[HN Gopher] How to run a small social network site for your friends
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       How to run a small social network site for your friends
        
       Author : quaintdev
       Score  : 325 points
       Date   : 2021-12-07 09:28 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (runyourown.social)
 (TXT) w3m dump (runyourown.social)
        
       | Nerada wrote:
       | I miss how every hobby had a forum running on phpBB,
       | SimpleMachines, Invision, etc.
       | 
       | HN is great, but it's very point in time. If I find an
       | interesting topic posted over a day ago, it's never getting new
       | replies. It's a snapshot of the thoughts on that topic for that
       | single day, nothing more.
        
         | account42 wrote:
         | As much as I like threaded discussion like on HN I think it
         | makes following discussion over a longer period of time almost
         | impossible as you need to look all over the tree for new
         | replies. Even reddit's highlighting of new posts does not
         | really fix that and is s paid feaure anyway (except in the subs
         | you moderate) so won't have any effect on the nature of the
         | community. Maybe having both a threaded view for the first time
         | you want to read through a thread and a more linear view for
         | updates would make sense.
        
           | Alex3917 wrote:
           | Scoop places a [new] tag next to comments that have been
           | posted since the last time you refreshed the page, so that
           | you can just Ctrl-F. So there have been popular sites doing
           | this for 20+ years, e.g. Kuro5hin and DailyKos. HN just
           | hasn't had features like this due to being limited by single
           | threaded compute for various reasons. Although if the
           | comments were served via an API, this could now be down in
           | the front end with just the timestamp of when each user last
           | refreshed each page.
        
         | rtpg wrote:
         | Yeah honestly forums counteract soooo much of the weird
         | incentives that lead to a lot of yelling (yes there is still
         | yelling in forums)
         | 
         | I've been in two "tiny forums" in the past and honestly I
         | prefer that to the idea of a Twitter clone. Let's people put in
         | more effort, have real topics (like about events) and isn't
         | just streams.
        
           | sjg007 wrote:
           | It definitely stops the seagull effect where people Just fly
           | in and shit uninformed opinion all over stuff. Not to mention
           | downvotes by the flock.
        
           | usrusr wrote:
           | I'm on a number of "large niche" forums (think posts-per-
           | minute not minutes-per-post) and yeah, lots of yelling. But
           | I'm also on a large Facebook group aiming at the same
           | audience (actually a spin-off of the most ancient of those
           | forums), and it's a night and day difference. On the Facebook
           | group everybody with even the tiniest trace of control is
           | self-censoring themselves into total silence, leaving only
           | the chattiest voices outdoing each other with irrelevant
           | posts. The forums are terrible in their own way, but still so
           | much better.
           | 
           | But it's very noticeable how the forum audience is aging,
           | even compared to Facebook which is already the retiree home
           | amongst corporate social media. I can't imagine how lopsided
           | interaction must be on the "influencer platform" generation
           | of social media must be..
        
         | joe_the_user wrote:
         | I am still on two different extremely niche forums, one running
         | phpBB (wild skins and all). I sometimes go to other existing
         | forums also. This stuff exists.
        
         | worldofmatthew wrote:
         | GDPR and the upcoming online safety bill and the EU's digital
         | economy regulations makes it nearly impossible for almost
         | anyone to run a forum. That is now only possible by big tech.
        
           | Zababa wrote:
           | I don't understand why that would be the case. GDPR is mostly
           | about personal data (that you don't really need for a forum).
           | The online safety bill would at worst get your forum get
           | blocked in the UK, but I haven't been able to find clear
           | expectations for a forum outside of what I would call
           | "regular moderation". I also didn't find much about the EU's
           | digital economy regulations. Would you mind expanding on why
           | it's nearly impossible for almost anyone to run a forum now?
        
             | worldofmatthew wrote:
             | People can post a lot of personal information to an
             | internet forum without asking the owner and even email
             | addresses count as personal information.
             | 
             | Labour and the Tories are trying to extend The online
             | safety bill to put forum owner in prison if found to be
             | causing harm (whatever that means) and you would have to
             | pay for staff to monitor the forums 24/7 (no one is going
             | to help out if they risk going to prison). All with a fuck
             | ton of vagueness that can millions of pounds of fines.
             | 
             | That will make it impossible for anyone but big tech to run
             | online forums.
        
               | Zababa wrote:
               | Thank you for the explanation. From what you said,
               | blocking the UK looks like the most sane thing to do if
               | you run a forum, though I'm not even sure if that would
               | be enough for them.
        
               | Grumbledour wrote:
               | People posting their PI on their own in public is however
               | not something the GDPR really covers and so would not
               | affect a forum operator. Leaking users email addresses is
               | another thing of course, but was undesirable before there
               | was GDPR. (Though it might be totally possible to run a
               | forum without requiring email if one is really worried)
               | 
               | You are not wrong though that running forums or any
               | website with user generated content is becoming
               | increasingly difficult for individuals, though the real
               | culprits here on EU level are the recent copyright reform
               | which requires you to remove infringing content quickly
               | and the upcoming Anti-Terror regulation which requires
               | removing content in one hour. Though it might be true,
               | that many of these laws might be toothless against
               | individuals or non-profits, even though they do not
               | specially exclude them. But it really seems lawmakers
               | don't think much of the internet beyond facebook, twitter
               | and google.
        
           | kingnothing wrote:
           | Why would a non-European forum operator care about GDPR?
        
             | voakbasda wrote:
             | Exactly. If my US-based sites get a GPDR complaint, GeoIP
             | blocks will go up and the entire EU can suck a lemon.
        
           | upofadown wrote:
           | Couldn't the person running the forum simply not abuse their
           | users by not exploiting their personal data for commercial
           | gain? How hard is that?
        
             | worldofmatthew wrote:
             | GDPR is harder than that, there is a bunch of legal stuff
             | and having to have someone legally responsible to follow
             | the more vague parts of the GDPR.
             | 
             | GDPR is not just "not exploiting their personal data for
             | commercial gain" but a lot of busy work with massive fines
             | if you make any mistakes. How is most community forums
             | going to work with that?
        
               | pbhjpbhj wrote:
               | I don't buy it -- GDPR is about protection of PII. Don't
               | collect it, you're done.
               | 
               | OK, slightly flippant might take half an afternoon of
               | training for all staff.
               | 
               | https://gdpr.eu/checklist/
        
               | pjc50 wrote:
               | Fines are proportional to turnover, and you don't get
               | fined if you don't have any turnover. People are very
               | scared of GDPR in a way that doesn't reflect the actual
               | enforcement!
               | 
               | You do have to avoid leaking, though; it's effectively a
               | requirement to do information security.
        
               | worldofmatthew wrote:
               | Its a max amount or a percentage of turnover, whichever
               | is higher.
        
               | donmcronald wrote:
               | If I don't collect any PII, even to the point of not
               | bothering with analytics, and the only cookies I use are
               | for auth or other absolutely necessary functionality, are
               | there GDPR rules I need to worry about?
        
