Darius Kazemi

Just wanted to surface this long comment from me on the state of #Hometown and its future:

https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown/issues/1358#issuecomment-3549758036

I've been an absentee on the "Future of Hometown" thread for a year now and plan to be more responsive. I say more about it in the post itself.

#HometownAdmin

hometown-fork/hometown

A supported fork of Mastodon that provides local posting and a wider range of content types. - hometown-fork/hometown

GitHub
Nov 18 at 10:53pmWeb
Show threadSomnius Nov 18

@darius Hey, thanks so much for your response here. I 100% understand how exhausting it feels to have other life stuff get in the way of projects like this, especially when other folks rely on your work. I'm still eyeing all the migrations I have to do to upgrade the OS and other packages on this instance that I'm sending this from >.>

I know the folks on Merveilles really appreciate the work you've put in here, and if there's a way I can help, I'd love to pitch in!

Show threadDerek CarrollNov 18
@darius I must admit that I didn't realize Hometown _could_ federate posts until I really dug in to some of the documentation today. (I assumed it was an experimental server until I saw that merveilles.town used it.)
Show threadDarius KazemiNov 18
@mantis oh yeah haha! To me the entire value proposition is to have the OPTION and be able to switch fluidly per post
Show threadDerek CarrollNov 18
@darius THAT makes total sense.
Show threadn00qNov 19

@darius

Very happy to see your reply! Life happens but thanks for coming back to us with an update and positive energy for Hometown. 

Show threadparamilitary organizerNov 19
@darius I've been wondering if bonfire is hometown2. Is it?
Show threadDarius KazemiNov 19

@t54r4n1 Tentatively: yes. If they manage to ship what they are promising (and I'm not saying that as a knock on the team, I would say that about literally anyone doing a project like that), and they ship migration tools, I would strongly consider moving Friend Camp to Bonfire.

My main concern is how easy or hard it will be to self-host. I have had trouble getting it up and running locally, but admittedly that was a year ago and it's come a long way.

Show threadDarius KazemiNov 19
@t54r4n1 My hope was always that Hometown would inspire people to build something fundamentally better than a hack on Mastodon, and I can be pretty certain that Hometown either directly or indirectly influenced Bonfire. They've even implemented (or plan to implement?) a few things I've always WANTED in Hometown, like custom "circles."
Show threadparamilitary organizerNov 19
@darius neat! Okay glad to hear it from the proverbial horse's mouth.
Show threadDarius KazemiNov 19
@t54r4n1 neigh
Show threadjerNov 19

@darius @t54r4n1 they have shipped migration and can even import posts from previous instances as un-announced boosts so that interactions are visible.

https://docs.bonfirenetworks.org/instance-immigration.html

Moving to a Bonfire instance — Bonfire v1.0.0-social

Show threadjerNov 19
@darius @t54r4n1 but getting it up and running is still way more complicated than I think it needs to be :(
Show threadDarius KazemiNov 19

@nyquildotorg @t54r4n1 hmm... this bit on post migration:

https://docs.bonfirenetworks.org/instance-immigration.html#data-preservation

seems to clash with

"Posts cannot be migrated - Your post history will remain on your previous instance"

which is right at the top. I guess they mean your posts aren't like... redirected-in-place but rather copied. Still when I saw "posts cannot be migrated" at the top I assumed there was no content import!

Moving to a Bonfire instance — Bonfire v1.0.0-social

Show threadDarius KazemiNov 19
@mayel Hello! Maybe a tiny wording tweak to "posts cannot be migrated" is called for. Like "posts cannot be moved from one server to another, we can only copy your posts while preserving their original dates."
Show threadMoved to @[email protected]Nov 19

Thanks! That must be a leftover from before we added post import, will remove it.

@darius @mayel

Show threadjerNov 19

@darius @t54r4n1 I had the same reaction. I think discussing migration and imports together is overall very confusing.

In their marketing materials it's arguably even worse:

"Seamlessly migrate your entire social presence (including posts, follows, circles, and bookmarks) with Bonfire's comprehensive import tools and migration dashboard."

I think "migrate" is a bad term to apply to imports because to migrate has a very specific meaning in the fediverse.

Show threadEvan ProdromouNov 19
@darius this is one of the hardest things to do and you are doing a good job at it.
Show threadDaneelNov 19

@darius Appreciate you, your thoughtfulness here, and the time you've put into the project. The fedi is better for it!

(I am a little biased as a Hometown admin of course, BUT.)