[HN Gopher] Bonfire - working to build safer, more open federate...
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Bonfire - working to build safer, more open federated tools and
communities
Author : ZacnyLos
Score : 99 points
Date : 2022-10-13 12:51 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bonfirenetworks.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (bonfirenetworks.org)
| jppope wrote:
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > for the post-capitalist world
|
| There needs to be a word that means "I almost thought what you
| were proposing sounded reasonable, until you said that last
| thing, and now I've lost all confidence."
| throwaway0x7E6 wrote:
| it's a dogwhistle for likeminded folx
| uoaei wrote:
| Capitalism is not just "the existence of money and markets".
| You can still have money and markets without capitalism.
| dmonitor wrote:
| Capitalism is when businesses do things I don't like, and the
| more they do those things the more capitalist it is.
| throw10920 wrote:
| This is technically true in the abstract, but the people who
| use phrases like "post-capitalist" usually have a slightly
| different meaning in mind than what you described.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > You can still have money and markets without capitalism
|
| Money yes markets ish. A pillar of capitalism is the private
| ownership of capital, without private ownership many markets
| no longer exist (talking the economic definition of
| 'market').
| tkk23 wrote:
| Capitalism can also mean that politics shouldn't intervene
| when monopolies dominate markets. Then markets may also
| disappear in capitalism.
| uoaei wrote:
| "Some markets become obsolete when you remove capitalism"
| is not the same as "markets are only a thing under
| capitalism".
|
| The real estate market would probably look much different
| and may even dissolve entirely if you forbid private
| ownership of real estate capital. I don't think this is a
| groundbreaking insight, I'm just clarifying for those who
| are careless about their use of words.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Yes but there's also people who think capitalism = things
| they don't like and don't bother to think about what the
| alternative truly looks like.
| uoaei wrote:
| Straw men are not coming for your privately-owned home
| any time soon, friend.
| [deleted]
| pvg wrote:
| Don't know if there is such a word but there's definitely an HN
| guideline about not-writing shallow reaction comments about
| such triggers.
| jlkuester7 wrote:
| > Bonfire apps are open source and modular, meaning they're made
| of building blocks you can use to create your own custom apps or
| extensions.
|
| I might be wrong, but this feels kind of like a fusion of
| Mastodon + Nextcloud. Meaning that you have a social/federation-
| first framework that allows you easily build apps on top of the
| framework that extend the ecosystem (similar to the way that
| Nextcloud apps can be easily written and deployed on a Nextcloud
| server and can integrate with various server features and
| interoperate with other apps).
|
| It seems like this could be really cool! It could help fix one of
| the current challenges I see in the fediverse which involves a
| splintering of accounts that you post from. For example, I often
| see organizations with accounts for both Mastodon and PeerTube.
| It seems like Bonfire would possibly allow for for a single
| account that can be used both on a "social" app and on a "video"
| app....
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| you can most definitely use your mastodon account to log in to
| a peertube instance and post from there, no one is stopping you
| from doing that NOW...... if you have a mastodon/pleroma go and
| try it on a peertube instance.
|
| don't know why people create multiple accounts, peeertube has
| had sign in from fediverse for a long time now
| rglullis wrote:
| > don't know why people create multiple accounts
|
| The biggest marketing failure in the fediverse is that people
| still think that an instance determines your reach. They
| think of instances as subreddits, not as email servers.
| Ruthalas wrote:
| Do you have a thorough description of how it all works you
| can link? (Mastodon, or the fediverse in general.)
|
| I'd like to understand it, but haven't really felt like I
| grasped it after reading short descriptions.
| etchalon wrote:
| I suspect these types of federated tools will absolutely surge in
| popularity if Musk completes his purchase of Twitter.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| For those looking to go even further than federated, to fully P2P
| social networks, the scuttlebutt protocol is the way to go.
|
| The two best clients for it that are still actively developed are
| Planetery and Manyverse.
