this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023
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Magazine dedicated to discussions about the kbin itself. Provide feedback, ask questions, suggest improvements, and engage in conversations related to the platform organization, policies, features, and community dynamics. ---- * Roadmap 2023 * m/kbinDevlog * m/kbinDesign

founded 1 year ago
 

Hey, once again, I welcome the newcomers. It's great to see new faces here :) It seems that we've managed to resolve the server issue. Unfortunately, I had to temporarily disable certain features, such as content auto-refresh. It will be restored at the beginning of next week after the infrastructure change, so you'll get to experience kbin in its full glory then :) Currently, I'm working on a few critical things that I want to finish by Monday:

  • Infrastructure improvement, optimization related to high traffic
  • Admin guide - creating a new instance
  • Fixes in notifications for post replies
  • Attend to the new mod reports
  • As soon as possible, I also want to get back to Codeberg Issues, private messages etc - there are many new topics there. Thanks to everyone for the that!

Some time ago I had an issue with bots, so registration process it might not be done perfectly. If the emial didn't reach or wasn't received in time, after a while and additional verification, the account will be manually activated.

If something important happens, please email me through the contact form - it's the fastest way to reach me. Now I'll get back to my tasks, and I wish you a great time exploring the fediverse :)

At some point, the registration will also be temporarily disabled. Nevertheless, we are still running on a budget VPS.

Have a great weekend!

rel: https://kbin.social/m/kbinMeta/p/417417/Alright-it-was-a-long-night-for-me-But-I-m

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[–] zombiepiratefromspace@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (6 children)

First up, thanks for your hard work!

Nevertheless, we are still running on a budget VPS.

As things are currently developing, it is almost a certainty that all reddit alternatives on the fediverse will get absolutely hammered on the 12th.

I know you are working on an infrastructure update. I just sent you a few bucks via buymeacoffee to support that. However, it could well be possible that the new infrastructure will also become overwhelmed during the days following the 12th, requiring another update in short notice.

At some point, things might become really expensive.

What I'm trying to say is: Don't be hesitant to ask for donations. I think many of the users here right now are acutely aware of how important the next few days are going to be for the post-reddit fediverse ecosystem. Growth needs servers, servers need money and I'm sure many users would be willing to to chip in.

[–] ernest@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (5 children)

@zombiepiratefromspace Thank you, I really appreciate it! I will try to keep kbin.social alive for as long as I can. However, not at any cost. What is more important to me is the future decentralization, which is beautiful in the fediverse. That's why there is an emphasis on providing instructions for creating your own instance, even though kbin is still far from a stable release. I believe people will manage with a little support from me on Matrix... :)

[–] filbert@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Can you link me to a brief explanation on how the fediverse/instances work?

It is something I am still not fully grasping. For example can there but duplicate magazine names on different instances or is kbin.videos link to all the same threads regardless of instance?

[–] damon@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] filbert@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I appreciate the link but that really doesn't explain much to me.

I understand different instances allow for decentralization. But how are they connected or are they connected? Do I see other instances on kbin.social?

[–] doc@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I thought this explanation by /u/buried_treasure does a great job explaining this in an easy to understand way.

You will naturally be aware that there are many different systems on the internet, run by different companies. And these systems are generally incompatible with one another.

For example, you can't use GMail to compose and send a post to Twitter. You can't log on to Facebook and read content from Reddit (unless somebody has copied it there). You can't watch Youtube videos via Flickr. And so on.

All of this seems obvious - they're completely different systems. Why on earth SHOULD you be able to interact with them from elsewhere?

A few years ago some people decided that even though this was obvious, it wasn't the way the internet HAD to be. They developed a protocol (which is just a set of instructions for computer programs to talk to each other over the internet) which they called ActivityPub, and then basically said to software developers "here it is. We think this could be a cool way of getting different systems to interact with each other. See what you can do".

In the 5 or 6 years since then, lots of software developers HAVE tried to see what they can do with ActivityPub. One well-known example of a system that uses it is Mastodon. It's a system that is similar to Twitter.

Another couple of ActivityPub systems that are becoming popular right now are Lemmy and KBin. They are Messageboard systems, roughly similar in concept to Reddit.

There are many other ActivityPub systems, for example Pixelfed (which is a bit like Flickr, so for hosting photos), Peertube (yep you guessed it, videos), Friendica (like Facebook) and far too many others to list. Collectively, these systems and any others that use ActivityPub call themselves "the Fediverse".

OK - so what? These are just wannabe competitors to the big boys: Twitter, Youtube, Reddit, right?

Not right! The magic of ActivityPub and the Fediverse is that they can all interact with each other.

So you can log on to Mastodon and subscribe to Lemmy groups. That would be like logging on to Twitter and subbing to your favourite subreddit. And then being able to read the posts from that subreddit right there in Twitter.

You can log on to KBin and follow users on Peertube. Imagine being able to follow and view content from your favourite Youtube streams from right here in Reddit.

That's the real beauty of the Fediverse - every system knows how to talk to every other one. The other clever bit about it is that because ActivityPub is a publicly-defined protocol, no one company can own it and take it over. It's almost impossible for a billionaire like Elon Musk to take over Mastodon, or for Lemmy admins to decide to shut out third-party APIs. Because the system has been built from the very beginning to be open, and shared, and communal.

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