           | hosteur wrote:
           | Why is that?
           | 
           | Don't you basically just need to stop collecting any data
           | that is not put up there by the user itself? At least with
           | regards to gdpr.
           | 
           | I am in the process of starting a forum so I am quite curious
           | to know if I am wrong in this?
        
         | Alex3917 wrote:
         | > I miss how every hobby had a forum running on phpBB,
         | SimpleMachines, Invision, etc.
         | 
         | A lot of sufficiently niche hobbies still do. E.g. if you get
         | into rare fruit growing, a lot of the best information is in
         | various Discourse forums.
        
         | godshatter wrote:
         | This is exactly what I want. I don't want something federated,
         | I just want to host a small site on a particular topic and have
         | some moderation control. I don't need it to connect to every
         | other social network, I just want it to be a small island that
         | like-minded people can congregate on to talk that also has more
         | modern features than the old phpbb did.
        
       | streamofdigits wrote:
       | Small social networks is the _real_ "web3" opportunity. The
       | contours and requirements to reach that next stage are still
       | somewhat blurry:
       | 
       | * how to make them ubiquitous (easy hosting, maintenance,
       | moderation)
       | 
       | * how to federate flexibly and effectively (private/public
       | boundaries, social graph discovery, integrate different media,
       | polymorphic clients)
       | 
       | * how to nudge behavior, extract people from their digital
       | prisons and reboot them into more sane behaviors - not trivial,
       | some real social scientist input required
       | 
       | * how to make them self-financing without creating distorted
       | incentives for any stakeholder
       | 
       | etc. there are lots of things to work out but its clear we've
       | been through an centralized web / walled garden aberration period
       | that inflicted untold damage to the broader "digital
       | transformation" enterprise and legitimized / rewarded abusive
       | practices that can not persist as a permanent pattern
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | chasd00 wrote:
       | May be an oversimplification but I have a group iMessage on my
       | phone with a handful of college buddies. It works pretty much
       | perfectly as a private social network.
        
       | rpmisms wrote:
       | This is Discord. I have several small friend groups who meet and
       | talk through Discord without having to deal with running our own
       | service.
        
       | gandutraveler wrote:
       | Who do you prefer to share your personal data with? A friend or a
       | large tech. No more gossips or sleeping with your friends partner
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | andreyk wrote:
       | I actually tried to do this with Diaspora and a couple dozen of
       | my closest friends. We tweaked it to not have like buttons, and
       | like other fun stuff. The idea being that it'd be our own little
       | space and we could be weird on there and design it as we felt
       | like.
       | 
       | Sadly, it just did not catch on, people were not invested enough
       | in it. These days, I'm not too sure there is a point to this kind
       | of thing instead of a group WeChat/FB or Discord or what have you
       | chat.
       | 
       | I do wish the community of HN had a forum kind of site, not quite
       | social media but something with more persistent interactions on
       | topics and perhaps among users.
        
         | bertil wrote:
         | A lot of people criticise the Growth efforts are social media
         | company --and they tend to do some shady things-- but their
         | work leads to large groups of people being active and findable
         | on the same platform. That's hard, requires a lot of effort and
         | in genuinely valuable. If people included that in discussions
         | about whether the bad habits was worth it, we could have more
         | meaningful conversation about the role of social media.
        
           | DarylZero wrote:
           | It's only hard because it's zero sum competition against
           | others doing the same. It seems to happen quite naturally.
        
         | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
         | I set up an SMF site, about ten years ago. It has about a
         | thousand members. A number have passed away, during its tenure.
         | 
         | And tumbleweeds and dust bunnies.
         | 
         | Facebook killed it.
         | 
         | I keep it going, but no one really uses it.
        
       | arvindamirtaa wrote:
       | Takes me back to the hay days ning.com days!
        
       | smm11 wrote:
       | Blogger has always been the way.
        
       | amacbride wrote:
       | The BBS lives again!
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | known wrote:
       | WhatsApp, if it's really a small group
        
       | kody wrote:
       | I wish there were a way to broadcast "I am a <hobbyist> in
       | <area>" and generate a decentralized forum (i.e. phpbb 15 years
       | ago). Growing up, all online friends lived hundreds of miles
       | away; as an adult, all my friends have wildly different
       | interests. Nowadays Discord is The Answer but it's not nearly as
       | intimate as a good message board. Maybe that's a function of
       | growing up, but I can't help but feel disillusioned that $someone
       | hasn't come up with a good enough solution for my use case (San
       | Diego retro computing/HAM/etc.) that isn't instantly inundated
       | with real-life politics.
        
         | jimmygrapes wrote:
         | Not affiliated nor currently active, but I want to plug Aether
         | for its moderation and discovery systems. I wish it wasn't a
         | dedicated app, but that's also part of what makes it tick, for
         | now. Trigger warning: there is a blockchain element to it; one
         | of the very few useful cases for it, imo.
        
         | grishka wrote:
         | My project[1] will have discussion boards in groups at some
         | point. But not exactly "broadcast", it's more like Facebook
         | groups that you join and do things in.
         | 
         | [1] https://github.com/grishka/Smithereen
        
         | Kaotique wrote:
         | I spend a lot of time on forums before and recently I googled
         | those communities again and all has been lost. Forums contained
         | very valuable information and function as a history archive.
         | Too bad most of that has been replaced with temporary solutions
         | that get pushed down timelines never to be seen again.
        
         | mariusor wrote:
         | I'm not really there yet, but I'm working on having something
         | close to this possible in the near future. It's not exactly in
         | a forum format, I am partial more to old reddit's interface
         | paradigm, but it will allow a person or a community to easily
         | bootstrap a discussion platform that speaks ActivityPub (the
         | same thing Mastodon does) and that can be plugged into the
         | bigger Fediverse ecosystem.
         | 
         | An example instance is at https://littr.me
        
           | cocoflunchy wrote:
           | Quick feedback: that name is not very inviting...
        
             | mariusor wrote:
             | Thank you. The name doesn't matter that much for me, I
             | wanted to make a pun on littering and it stuck over time.
             | 
             | The same content can be found at brutalinks.tech (but I
             | doubt this domain is much better :D)
        
         | zimpenfish wrote:
         | Much as I don't want to promote them (it was a toxic hell
         | working there), Kalido were trying to do this kind of "match
         | interest<X> in area<Y> and generate introductions".
         | 
         | https://www.kalido.me
        
           | skinkestek wrote:
           | I tried looking at it briefly and the first thought that hit
           | me is if someone except MeWe[1] is finally trying to recreate
           | the great parts of the social network part of Google+.
           | 
           | Would this be correct?
           | 
           | Edit: I searched HN and the only reference I could find to
           | Kalido was your comment(!).
           | 
           | It looks so promising yet from the comment it doesn't seem
           | like either something I shouldn't want to touch (like
           | Something Awful) or something that wouldn't survive long.
           | 
           | Is there anyone here either you or anyone else who wants to
           | share some lore?
           | 
           | Edit 2: It seems on a closer look to look more like a weird
           | enterprise cross breed between linkedIn and Google+, not a
           | general social network. Still interested to hear more about
           | it, I feel I am reasonably well informed about such software
           | and yet this has slipped by.
           | 
           | [1]: I had great hopes for MeWe, but last I checked they were
           | still lacking a great deal IMO, especially in that they don't
           | seem to see the value of not broadcasting my actual identity
           | to everyone.
        
