[HN Gopher] Org-social is a decentralized social network that ru...
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       Org-social is a decentralized social network that runs on Org Mode
        
       Author : tanrax
       Score  : 93 points
       Date   : 2025-08-13 15:00 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | bitwize wrote:
       | Reminds me of .plan files from back in the day.
        
         | mxuribe wrote:
         | Well, there is https://plan.cat ...which, hosts a user's plan
         | files. :-)
         | 
         | I guess think of it as a little microblog for displaying one's
         | plan file?
        
           | lemonberry wrote:
           | This is kind of neat, thanks for sharing.
        
         | temp0826 wrote:
         | We're rewriting the books. finger was the first social network!
        
           | bitwize wrote:
           | I've observed that Unix itself was a social networking
           | platform. Your Unix account was your identity across many
           | services: email, finger, USENET, talk, etc. And it was
           | distributed. And didn't rely on cruft like ActivityPub.
        
             | temp0826 wrote:
             | Totally! ident alongside IRC too. So many reinvented
             | wheels. (Side note- I'm a little sad that https is the only
             | protocol used for everything anymore).
        
             | mtillman wrote:
             | Still is if you have an account on sdf.org.
        
       | gentooflux wrote:
       | This seems less "decentralized social network" and more "html-
       | less www with extra steps," especially since it's only going to
       | allow socializing between the specific types of people who fall
       | within 3 very specific Venn diagram circles who 1) use emacs, 2)
       | use org-mode, and 3) want to go through the trouble of hosting
       | their own section of the network.
        
         | bee_rider wrote:
         | I guess this is an internet for the folks who are still annoyed
         | by the Eternal September?
        
           | Joe_Cool wrote:
           | I thought that was Gemini:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol)
        
             | thesuitonym wrote:
             | Gemini is for hipsters who want to look like they like
             | Gopher, but can't live without their cat pics.
             | 
             | (Said in jest, of course)
        
         | Joker_vD wrote:
         | And also 4) somewhat want to talk to other people -- but not
         | _that_ much that they 'd be ready to exit Emacs.
        
           | small_scombrus wrote:
           | > but not _that_ much that they 'd be ready to exit Emacs.
           | 
           | There's great news for the people who want to talk to other
           | people and NOT exit emacs - you can get IRC built straight
           | in.
           | 
           | https://github.com/emacs-circe/circe
        
             | gentooflux wrote:
             | Try as I might, I have not been successful in getting my
             | wife to use IRC. I guess I should take that as a sign that
             | she just doesn't want to talk to me...
        
               | d0mine wrote:
               | There is a telegram client for emacs: telega.el
               | https://github.com/zevlg/telega.el
               | 
               | The installation instructions are scary but It has been
               | straightforward to install melpa version via use-package
               | with telega-server in docker.
        
               | luqtas wrote:
               | and a Matrix client!
               | https://github.com/alphapapa/ement.el
        
         | crabbone wrote:
         | Sort of. There's Org for Vim users :)
        
       | BrouteMinou wrote:
       | What does it solve compared to a normal plain HTML blog?
        
         | deltasquared wrote:
         | This filtered out those who 1) don't use eMacs 2) don't use
         | org-mode
         | 
         | I suspect org-mode users are willing to go through an extra
         | step if needed.
         | 
         | My notes are in .org if I want to share with someone else I
         | export to .md and use the output
        
         | kyykky wrote:
         | There seems to be a function to generate a feed based on the
         | posts of the people you are following.
        
       | Beretta_Vexee wrote:
       | This looks like a bad hybrid between RSS and Markdown. Am I
       | missing something?
        
       | cml123 wrote:
       | Just last week I was fiddling around with a tangentially related
       | idea. I made some modifications locally to my setup so that when
       | browsing a .org file in eww, org-html-export-as-html would render
       | it in the buffer as HTML directly. eww doesn't really support
       | much styling via shr, so I was working on adding some basic css
       | parsing to expand the range of expression for an org-based blog
       | approach.
       | 
       | Many people export their org file based blogs to HTML and then
       | publish them, but my thought would be to skip that and instead
       | provide a path for eww to directly render org files, cutting out
       | my html export stopgap.
        
       | egypturnash wrote:
       | This sure is a social network for a very small and specific set
       | of people.
        
         | jancsika wrote:
         | In other words, it's a _real_ social network.
        
           | mtillman wrote:
           | I feel like https://github.com/buckket/twtxt didn't get
           | enough love when it was released. Registry hosting doesn't
           | seem to be any harder than DNS.
        
             | stronglikedan wrote:
             | > harder than DNS
             | 
             | Oh, so extremely hard then.
        
       | crabbone wrote:
       | We kind of already have groups in Gnus... I even messaged one
       | group, like twice in my life.
        
       | giancarlostoro wrote:
       | Finally a social network that only true nerdy people will ever
       | join, I might just finally pick up emacs again.
        
         | scubbo wrote:
         | What about Mastodon?
         | 
         | (I'm, like, 80% joking)
        
       | throwaway81523 wrote:
       | It sounds more like a blog than a network, I think. From way
       | back:
       | 
       | http://ahungry.com/blog/2013-04-01-blogging-with-org-mode.ht...
        
       | jraph wrote:
       | If this takes off and becomes mainstream, will you show some
       | inclusiveness towards poor people like me who will dare editing
       | their org social files with an editor like Kate?
        
         | jethronethro wrote:
         | While an interesting idea, it's kind of niche. I somehow doubt
         | that this will become _mainstream_ , even among techies.
        
       | jayde2767 wrote:
       | In the end, Streaming Services have proven to be nothing more
       | than advertising platforms scattered with brief moments of
       | content. The ads outweigh the content making it less cost
       | effective than going back to Cable, which is still terrible also.
       | Hence the need to pirate and control what content you see.
        
         | monkeywork wrote:
         | think you replied on the wrong post friend.
        
           | frogulis wrote:
           | Which is funny, because my mind filled in the word "social
           | media" and I thought it was a fair point, until I got to the
           | word "Cable".
        
       | t_mann wrote:
       | Sounds a bit like the idea that Bluesky started out with. I don't
       | really get why specifically org mode though, sounds like you
       | could be doing the same thing with a simple Markdown file. And
       | while you're at it, why not just use HTML and read your friends'
       | blogs in the browser?
        
         | tocs3 wrote:
         | I think you can use whatever. The markdown is very org mode
         | like.
        
         | metalliqaz wrote:
         | Because that would require leaving emacs, I guess.
         | 
         | Just a guess. I'm a Vim user so unlike emacs users I do know
         | how to shower but like emacs users I can't manage to carry a
         | conversation with someone in person. We only think partly
         | alike.
        
         | abdullahkhalids wrote:
         | Org mode is far more structured than markdown. Structured
         | enough that so you can naturally store data in, and easily
         | access/edit it later.
         | 
         | Whenever someone tries to do something similar in markdown,
         | they have to invent an extension of markdown to do it.
        
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       (page generated 2025-08-14 23:00 UTC)