). Compared to Lemmy, it works a little differently, as the up arrow there is the equivalent of a favorite.

The comment activity can be checked by expanding the "more" menu and selecting "activity"

ned May 10, 2023

Saw an interesting random post about kbin written in Italian. The guy liked the idea, but said he doesn't like PHP.

ernest May 10, 2023

Here's why: https://kbin.social/m/fediverse/p/165967/I-love-calckey-but-before-I-switched-to-only-fedi#post-comment-273127

I love calckey, but before I switched to only fedi social media wise I used to... - Fediverse - kbin.social

ned May 10, 2023

Strangely enough, in this particular context, I'd say PHP is better than Rust, cause at least you get a garbage collector. Solid logic with sticking with what you can prototype in quickly. That's a lot more important than performance. However, people hate PHP, so it's gonna be hard to find help (I assume it doesn't matter, it seems like a solo mission :)

Perhaps, this type of discussion should be avoided. Maybe some kinda FAQ section where you explain why Lemmy isn't satisfactory for you.

ernest May 10, 2023

I totally agree, I want to have an FAQ where I explain various aspects of the project. I just started writing it down on the #codeberg wiki.

https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core/wiki

kbin-core

/kbin is a decentralized content aggregator and microblogging platform running on the Fediverse network.

Codeberg.org

ned May 10, 2023

Hmm, this sounds like Pidgin (or any other universal messenger) for ActivityPub.

The first paragraph is quite confusing. Could you explain why a content aggregator should be combined with microblogging?

ernest May 10, 2023

This is difficult to describe in a few sentences, it's just a preliminary sketch of one of the sections. I need to gather my thoughts and I think once I finish it, everything will be much clearer.

ned May 11, 2023

ernest, I like this project cause you've been so responsive and enthusiastic.

I don't like microblogging. The only good application for it is for discovery without advanced search. I'd prefer the focus to be on well written articles, engaging podcasts, and video documentaries. What's that called macroblogging? Monetization, haha? We gotta give people an incentive to produce thoughtful content. I'd recommend integrating with LBRY. That could be another NLnet project: ActivityPub to LBRY bridge.

The microblogging aspect could be automated with a summarizer, and autoposted.

This would be an awesome service for me, I'd pay $5/mo to have it.

ernest May 11, 2023

Hi @ned,

I don't like microblogging. The only good application for it is for discovery without advanced search

I am currently working on a search engine. It will be more contextual, with the ability to choose the search area and filter search results. But I understand what you mean and I also understand why Lemmy maintainers made that design decision. However, I believe that cutting off such a large part of the fediverse is not the best.

I want /kbin to be simple and modular because I want to give people a choice in how it looks. Ultimately, it can be a page like it is now, or just a link/article aggregator, or bloggin platform, or an events browser, or streams browser. I want /kbin to be a window into the fediverse. The person who encounters the fediverse for the first time on /kbin will have the opportunity to explore the entire rich ecosystem, and over time may want to move on to more dedicated solutions, which is cool.

Combining a link aggregator and microblog is not my original idea. In addition to Reddit, I drew inspiration from two Polish social portals:

Strims - probably the closest to /kbin - collapsed several years ago due to the owner's misguided decisions. One of them was to delete the microblog section against the will of the community. Decentralization is supposed to solve this problem.
Wykop - one of the most popular social portals in Poland with a huge user base. Unfortunately, this year a new version was released that is slowly killing the service. In addition, it is sponsored by political parties, which especially now, just before the elections, makes it unusable for me. Despite having an account there for 15 years and a lot of sentiment, I have recently almost stopped visiting it. Decentralization is supposed to solve this problem.

We gotta give people an incentive to produce thoughtful content. I'd recommend integrating with LBRY

I'll take a closer look at LBRY because I've only heard a little bit about it so far. Personally, I'm a supporter of free and open knowledge on the internet for everyone. I'm also very cautious when it comes to cryptocurrencies. But I also don't like to limit myself, I like to draw inspiration from everywhere :) However, I'm keeping an eye on various projects, and lately I'm interested in #Nostr, where there are some super interesting things going on. Previously, Kbin had the option to receive Cardano donations for content, without external intermediaries, but it turned out to be too complicated and confusing for people at that time (https://streamable.com/hdr4f0).

Nevertheless, I know someone who understands this area much better than I do, and we've discussed it before @fervi. Running a project alone isn't easy, and one of the things I would do differently is to send an email to Nlnet earlier. Maybe it's really worth presenting this vision now.

I want to focus on developing the core, as it will be the foundation for building other things, but I would be happy to help with integrations.

I assume it doesn't matter, it seems like a solo mission

I hope that I\ll only be alone for a while :) A large and important part of the Fediverse is based on PHP (Pixelfed, Friendica, WriteFreely, etc.). But you're right, it doesn't matter. If /kbin can help in any way or at least brighten the day of one person, I'm all in for it :) Currently, I want to keep an eye on the bigger picture and not get distracted from the main goal. This is additionally difficult for me because I'm not even a native speaker and I have to be very careful not to be misunderstood or inadvertently offend anyone in any way.