             | zimpenfish wrote:
             | > It looks so promising yet from the comment it doesn't
             | seem like either something I shouldn't want to touch
             | 
             | I can't speak to the communities on there - I just worked
             | there, never really used it myself (but the founders and
             | others who work there do use it to make connections, I
             | believe.)
             | 
             | > more like a weird enterprise cross breed between linkedIn
             | and Google+, not a general social network
             | 
             | Yeah, the main thrust is that it's an "AI powered LinkedIn
             | for generating communities" but there was good support for
             | "find people who like <X> near <Y>" and get suggestions if
             | people appeared near you with similar interests ("<A> also
             | likes <X> and is near you in <Y>").
             | 
             | > this has slipped by
             | 
             | I don't think they've got around to making a big publicity
             | push yet.
        
         | bcherny wrote:
         | Have you tried Facebook Groups?
         | 
         | eg. a quick search found a Ham radio group in SD:
         | https://www.facebook.com/groups/856599821517281.
         | 
         | More Ham radio groups in San Diego (you can do a similar search
         | for retro computing):
         | https://www.facebook.com/search/groups?q=ham%20radio&filters...
         | 
         | Meetup also has some retro computing groups, though I don't see
         | one in San Diego (why not start one?):
         | https://www.meetup.com/topics/retro-computers/
         | 
         | (Caveat: I work on FB Groups)
        
           | numair wrote:
           | > (Caveat: I work on FB Groups)
           | 
           | You and your team members do really great work -- it's one of
           | the only reasons many people still use Facebook. If you bail
           | and create something that is more decentralized and web3, but
           | with the same quality and consumer accessibility, it'd be a
           | hit. And, you'll replace one super-voting-share emperor with
           | a large community of crazy but well-meaning stakeholders, who
           | are a _lot_ more fun to work for.
        
             | bcherny wrote:
             | Hey, that's really kind. Thank you!
             | 
             | Web3 is super interesting, and I'm excited to see it grow.
        
           | kody wrote:
           | I have not because I've deactivated my Facebook account and
           | generally detest centralized services and miss the old days
           | of user-run forums, but I'll give the SD HAM group a fair
           | shake. I've had poor experiences with Meetup so I'll pass on
           | that platform. Thanks for the rec :-)
        
           | rapnie wrote:
           | It is a bit OT to 'run _your own_ social ' and 'decentralized
           | forum' though.
        
           | mikeodds wrote:
           | As much as it's popular to hate on Facebook, I've found the
           | niche groups that form are great.
        
           | joconde wrote:
           | Moderated groups and personal pages are the only sane places
           | on Facebook. It's the only feature I use along with
           | Messenger.
        
           | esses wrote:
           | Facebook Groups have almost completely replaced some internet
           | automotive aftermarket bulletin boards where no one ever
           | searched anyways. If there's one major positive to the
           | normalization of FB Groups it's the absence of inane "did you
           | search?" comments. Though I do wish people would search.
           | :lol:
           | 
           | I used to be a "forum junkie", but FB Groups has completely
           | replaced that behavior. I don't know if it's better or worse,
           | but at least I am not checking 5 different forums anymore.
           | The forums come to me.
        
           | deanc wrote:
           | I'm not going to be the commenter that goes on and on about
           | the negative impact Facebook is having across the world, as
           | this is disruptive to genuine arguments.
           | 
           | To give a clear counterpoint to the idea of using Facebook
           | groups - forums had anonymity. You could be a different
           | version of yourself - for better or worse. It's not possible
           | to do that on Facebook without accountability.
        
             | ceejayoz wrote:
             | > It's not possible to do that on Facebook without
             | accountability.
             | 
             | Sure it is. Our local town Facebook groups have a wide
             | variety of clear sockpuppet accounts. Facebook's detection
             | and processes for this are laughably bad; quite a few
             | people have reported the "Count von Brokenhymen" style ones
             | to no avail.
        
               | mellavora wrote:
               | Yes, well, my son cannot get a facebook account because
               | his first attempt was a sock puppet account (photo was a
               | gecco, username "Gordon". Kid has class). He's tried 4
               | times since and usually gets shut out within 30 seconds.
               | 
               | so sock puppet might not be as easy as it once was.
        
         | mayregretit wrote:
         | Space Twitter is like that if you follow carefully, mute
         | ruthlessly and say things that others in the community agree
         | with enough to follow you back.
        
         | mitchdoogle wrote:
         | It's not decentralized, but doesn't meetup.com satisfy some of
         | those ideas?
        
           | acomjean wrote:
           | meetup.com I think does. I know a couple people that
           | organized groups and myself was a member 10 years ago. Its
           | business model was to charge the organizers of groups a
           | yearly fee, which is nice for the members (to not get ads..).
           | A lot of the groups were quite good and some of the tech ones
           | are still going.
        
       | vegetablepotpie wrote:
       | > Friend Camp is anti-free-speech, at least in the sense that
       | freedom of speech is commonly understood as a value. This is
       | repulsive to some people on both the left and the right, and it's
       | important that people with that core value find somewhere other
       | than Friend Camp to set up their online home
       | 
       | I like this perspective because free speech is considered
       | fundamental to the point that if you don't uphold it, you're
       | considered a totalitarian. Not having an absolute view of free
       | speech is what we would call a more _nuanced_ view. Although I
       | wouldn't want a University, the ACLU, or Facebook taking this
       | view, I think it's fine for a small community to take it and is
       | one of the things that can attract people to small social
       | networks.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | fartcannon wrote:
         | Nuance is where all the bullshit is. That's where soft power
         | thrives.
        
           | lolsal wrote:
           | Why is a nuanced perspective bullshit?
        
             | fartcannon wrote:
             | No, that's where the bullshit is, not that nuance is
             | bullshit. Nuance is great for certain things, like art.
             | But, like art, there's a lot of room for interpretation,
             | misunderstanding, impersonators, and even deceptive
             | dishonesty.
             | 
             | Nuance requires everyone is on the same page. What looks
             | like a masterwork to you, might look like something a child
             | could paint to the teeming millions.
        
               | voakbasda wrote:
               | > Nuance requires everyone is on the same page. What
               | looks like a masterwork to you, might look like something
               | a child could paint to the teeming millions.
               | 
               | I suspect they mean Jackson Pollock:
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Pollock?wprov=sfti1
               | 
               | I personally lack sufficient "nuance" to appreciate his
               | work.
        