|
| https://www.scuttlebutt.nz
|
| https://www.planetary.social
|
| https://www.manyver.se
| kevincox wrote:
| I want to love scuttlebutt but multi-device is critical to me.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| Yeah that's a big pain point that i'm hoping to see figured
| out soon. It can't reach mass appeal until that's handled
| seamlessly.
| gs17 wrote:
| Did they fix discovery? I love the concept, but my issue was
| that I had to connect to people to find people, and the only
| network I could reach easily was largely people I really didn't
| want to talk to. I think "Rooms" were supposed to fix it, but
| they didn't exist yet when I tried it.
| tomhallett wrote:
| I've been thinking about this problem space quite a bit, and I
| have 2 "stress-test" questions which I use to see how quickly it
| will devolve into facebook:
|
| 1) Can someone who is already famous, ex: some TV political
| pundit, join the network and quickly leverage the networks
| strengths to acquire a following. EVEN if that acquisition
| happens out-of-network. For example: let's say bonfire has 100
| million users, it's a problem if someone famous can say "follow
| me on bonfire" and get 10 million followers in a week. While I
| understand this is a very high bar, any solutions to this problem
| (regardless of their implementation), will require people to know
| eachother personally in a non-scaleable way.
|
| 2) Can someone who is not famous, ex: a conspiracy theorist, gain
| a following by posting controversial/clickbait things. Ie there
| can be any algorithmic feedback loop of consumption
| (views/likes/follows) fueling viral growth.
|
| IMHO, if the answer to either of those is yes, you are fighting a
| losing battle.
| gs17 wrote:
| > Ie there can be any algorithmic feedback loop of consumption
| (views/likes/follows) fueling viral growth.
|
| Usually Fediverse type platforms just use reverse chronological
| order (or similar as options) with no "algorithm" for
| personalized content recommendations. Bonfire explicitly states
| such in their FAQ.
| wmf wrote:
| I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but _why_ is it bad if many
| people voluntarily follow someone?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| "and communities for the post-capitalist world"
|
| Rule #37 of Doing Business: Don't use language that is vague and
| open to wildly different interpretations in your public
| advertising as to why people should use your product. Save that
| for the Terms of Service.
| wmf wrote:
| I'm not sure that post-capitalists are Doing Business in the
| first place. I'd say if you want to build a leftist community
| then you're better off setting that expectation upfront. If
| problematic people never join then you don't have to cancel
| them later.
| zamalek wrote:
| > Circles
|
| That's the one thing that was typically missing from open social
| networks aiming to displace Facebook. I still remember when
| relationships were "official on Facebook," and I'm sure some of
| that psychology persists (however subtly) and is one reason that
| Facebook just wont die.
|
| I'll definitely be setting up an instance for my family, maybe I
| can get them all to finally kick the habit.
| VikingCoder wrote:
| Interesting. Please let me filter content by language.
|
| Or please start up a primarily English instance.
| [deleted]
| Kinrany wrote:
| > take back control
|
| Seeing this phrase used over and over after Brexit is so funny.
| [deleted]
| ppjim wrote:
| It looks like Google+ v2.0. I hope they learn from mistakes.
| seti0Cha wrote:
| What would those be? I thought the primary mistake Google made
| was in building Google+ after everyone was already on Facebook
| (and trying to force people into it)
| the-printer wrote:
| There is a sort of "post-corporate Memphis" design style and
| marketing language that I've been paying more attention to for
| some time now. It discomforts me.
| mkmk3 wrote:
| Why does it discomfort you? You think it's a poor aesthetic, or
| you just recognize it's associated with a product, or something
| else?