To be honest, it's my little obsession hahah. It started back then (http://web.archive.org/web/20180203151128/https://makigi.pl/), but I didn't have enough skills to develop such a big project. So I decided to quit my job and knock on the door of the first professional-looking IT company in the area. I asked for a free internship, I wanted to see how certain things are done and get answers to some of my questions. I met such cool people there that I stayed for a few years more than I planned ;p That led me here.

I'm an average developer, but believe me, I'm fricking stubborn.

kbinAda

Streamable

ned May 11, 2023

I went to see Alexis Ohanian talk back when reddit was still small. He said they were doing it for fun, and meant it to be a small fun website. If memory serves, he called it tacky. I didn't like reddit back then, but over the years a big chunk of answers that were supposed to be on stackoverflow would show up on reddit. Google on the other hand started messing with search results to serve more ads, so appending reddit at the end of a query helped in many cases.

Making a better aggregator / search engine for the fediverse would be interesting. But its utility for the current content of microblogging is negligible. I wouldn't mind cutting out mastodon to be honest. It's just a bunch [british word for cigarettes] and hentai watching nazis arguing about which group is more retarded. It's entertaining, but it gets boring pretty much. You're guaranteed to offend both of those sides, so it's better to avoid the whole microblogging sphere. I guess Poland is a magical place where far right politicians go to anime conventions and pose for pictures with femboy attendants.

LBRY is more of a protocol like ActivityPub, but it's also a cryptocurrency. You can click download and get the file (unlike YouTube). It can distribute content in a bittorrent fashion, and that's a lot more scalable in the context of the fediverse. You need to ensure that the project gets properly funded, or it's not gonna be used. I understand your caution about crypto, but that could be a viable source of funding for this. You can buy compute with crypto, so it should cover most of your expenses.

I'd recommend you working on it alone, on the core at least. You don't need help if you're good at using LLMs. They can write most of the code for you, and even tests. Software teams of humans are slow and fragile. Single dev projects are a lot faster. Obsession moves mountains :)

I don't care much about open internet. I think it's open enough already. And most people want moderation (censorship). There is too much stuff out there, and most people are offended by a big chunk of it. It seems like the same people who want moderation also don't want the fediverse to searchable. Is that right?

ernest May 11, 2023

I get your point of view :D But you see, I still see it a bit differently. Maybe because from the beginning, I started consuming content from the fediverse my own way, without relying on any of the apps. And it was actually mainly Polish-language content, where it was a fresh and enjoyable experience. Even now, on the main instance, there are a lot of interesting discussions and content that I wouldn't want to miss. I think building small, local communities is incredibly important. And in such a magical place, it's good to have a little bit of independence ;)

It's true that there is a lot of content on the publicly available internet, and among all the noise, it's harder to catch the valuable content than ever before.

What you're talking about, as you've noticed, is an idea for a separate project. But you're absolutely right, there are also real-world problems and you need to have different options in reserve if you want to keep developing continuously. I'm taking note of all of this, but one thing I've learned is to bring things to the end and focus on the current goal right now.

Budman Jun 10, 2023

If you'd like any help with elasticsearch (I know your plan is removing it), I can help. Definitely help keep it as small as possible.

lol3droflxp Jun 11, 2023

Very nice to see that the project is taking off. I’m hoping for this to be my Reddit replacement. However it seems that comments to posts by myself on other federated platforms don’t show up on kbin.social. Is that a known bug?

FredOnline Jun 15, 2023

Ernest, looking at all the previous comments, you must feel like you've been connected to 'The Borg Collective', with it's 'thousands' of voices!

ngmi Jun 16, 2023

Any plans to use HTMX?

Wage_Slave Jun 17, 2023

As a new comer, seeing shit like this is refreshing and may be wildly addictive. Road maps, open communication, user base oriented initiatives. This is like heroin when the only update you got from reddit usually was the last one you can't remember them sending.

I for one am excited to see this, and look forward to being along for the ride.

ittu Jun 18, 2023

I would love an official old.reddit.com clone interface combined with reddit enhancement suite functionality.

ittu Jun 18, 2023

users should be able to copy external links without having to enter the thread,

zd Jun 22, 2023

I definitely prefer this over Lemmy. Clean and easy to figure out without the shady development decisions.

DisgruntledGoat Oct 3, 2023

Don't know if this is the right place for suggestions, but I have a few that were immediately obvious. (Please let me know if there's somewhere more appropriate to post these!)

I started a new thread in a quiet sub where the last post was 2 months ago. However, my thread didn't show up at the top (when using the default "hot" view). That would be understandable for busy subs but if the latest post is months old its "hotness" should have decayed enough that a new post goes to the top.
I also got an error when submitting the thread, although it did go through. I ended up double posting because of that. (Also it wasn't totally clear it was an error at first as the page itself didn't say "error", only the title on the browser tab.)
The dropdown menus suffer from the "diagonal problem" where they disappear the instant the mouse moves out of the hitbox. For starting a new thread, I hover over the + then move diagonally down and left towards "add new thread" but the menu disappears.
Someone else mentioned it, but comment folding is a must.