         | long_time_gone wrote:
         | > Not having an absolute view of free speech is what we would
         | call a more nuanced view.
         | 
         | There is no such thing as absolute free speech. We know of the
         | many nuances like "fighting words", incitement, libel, child
         | pornography, slander, etc. I would like Universities and the
         | ACLU to respect these exceptions to absolute free speech.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
        
           | mayregretit wrote:
           | Don't forget espionage
        
       | mattowen_uk wrote:
       | What I really want to see is a guide on:
       | 
       | 'How to convince all your friends to jump ship and join you on a
       | platform you built, and abandon their friends in the process.'
       | 
       | /s
        
         | scubbo wrote:
         | This, but unsarcastically.
        
         | fiatjaf wrote:
         | Every now and then I see this kind of post here. "Friends",
         | they say. "Run software for your friends", they tell.
         | 
         | I always wonder who are these people who have so many friends
         | and who are these friends who are willing to try experimental
         | social networks with no one else in them.
        
           | sneak wrote:
           | You can come meet us, the link has been in my profile for
           | months. ;)
        
           | the_other wrote:
           | I"m the one that wants to try experimental social tools, in
           | my circles.
        
         | sneak wrote:
         | Why does using an additional platform require abandoning
         | anything?
         | 
         | Having a forum account doesn't delete your Twitter.
        
       | bertil wrote:
       | I'm not sure that many people would want to share what they put
       | on social networks with their local computer enthusiast. Talk
       | about hobby, neighbourhood questions, lost child--sure. But a lot
       | of conversation on there are gossiping, private information, the
       | occasional password.
       | 
       | A lot has been said here about privacy and how social media
       | company might abuse it; the reality, is that they don't care much
       | about your private conversation, unless they can target ads based
       | on this, or grab your attention. They don't have the time or the
       | inclination. Your colleague who can see all private message on
       | Slack without notification and probably does religiously (yeah,
       | that's a thing) on the other hand...
        
         | grishka wrote:
         | You can't guarantee privacy in a federated system and it's
         | important to understand. I'm working on my own ActivityPub
         | project and I don't even support any kind of non-public content
         | for now. I'll be exploring the options for e2e encrypted
         | instant messaging later tho.
        
           | eevilspock wrote:
           | One-to-many messages can be encrypted with end-to-end
           | encryption by encrypting a copy for each recipient using
           | their public key.
           | 
           | Apple essentially does this with iMessage, both for sending a
           | message to each of your devices as well as to each recipient
           | in a group chat.
        
             | grishka wrote:
             | The problem with _that_ is that you now have to have a
             | "client" to decrypt and display those posts. And it has to
             | manage keys. And you have to shift some of that burden onto
             | the user because otherwise the key could be accessible to
             | the server.
             | 
             | People do somewhat expect this stuff for messaging, but
             | it'll get really messy really fast for posts and photos and
             | similar long-lived content. It'll get even messier when you
             | consider that privacy options in this style of social
             | network are the likes of "friends only", so they include
             | dynamic collections of users.
        
               | the_other wrote:
               | Can't all that be modelled with keys/signing? Can you
               | elaborate more on the risks around automated key
               | management?
        
       | high_5 wrote:
       | How about just having Signal groups?
        
         | olah_1 wrote:
         | Agree. If they're really your friends, you already have their
         | phone numbers.
        
         | nhumrich wrote:
         | Uh. I personally hate signal groups. If you ever lose your
         | phone, you loose all history. The desktop app works, but won't
         | show any history. I know in signals eyes this is intentional,
         | but it's also silly. I had access to all that information, it's
         | not any less safe on a new device that I have to prove I own.
        
           | sneak wrote:
           | You don't have a logged history of all of your in-person
           | chats with your friend groups, either.
        
       | darcys22 wrote:
       | The best social network these days is a smallish closed group
       | chat on your favourite platform.
       | 
       | There are apps that exist already to keep these private if you
       | wish. But the key is curating the chat so there is good signal
       | from friends who arnt starting flame wars.
        
         | GekkePrutser wrote:
         | This, I think this is really why Facebook bought WhatsApp..
         | Because they buy everything they view as a threat and it kinda
         | is.
        
       | joe_the_user wrote:
       | _In my admittedly limited experience as a human being on this
       | planet, you are not going to be able to form and maintain a
       | cohesive group of more than about 50 to 100 people who all
       | basically agree on values and moderation rules and that sort of
       | stuff._
       | 
       | I run a FB group with 5,000 members. It's active daily, on a
       | controversial topic but I don't do a moderation actions more than
       | a couple times a week. I'm in reddit with a million members that
       | does fine too. Clear direction is really helpful. "No trolling at
       | all, none" is much better than "don't do much trolling".
       | 
       | Otherwise, I like the instructions.
        
       | captainmuon wrote:
       | For me this kinda misses the point of social networks. I don't
       | need a special site to stay in contact with my actual friends
       | (nor could I convince them all to join my site). I also don't
       | need something to talk with total strangers.
       | 
       | I want something in the middle, a site to explore the fringes of
       | my social graph. Look up people that I barely know. Understand
       | who is connected to whom, who is a friend of a friend. And have a
       | low-key way of staying in touch with people who are not in my
       | closest circle.
       | 
       | I think this was realized with Facebook in the late 00s (or in
       | Germany, StudiVZ). It was literally a _people 's directory_ where
       | you would enter information you wanted to publicly share, and
       | basically "everybody" was there.
        
         | olah_1 wrote:
         | > I want something in the middle, a site to explore the fringes
         | of my social graph. Look up people that I barely know.
         | Understand who is connected to whom, who is a friend of a
         | friend. And have a low-key way of staying in touch with people
         | who are not in my closest circle.
         | 
         | This is what Iris is going for.
         | https://github.com/irislib/iris-messenger
        
       | lcnmrn wrote:
       | That's was the initial purpose of Subreply.com just for friends,
       | but it evolved past that and now I have to review each new
       | account. It's still great because everyone it's verified.
       | 
       | I wish there was a service to allow only real people to sign up
       | on small sites / forums.
        
       | nith3n wrote:
       | I used to run a "for friends only" social network on ning.com a
       | decade ago. Was fun till Ning changed direction.
        
         | kingcharles wrote:
         | God, I hadn't even thought about Ning for a decade. I had to
         | check it still existed. I remember when it was 24 Hour Laundry.
        
       | hayley-patton wrote:
       | All the complications with federation and fitting poorly-defined
       | "communities" into well-defined servers, and the author's idea of
       | "neighbourhoods", are incredibly prone to failure. From
       | experience, I only got along with a few people in such small
       | "communities", and, at best, felt no connection whatsoever with
       | the rest; thus I can only reject the idea that having a small and
       | rigid community is ever a good idea. I seriously think that
       | having to pick just one community, and then manage everything via
       | a community, is the cause of most
       | moderation/administration/management/etc disasters on the
       | Fediverse.
       | 
       | Servers should just be public utilities, and no further
       | associations should be given to them; leave the people who use
       | them to decide what a community is!
        