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| It is dystopian, lacking of soul, and created to be
| interchangeable and and indistinguishable.
| the-printer wrote:
| The aesthetic is poor IMO in the sense that it is hackneyed.
| I'm not too familiar with CSS frameworks to immediately point
| out bootstrap from tailwind from another, but we should all
| agree that there are groups of websites that use a common
| layout and visual style which leverages typefaces like Inter,
| or San Francisco, or other "Sweatpants Grotesks" (think of
| Helvetica in a pair of tapered sweatpants with grey new
| balances and an unbuttoned Cardigan waiting for his Tesla to
| charge).
|
| I do immediately recognize that a product is being offered in
| some fashion, but it's more about how it's being offered, as
| if it is something ostensibly, potentially life-changing. I
| think there a few HN members who know that there are plenty
| of products shown on HN that use emotionally jarring language
| that dances around the fact that the product is something
| that functionally is not as enigmatic as it's advertised.
|
| There is plenty of something else mixed in there also, but if
| you can't tell I'm working off of a hunch right now. I would
| need to sit down and do a concentrated analysis to get
| everything that I feel across to you, if I ever had the
| chance to do so.
| rambambram wrote:
| I'm curious what you are up to. Care to tell some more?
| CharlesW wrote:
| "Corporate Memphis"1 refers to a style of art. I don't quite
| see how the woodcut-style images used on this site would be
| considered a descendant of that.
|
| 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis
| the-printer wrote:
| My interpretation of "Post-corporate Memphis" basically
| involves everything about corporate Memphis _minus_ the
| imagery. It's more about how the style is conveyed without
| the use of that sort of art work.
| rambambram wrote:
| Ah, clear now. I think it's in the wording then, and some
| emoji's here and there.
| the-printer wrote:
| I suspect that there is a sort of "design language" that more
| or less unabashedly targets the psycho-social state that many
| millennials (and perhaps even more youthful Gen Z and Boomer
| crowds; granted my understanding of how "generations" work
| isn't a great) feel about the world.
|
| I shouldn't have to to think about dopamine and capitalism
| when I'm looking for a social network; on the other hand _I
| do, kind of_ , but being introduced to software or a service
| shouldn't be presented as such an emotional experience as I
| think it is.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _I suspect that there is a sort of "design language" that
| more or less unabashedly targets the psycho-social state
| that many millennials (and perhaps even more youthful Gen Z
| and Boomer crowds;_
|
| Antidepressants advertised using solarpunk cartoons of
| diverse people growing organic produce in a city park with
| wind turbines in the background. Everybody dressed in
| pastel colors, while the plants are neon green.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| Do you also feel that other types of art (movies, music,
| architecture, video games, etc) "shouldn't be presented as
| such an emotional experience"? If not, can you unpack why
| you think software should be treated differently? I'm not
| trying to be combative, just to understand.
| the-printer wrote:
| That's a good question and it helps me think my way
| through how Bonfire (at least it's website) makes me
| feel.
|
| I have long divorced myself from the consumption of film,
| games and music; so when it's understood that without the
| presentation of an emotional experience the appeal of
| these three things would effectively be neutralized, I'm
| fine with that.
|
| My observations are less targeted at software as an art
| form. I think it's more about how it's being marketed and
| what the effectiveness of a software's marketing suggests
| about its targeted audience.
|
| I would be more interested in Bonfire if they had a plain
| web page that just said for example, "Bonfire is a social
| networking service that can communicate with the
| ActivityPub protocol and does X, Y, Z and we are working
| on W. We named it Bonfire because bonfires are like
| quaint parties but with a raging flame in the middle of
| it."
|
| To summarize, maybe I prefer certain software that
| advertises itself plainly by its merits than...I guess
| more "psycho-social" sort of attributes?