       | oxymoran wrote:
       | " As an example, Friend Camp is anti-free-speech, at least in the
       | sense that freedom of speech is commonly understood as a value.
       | This is repulsive to some people on both the left and the right,
       | and it's important that people with that core value find
       | somewhere other than Friend Camp to set up their online home.
       | 
       | For those wondering, the RationalWiki definition of freedom of
       | speech is exactly the kind of freedom of speech we take issue
       | with on our server. Again, you may find this abhorrent, but you
       | don't have to join our server, and we're never going to house
       | more than a few dozen people."
       | 
       | Lolololololololooololol. Even rational wiki is too moderate.
        
       | wishinghand wrote:
       | This reminds me of a blog post that I can't find anymore. I sort
       | of remember the title being a riff on "Cooking for One" but it
       | might have been "Programming for One". It was about the author
       | making a little photo sharing app just for their family. Kind of
       | like a snapchat clone, but invite only for friends and family, no
       | public feed at all. Does this ring a bell for anyone?
        
         | ents wrote:
         | [An app can be a home-cooked
         | meal](https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/)
        
           | wishinghand wrote:
           | Thank you so much! This has been itching my brain for a
           | while.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | dsizzle wrote:
       | >If you have some programming experience, this is for you.
       | 
       | >If you have no programming experience, this is for you.
       | 
       | I can't tell if there's a typo here, or if the "Who is this for?"
       | section could be shortened to simply "everyone", haha.
        
         | resonious wrote:
         | I think you're right: this can be shortened to "everyone". I
         | imagine the author is just trying to make it very clear, in a
         | humorous way. Non-programmers can use this to learn, but
         | programmers can still use this to have fun.
        
       | dmje wrote:
       | Really great perspective from a community point of view (if you
       | want a good read, check out the 20-year-old "Design for
       | communities" book - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Design-Community-
       | Derek-Powazek/dp/0...).
       | 
       | From a software pov I'm less convinced. Seems to me that "just
       | make a Telegram / WhatsApp / whatever" group is where most online
       | communities seem to be coalescing...?
        
         | jkepler wrote:
         | Problem is, Telegram stores all conversation data in their
         | cloud with homemade encryption, and WhatsApp is proprietary,
         | owned by Facebook, and has been target of numerous security
         | breaches... So, something encrypted via open standards and
         | self-hostable (matrix anyone?) does a better job guarding data
         | privacy and security.
        
           | dmje wrote:
           | Yeh, agree in theory. In practice (sadly) I don't think most
           | local groups care about privacy or security...
        
       | scionthefly wrote:
       | At first glance it seems like people are reinventing the BBS.
        
       | karaterobot wrote:
       | I agree with all the problems they note about large social
       | networks: not being in control of the software, the data, the
       | rules, and so on. I think this approach solves many of those
       | problems. But, some of other the problems with systems like
       | Twitter and Facebook are inherent to the style of communication,
       | and are not solved by just hosting your own Twitter and Facebook
       | clone.
        
       | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
       | >The reason I can make these modifications is that Mastodon is
       | open source
       | 
       | the pedantic me would like to point out that mastodon is "free
       | software" more than anything "open source" because that terms can
       | mean a lot of things that free software isn't but i get the
       | point. yeah.
       | 
       | there is this amazing software called pleromaPi.
       | https://github.com/guysoft/PleromaPi/
       | 
       | so you simply install it on a raspberry pi and you are good to go
       | with your own social network. this is by far the easiest way to
       | dip your toes into free software social networking via the
       | fediverse.
       | 
       | then there are https://fediverse.party/ , which if you get
       | started with pleromapi can be much easier to understand and you
       | will have a good time learning about technology and stuff.
        
         | spurgu wrote:
         | What makes Pleroma different from for example Mastodon? Why
         | would one choose one over the other?
        
           | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
           | it is much easier to host with lesser resources
        
             | spurgu wrote:
             | Thanks! I had been considering Mastodon for a private (non-
             | federated) little community. But from a quick look it seems
             | Pleroma doesn't have any mobile apps? That's a dealbreaker
             | for many people.
        
               | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
               | oh. pleroma does. there is tusky and fedilab. they are
               | all intercompatible so it works wonderfully. just login.
        
               | vpzom wrote:
               | Pleroma emulates Mastodon's API, so most Mastodon apps
               | also work with it
        
               | spurgu wrote:
               | Thanks! That's interesting. Looks like I have some
               | research to do.
        
               | opan wrote:
               | In addition to the apps mentioned already, the mobile
               | browser UI is actually well-liked by many.
        
           | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
           | mastodon needs like 4gb ram to properly work while pleroma
           | can work on a 1gb ram vps/pi without any trouble. it is also
           | easier to manage because there are less moving parts
        
           | egypturnash wrote:
           | My experience as a Mastodon admin is that Pleroma is popular
           | among people with anime girl avatars who like to post
           | swastikas, ethnic slurs, and right-wing propaganda.
        
             | olah_1 wrote:
             | So you'll stick with more inefficient software for the sake
             | of political ideology? The thought of that is very funny to
             | me. It highlights everything wrong with software design
             | today.
        
               | egypturnash wrote:
               | Mostly I stick with it because life's too goddamn short
               | to try and get something else up and running, never mind
               | kludge together some way to import the existing accounts
               | and posts, it's what was there when I was willing to
               | spend a couple of weeks making a place for my friends to
               | talk.
        
               | olah_1 wrote:
               | That's fair. I don't see why you need to knock a more
               | efficient implementation though.
        
               | egypturnash wrote:
               | My experience of Pleroma is primarily looking at the
               | timelines of people who have been reported by my users. A
               | large percentage of those reports come from white
               | supremacists with anime girl avatars who are using
               | Pleroma. After several years I am increasingly inclined
               | to get a report, look at the offending user, see that
               | they're on a Pleroma, and just block the whole site then
               | and there without any further investigation.
               | 
               | I am pretty sure I am not the only Mastodon admin who
               | feels this way; anyone coming to the Fediverse should
               | probably be informed that this is a reputation this
               | particular software has.
               | 
               | If this bugs you then do something to clean up Pleroma's
               | overall act and make the racist trolls know they are no
               | longer welcome to use it.
        
             | bencollier49 wrote:
             | Why's that then?
        
               | egypturnash wrote:
               | Hell if I know. But it's a definite trend I've noticed.
        
       | pbhjpbhj wrote:
       | Anyone remember Opera Unite,
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20091120143058/http://my.opera.c...
       | 
       | I was all-in on it being a new decentralisation of the web, that
       | Facebook et al. would become syndicators of our broadcast
       | content. We'd publish the content from our own computers and
       | online services would cache it for access, but it would always be
       | available as long as there was a direct route from my home
       | computer to yours.
       | 
       | Still, I see that this sort of system could happen, basically a
       | web-mesh.
        
       | dpeck wrote:
       | It would be tough to get any adoption at larger than a small
       | handful of people scale, and most of that already happens over
       | private chat platforms.
       | 
       | I help curate networks for my fraternity (US, college for those
       | of you not familiar with it). Many of us are in the same or
       | related career fields, and there's a few hobbies that are common
       | to find in the group (sports, music, etc). These are people who,
       | for the most part, genuinely enjoy spending time with each other,
       | meeting up a few times a year as at larger events like our
       | colleges homecoming and our founders day. Many spouses are close
       | friends too and people who live near each other often hang out
       | together, kids play sports on same teams, etc.
       | 
       | But even with those things going for us, it is damn hard to
       | curate any sort of social space with continued interaction.
       | People have become accustomed to things being so niche, that
       | groups with wide-ranging topics are dead. If people want to talk
       | guitars, they'll do that on a subreddit, or find the Facebook
       | group for their cars. People self-select into hyper-specified
       | conversation groups. I have been unsuccessful in finding a way to
       | successfully foster wider, continuous conversation in a group
       | setting.
       | 
       | The closest I've seen to that is in larger family text threads
       | where aunts/cousins/etc will occasionally share pics of what
       | they're doing or share that they got a promotion at work or
       | something. It seems rare outside of a family dynamic.
       | 
       | I hope the OP, or someone figures out a good way to build
       | community that isn't just laser focused on a specific thing, or
       | built around a cult of personality, but I fear that's more or
       | less human nature, at least in current US culture.
        
         | btbuildem wrote:
         | > It would be tough to get any adoption at larger than a small
         | handful of people scale
         | 
         | I think that's exactly the point. OP wants a human-sized
         | community, without the cancerous mandate of growth. It's meant
         | to be a bulletin board for your immediate community, around
         | dozens of people in size on average.
        
           | dpeck wrote:
           | I guess we have different ideas of small handful. I'm not
           | thinking continuous growth, I'm thinking things in the range
           | of Dunbars number.
           | 
           | Personally I haven't seen anything work for more than about
           | 5-10 people, and group chat really works fine at the < 10
           | scale in my opinion.
        
       | SavantIdiot wrote:
       | Every time this article shows up on HN I give mastodon a shot.
       | I've tried to launch mastodon multiple times over the past few
       | years. It is non-trivial for someone who doesn't know the dozen
       | components involved, and not just the docker image. I hope
       | someone makes a better docker container that is a little more
       | plug-and-play with AWS or DigialOcean.
        
         | tenkabuto wrote:
         | Have you checked out Pleroma? I've heard that it's much more
         | light-weight, and it interoperates with Mastodon.
        
       | taccie wrote:
       | Not really meant for friends, but for organizations and companies
       | we have build Open Social as open-source platform:
       | https://www.drupal.org/project/social and SaaS at
       | https://www.getopensocial.com/
       | 
       | We are happy to have the backing of orgs as the UN and the
       | European Commission. Goal is to go fully decoupled using React
       | and GraphQL next year.
        
         | nhumrich wrote:
         | Open social looks really awesome, but also looks intentionally
         | hard to find the source code to, and figure out how to run it.
         | 
         | There are no pricing information or demo videos on the website,
         | so it's hard to know if the saas pricing is even feasible, and
         | no video to help engage interest. It just says "request a
         | demo". Why can't I watch a pre-recorded demo?
        
       | ubermonkey wrote:
       | I have this problem now, or, at least, I have a problem that
       | might be solved with such a site.
       | 
       | However, the trick would be convincing NON-technical people to
       | use it rather than ad-hoc group texts or (ugh) Facebook.
        
       | hemloc_io wrote:
       | I have what I think is a unique perspective on this.
       | 
       | Private small self run social media already exists. It's personal
       | Minecraft servers.
       | 
       | When I was younger I ran a Minecraft server out of my toaster of
       | a PC. Friends hopped on, made their own little houses, built
       | stuff and talked. Friends would pass in and out and in order to
       | get in you had to be invited! I'd say max there were 10-20 people
       | on there somewhat consistently.
       | 
       | It was great, and better than social media or even game for
       | hanging out with your friends IMO because it emulated synchronous
       | human interaction instead of just setting up feeds where
       | everything has to be "perfect".
       | 
       | It was easy enough for a 14 year old to setup, and administer.
       | Mods made it hackable and fun.
       | 
       | I guess the metaverse was already a thing back then huh?
        
         | countvonbalzac wrote:
         | i did the same thing, minecraft servers were an amazing social
         | experience for kids
        
           | hemloc_io wrote:
           | 100% and it got me into tech too :)
           | 
           | Learn a lot with spare time on your hands and wanting to
           | build something for your friends!
        
             | shepherdjerred wrote:
             | +1, I never would be where I am today if it weren't for
             | running a Minecraft server.
        
             | moooo99 wrote:
             | Me too! If it wasn't for Minecraft I probably wouldn't be
             | where I am now. Pretty much the first time I wrote code was
             | because I wanted to build a Minecraft mod. It was
             | (unsurprisingly) absolutely horrible, but it was the start
             | of a long learning journey.
        
         | Zababa wrote:
         | Same thing for me, Minecraft servers were part of my "social
         | media usage" when I was younger. I like how they offered
         | different degrees of interactions. You have basic chat and
         | private messages, but you can also go on Skype/Mumble/etc and
         | talk to people.
         | 
         | These days I kind of have the same thing with a private Discord
         | server (5 people including me) and Twitter. My Twitter account
         | is private, most of my friends (~10 people) are also in
         | private. I can have a window on the "outside world" by
         | following stuff from the outside, but interactions are limited
         | to me and my friends.
         | 
         | We usually set up a new Minecraft server every year and play a
         | lot for a month or two (most of us are still students), and
         | having a 3D world that we can modify at will is always very
         | special. I've thought a lot about what the future could look
         | like for us. I have this idea of a "3D coworking space", though
         | for now frequent Discord calls and Twitter interactions are
         | enough. I do miss the feeling of building something together
         | and living in a (virtual) space together. Just like it's easier
         | to remember things with a mental palace, it's easier to
         | remember the memories we made together while visiting our
         | Minecraft servers.
        
           | snakeboy wrote:
           | I've heard some positive reviews about gather.town[0] for
           | virtual co-working, though I've never used it. The demos look
           | cool though. It lacks the creative element of Minecraft
           | though. I'm not sure to what extend the worlds are
           | customizable. Curious if anyone has used it and has an
           | opinion.
           | 
           | I've tried FocusMate, though that is along the "match-making"
           | model, and I didn't get much out of a random pairing for 1
           | hour at a time.
           | 
           | [0] https://www.gather.town/
        
             | Zababa wrote:
             | For me the real lack of gather.town is not the creative
             | element but 3D. I have great immersion in 3D spaces, but
             | really poor immersion in 2D spaces. From what I see and
             | from my point of view, it's a very small improvement over a
             | Discord server with multiple vocal channels.
        
         | danaris wrote:
         | With no sarcasm or irony whatsoever, this is a _fantastic_ way
         | to stay connected with people-- _if_ you can be online at the
         | same time as them regularly and they all actually want to play
         | Minecraft.
         | 
         | The advantages you get with a more traditional-style private
         | social media site are accessibility and asynchrony.
        