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| Interesting, I guess I can understand that approach for
| non-media-like software (not a great coining, but I mean
| things like operating system kernels, DBMS, batch
| accounting jobs, etc.).
|
| That said, I don't see the point of divorcing media-like
| software (by which I mean at least video games and social
| media, like Bonfire, and possibly other types of
| software) from its emotional content. Just as the entire
| point of a movie or a record is basically _only_ its
| emotional content, the entire point of using social media
| software is the emotional content of the interactions
| with others, right? And, if the emotion is the point of
| the software, why is it out of bounds to advertise it
| with that slant? Movie trailers and novel jackets are
| entirely emotional in their language. Are those somehow
| bad or immoral?
|
| Or are you simply saying that emotional marketing of
| software isn't to your personal taste?
| the-printer wrote:
| You're pretty good at this. To chalk it up to personal
| taste almost undermines the deeper issues I want to bring
| up in regard to social media software, like how we're
| doing so beautifully right now.
|
| Perhaps it's out of bounds because it's unrealistic. A
| social network is neither film nor novel. Maybe the issue
| is that we are talking about how software appeals
| emotionally to real people where they will engage in real
| communications with real consequences with the emotional
| appeal of movie trailers, video games and novels.
|
| Ironically the tone that the advertisement of Bonfire for
| example reminds me of is reminiscent of those fake ads
| from games like Fallout 3 or Bioshock. They're almost
| employing the exact sort of rhetoric that people who try
| to make a world a better place before shoving everyone
| down tubes beneath the ocean and sticking needles in
| their arm use.
|
| Is it fair when a social network like Gab or Truth Social
| behaves the same way?
|
| Or is software with contrived emotional slants only
| acceptable when it appeals to your own personal views?
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| I guess I agree that social media apps are in principle
| very different from works of legacy media like movies or
| novels. Maybe this means we need to regulate the kinds of
| advertising they can do (as with cigarette ad
| regulation), but I kind of doubt that the specific tone
| of the Bonfire landing page is going to have a big impact
| on its adoption, which will presumably be socially-driven
| ("I want to see my friends' posts, and want them to see
| mine") like all similar apps have been.
| rambambram wrote:
| > Just as the entire point of a movie or a record is
| basically only its emotional content, the entire point of
| using social media software is the emotional content of
| the interactions with others, right?
|
| Movies and social interactions carry emotions. Social
| media can (should?) carry social interactions, but why
| should social media itself be the source of emotions? Can
| it not be neutral in emotions and 'just' carry social
| interactions with emotions?
| rambambram wrote:
| I think I feel what you mean.
|
| > being introduced to software or a service shouldn't be
| presented as such an emotional experience as I think it is.
|
| I found/experienced this when I was writing my own
| texts/content for a project/startup of mine. There was
| something pulling on me to write in a more emotional tone
| and I had to actively cut it back and get more to the
| point, just call it what it is. A good example is the first
| sentence of this paragraph; the word before the slash is
| what I think and the word after the slash is what I
| initially wrote down. I didn't "found" anything, I had to
| "experience" it. It's not a "project", but a "startup". I
| guess I'm influenced by western culture in general and HN-
| like culture specifically.
|
| Is this also what you mean? Am I close? I guess I feel what
| you mean, but it's hard to put it into words.
| [deleted]
| yamtaddle wrote:
| All the animals-doing-human-stuff art made me think of how
| popular alt-social-networks are with the furry community.
| uoaei wrote:
| I think you are experiencing the limits of HTML-derived
| typesetting. This seems (empirically) to be a happy medium
| between effort and glamour for a lot of designers.
|
| As a personal sidenote: I quite like the woodcut aesthetic
| generally and the design shift combined with the evocative
| imagery does more for me than the typical Meta- or Google-style
| branding.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > Working together to build safer, more open and fun federated
| tools and communities for the post-capitalist world
|
| WTF is this sentence? And post-capitalist?
| [deleted]
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| did a cursory look, is this on activitypub or something else
| because that would be reinventing the wheel.
| teucris wrote:
| > Each Bonfire community has the power to federate with others
| communities but also with other fediverse platforms that
| support the ActivityPub protocol.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| ok. now i need to have a look
| Fellshard wrote:
| 'safe' and 'open' are doing some heavy lifting, here. What would
| the definitions of those words be, in this context?
| hunterb123 wrote:
| "post-capitalist" pass, comrade.
|
| bit of irony it's posted to a VC ran forum, bet they'd take
| funding too.
| [deleted]
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