         | endisneigh wrote:
         | You can't even send photos with Minecraft though. It's
         | certainly a social experience but in no way comparable to say,
         | Facebook or instagram like Friendcamp in the article
        
           | jeffparsons wrote:
           | That sounds like a feature to me.
           | 
           | If I was hanging out with a friend in person and they kept
           | showing me pictures of other stuff in their life I'd get
           | bored pretty quickly. If I'm hanging out with someone, I want
           | to be talking with them and doing stuff with them, not
           | getting a slideshow of their most glamorous recent moments.
           | 
           | Each to their own, I guess, but I find the normal mode of
           | interaction on "social media" (including all that photo
           | sharing and commentary) to be super weird and undesirable.
        
             | pawelmurias wrote:
             | Showing pictures of stuff we talk can be pretty
             | interesting. Having friends show me a video of how the
             | procedurally animated spider created walks, some crazy
             | place they visited or how the new girl they are dating
             | looks like isn't boring.
        
             | nextlevelwizard wrote:
             | People don't really "hang out with their friends" on social
             | media.
             | 
             | If you don't realize interactions with people are different
             | when you are: face to face, in same VoIP call playing same
             | game, playing same game with text only, in same VoIP but
             | not actively doing same thing, and on a website like
             | Facebook or Twitter there really is nothing to even start
             | conversation on.
             | 
             | Yes, of course, if I play Minecraft with someone there
             | usually no photos shared, but we probably are on Discord
             | for VoIP and use the screen sharing function if we want to
             | show something.
        
           | Nextgrid wrote:
           | The advantage of Minecraft (or any other game for that
           | matter) is that you are focused on the game. You can enjoy
           | playing it with people even if you otherwise have nothing in
           | common and/or disagree with their views/opinions.
           | 
           | When it comes to _photos_ specifically, not being able to
           | send media is also a huge advantage when dealing with creeps
           | or other malicious people. Spam is pretty much non-existent
           | in most games because you generally can 't click on links,
           | and the worst "malware" incident is typically a troll telling
           | you to Alt+F4 to fix a bug.
        
           | kortilla wrote:
           | Next you'll tell me you can't look at ads!
        
           | hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
           | It depends what you're looking for. If it's a relationship,
           | you _probably_ will do better looking for another medium, but
           | for pure fun, it 's a perfect setup.
        
         | orangepanda wrote:
         | How meta
        
         | mocheeze wrote:
         | Did the same thing in a Minecraft predecessor called Blockland.
         | Even ran a big mod pack that was all about social stuff like
         | having IRC inside the game client. And what you say about
         | invite-only is totally true. I used to run a fansite about an
         | Xbox game that was still "unannounced" and the community was
         | very non-toxic because I started a private forum on the IGN
         | message boards where it was only full of people that mentioned
         | the game elsewhere. What a time!
        
         | matheusmoreira wrote:
         | I had that experience as well but with Tibia instead of
         | Minecraft. It was essentially IRC with an embedded MMORPG.
         | Everyone I knew played it. We'd gather somewhere to train our
         | characters and chat. Good times. At some point I started
         | hosting Open Tibia servers for my friends, even opened it up
         | for strangers later. Lots of fun and was my first programming
         | experience with C++ and Lua.
        
         | kome wrote:
         | i feel old... wasn't minecraft released like yesterday? like in
         | 2012? how can you be an adult person now?
        
           | hemloc_io wrote:
           | Haha you should probably feel ancient!
           | 
           | I feel old knowing people in college now were born in the
           | 2000s.
        
             | sokoloff wrote:
             | "I can see the 1 from here..."
             | 
             | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aE12n2yFU-s
        
         | jrm4 wrote:
         | Yup. A bigger point on "small social networks" that it's taken
         | years for me to learn; I've always dabbled in the idea of
         | social networking as its grown up, hacking together a little
         | thing that looked like twitter before twitter for my friends,
         | etc.
         | 
         | Here's the thing that may save you if you're trying to pull one
         | of these together: You _can 't_ do it without _something else._
         | Meaning, the idea of a  "local" Twitter/Facebook killer is
         | great but (if you're me) no one will see the value and you
         | won't be able to onboard ANYONE without some sort of "social
         | carrot" separate and apart from the mere idea of "hey, new
         | social network."
         | 
         | (This is one of those ideas that nerds like me just have
         | trouble digesting, so hopefully it helps someone get through
         | this. I've tried and failed this many times over. Will probably
         | do it again :) )
        
         | drorco wrote:
         | This has been like that with many multiplayer games to some
         | extent before the age of matchmaking. Someone sets up a
         | dedicated server with certain mods/game configuration, and that
         | would be yours and other randoms favorite server. Over time,
         | you'd actually become a community.
         | 
         | I've gone back to play Unreal Tournament 2004 this past year in
         | such dedicated servers, and it made me realize how badly
         | matchmaking ruined the sense of community in MP games.
        
           | np- wrote:
           | That's actually interesting--I used to really be into
           | multiplayer games when I was a teenager into my early 20s,
           | and have some great memories of virtual hangs with friends
           | both real and offline. My interest in online gaming basically
           | dropped to zero (or even negative) after that, which seems to
           | coincidence with when matchmaking started becoming a thing. I
           | think it was it Halo 2 that was the first big matchmaking
           | game that I played and I just really couldn't get into it at
           | all, I just more or less assumed I was just getting older and
           | losing interest in childhood hobbies but never connected it
           | to the loss of community in my head. Thinking about all those
           | multiplayer lobbies from yesteryear gives me pangs of
           | nostalgia.
        
             | hellojesus wrote:
             | I used to play on a specific cod multi-player server back
             | when cod was only a single title. Knew handles of people on
             | the server even though I didn't socialize much (would say
             | hi and the like but nothing much more than that).
             | 
             | My second year of college my roommate and I were chatting
             | and found out we both frequented that server and knew each
             | other by our handles.
             | 
             | Even though I didn't use the dedicated servers as a social
             | mechanism, just hanging out and playing with/against each
             | other for countless hours was enough to seed a lasting
             | friendship when we did meet irl.
        
             | carimura wrote:
             | I follow the same arc. I grew up lugging network cables
             | around to setup LAN parties for Warcraft and Command and
             | Conquer. Then went to college and setup a Halflife server
             | that our entire dorm got into. Even the non-gamers got into
             | it creating their own characters (some of them naked... the
             | characters not the players although you never know what's
             | going on down the hall), and it was a source of bonding
             | that I'll never forget.
             | 
             | Pretty soon after that World of Warcraft was introduced and
             | games started getting more "massive" and I lost all
             | interest in endless games with people I didn't know
             | personally.
             | 
             | Almost 20 years later and when I'm able to sneak a game in,
             | I only play single-player mode to follow the storyline.
        
             | mitchdoogle wrote:
             | Interesting, I was just thinking Halo 2 was great for that
             | sort of thing. I have some fond memories of joining private
             | parties and goofing around for hours hunting for glitches
        
               | np- wrote:
               | Maybe it was Halo 3? The one that focused heavily on
               | matchmaking play (I played on Xbox if that makes a
               | difference)
        
           | brnt wrote:
           | Perhaps it isn't surprising that when interaction is designed
           | to be disposable and replaceable, i.e. matchmaking, no real
           | community can form.
        
             | iriri8 wrote:
             | i.e. social media
             | 
             | All big tech is selling is mindless churn
             | 
             | Reality TV has become life
             | 
             | Why? Because we're destroying the planet consuming it so we
             | need to build rockets to escape!
        
             | pjc50 wrote:
             | This is rather bad news as an implication for Tinder.
        
               | toyg wrote:
               | All dating sites have effectively two sets of users:
               | people who use it until they get a long-term partner (A),
               | and people who can use it forever because they are
               | unlikely or unwilling to get a long-term partner (B).
               | That is effectively intrinsic to the activity they are
               | born to serve (dating). This said, there are enough
               | people belonging to the B set to keep them in business
               | pretty much forever.
               | 
               | There is also the option to provide ramps for people in A
               | towards some other form of socialization (double dates?
               | dinner parties?), but I don't think anyone really tried
               | it yet.
        
               | GekkePrutser wrote:
               | There's also an influx of (A)s of course because it
               | doesn't always work out :)
        
               | xboxnolifes wrote:
               | Even if it did work out, both (A)s and (B)s are
               | constantly born and growing up.
        
               | MayeulC wrote:
               | Well, that's only true when you consider matchmaking for
               | short interactions, which surely prevents community
               | bonding. Longer interactions do not prevent bonding.
               | 
               | As for Tinder... I'm pretty sure you can find the
               | equivalent of "dedicated servers" where to form a
               | community, but I don't think that's what most people
               | would want.
        
             | dustymcp wrote:
             | This is what killed wow classic when dungeon signup was
             | introduced
        
               | Glide wrote:
               | Successful, pleasant dungeon run? Added to friends.
        
           | danieldevries wrote:
           | Surely you meant UT99... ;-)
           | 
           | A sprawling list of servers to join. Ahhh the memories.
           | headshots jumping off the upper area of deck16. Console
           | gaming and auto joining servers like in CoD. Bleh. Zero sense
           | of community. Before we all met on IRC quakenet in random
           | clan channels.
        
             | thegeekpirate wrote:
             | Speaking of UT99... it's still getting patches
             | https://github.com/OldUnreal/UnrealTournamentPatches
             | 
             | > OldUnreal took over maintenance of the Unreal Tournament
             | code base after reaching an agreement with Epic Games in
             | 2019.
        
               | danieldevries wrote:
               | Thank you for the heads up!
        
           | MisterTea wrote:
           | > I've gone back to play Unreal Tournament 2004 this past
           | year in such dedicated servers, and it made me realize how
           | badly matchmaking ruined the sense of community in MP games.
           | 
           | I used to enjoy playing TF2 until 2013/14 or so. I settled
           | into the No Heroes servers and after a while you get to know
           | people. You pop on, see familiar names, say hello and you'd
           | have a good time. It was like a small town which had a lot of
           | other people passing through keeping things lively yet
           | familiar.
           | 
           | Recently I tried to play TF2 again just for kicks. The
           | community is dead. I played for maybe 30 min before exiting
           | uninstalling and never looking back. Good job valve.
        
             | raspyberr wrote:
             | I still really like TF2 but you've got to stay away from
             | the official servers. Community ones are still great e.g.
             | https://uncletopia.com/servers, https://creators.tf/servers
        
             | bee_rider wrote:
             | In Valve's defense, not a ton of games make it past a
             | decade with a healthy playerbase, right?
        
               | MisterTea wrote:
               | This is true, the game felt like it was waning in
               | popularity around 2014. But I attribute that to the then
               | new instant play and other UI changes which favored
               | valves servers over community servers which were
               | effectively on "page two". The communities dried up as a
               | result.
        
           | Taylor_OD wrote:
           | Unreal Tournament is the best example I've seen of this too.
           | I played on a server for a while before realizing a good
           | chunk of the people were there just to socialize and the game
           | was really secondary.
        
           | rumblerock wrote:
           | Ah, the earlier days of Counter Strike were my version of
           | this. Custom maps galore created by the community, custom
           | game modes. WarCraft mod was my favorite, building XP for
           | abilities on the server - definitely had a good community as
           | the skills for use in game were earned and contained on the
           | individual server.
           | 
           | A shame this vibrant and creative element of the game was
           | stamped out.
        
         | gurleen_s wrote:
         | This used to be the case with TeamSpeak/Mumble too back in the
         | day. Some of my favorite memories as a teenager was setting up
         | Teamspeak servers on a Linode box and setting up everything.
         | I'm glad Discord is making that easier for kids today.
        
         | mitchdoogle wrote:
         | I can't help but think that kids today are doing something like
         | this in their own way. And that the real thing people miss when
         | they wax nostalgic is youth.
        
           | michaelbrave wrote:
           | I see kids today doing this a lot with "Among Us", Fortnite
           | and Minecraft still. Among us basically functions like a chat
           | room but you can control who enters, password protect it, set
           | rules for the game etc
        
             | EamonnMR wrote:
             | I wonder if minecraft's sticking to private servers as the
             | first class multiplayer helped keep it relevant.
        
         | INTPenis wrote:
         | Yes games have been a social forum for over 2 decades. But
         | they're not federated like ActivityPub nodes are.
        
           | indigochill wrote:
           | IMO this is what a metaverse should be: just a federated
           | game.
           | 
           | Actually, Open Simulator (an open source implementation of
           | Second Life's protocol) is kind of already that, although one
           | might debate whether it's a game and the tech is pretty dated
           | by this point.
        
         | iriri8 wrote:
         | Yeah they don't want you to realize that it can all be done
         | locally much more easily now
         | 
         | Wireguard or similar simple VPNs would make file sharing
         | 1:contacts makes everything easier now.
         | 
         | Kubernetes + Kilo obsoletes cloud DCs.
         | 
         | But you won't get to participate in agency manipulating big
         | business that way.
        
           | donmcronald wrote:
           | > can all be done locally much more easily now
           | 
           | > Kubernetes + Kilo
           | 
           | How is maintaining an app on top of a Kubernetes cluster
           | easier than setting up a Minecraft server on an old PC back
           | in the day? Who pays for that and maintains it?
        
         | SavantIdiot wrote:
         | Yes, but look at the audience. My elderly parents and inlaws
         | and cousins aren't going to play minecraft. I want to give them
         | a Facebook clone that isn't a Facebook spyware product.
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | Have private Slack. It is good.
        
         | sneak wrote:
         | "private Slack" is a contradiction in terms. Slack is not e2e
         | encrypted and the people at Slack can read all of your messages
         | and DMs.
         | 
         | Being a US company, there are a fair number of circumstances
         | where they have to turn the contents over to the government
         | without a warrant or probable cause, too.
        
         | vaylian wrote:
         | Did you read the article?
        
         | smolder wrote:
         | Yeah, although Privacy as a Service is never guaranteed to be
         | private.
        
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