We are forming communities on the realized image of the internet that we were told we would have back in the 80s and 90s.
Exactly! Back in the 80s, tech enthusiasts would run their own dial-up message boards in their homes. The Fediverse is like that, but with all the benefits of modern technology. Anyone can run their own instance if they have a decent internet connection (usually fiber). But it is more than just message boards: they can run Lemmy, Mastodon, Wordpress, and even things like Tor and NextCloud, and instantly contribute their computing resources to the larger Fediverse community.
@Ramin_HAL9001 @crazyminner
To add to that, it became dirt cheap to get hosting. Like under a pack of cigarettes per month cheap.
Did a little analysis over on my blog going over the shoestring methods for those interested: https://blog.lionscade.de/show/7
Just wanted to say I appreciate your reference of the Dodo.
Reject modern life, return to Dodo
Cheers mate.
X
I'm not that well read on this subject, but you can do this in your house or with a VPS? I always thought there was some conflict with residential internet and selfhosting?
You can have issues with self hosting on a residential connection if your provider gives you a CGNAT connection and not a dedicated one. With CGNAT (Carrier Grade Network Adress Translation) your line is shared between multiple users. So are the ports, so imagine you're trying to open a port on your router and expect to reach from internet to your home using that port. Your carrier may have splitted the whole available ports pool between the 4 customers behind your IP, and when you try to reach : your packets may go Somewhere else. This thing is ok for when you use internet for classical browsing, not when you try to have traffic initiated from internet up to your home
Many ISP:s also forbid hosting servers in their terms of use, regardless of the technical possibilities.
This place is fantastic. I'm still working on convincing my husband that it's going to take the place of Reddit but I'll wear him down. He thinks because a lot of the posts only have a few comments and 20 or so up votes, it's not a valid community. I think it's just getting started and it's exciting to be here early.
we're now at 500 upvotes and a custom meme!
@mindfultameprison 's husband: ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?
I'm really enjoying the relative lack of content and what feels like an absence of astroturfing or bot content and votes. Way less dillholes and the interactions I see are generally meaningful and kind. I'm slowly building my subscription list of communities and can check in on top posts for the day in the morning and evening. I really felt a compulsion to read most of the posts for the day on my few favorite subreddits (mostly picture based so lots of cool shit to look at and get inspired by). I have those communities set up in an RSS feed for when I'm looking to scroll through stuff.
This may sound like a stupid question, but how do you find communities? Is there a list or anything?
I remember Reddit days when 5k upvotes was off the charts.
I remember when they switched the formatting of vote numbers, e.g., from 5,238 to 5.2k, and realized it’s getting mainstream (which is not bad in itself, but... there’s something with a small community).
Any community is a valid community, if there's 20 upvotes that's still 20 people who saw, enjoyed, and gave it some time, and that matters on the modern internet where there's a bit more gatekeeping than usual!
It is not as resourceful for asking a specific technicial question, but other than that, I am actually enjoying the smaller communities. It feels a lot more civil.
I think over time it will be. Usenet used to hold the body of knowledge, then it was fora and then reddit.
That's why I like this place. Feels very old school somehow. And it's an actual protocol, like back before everything was the same handful of companies running everything with their own BS software.
It really does feel a lot like the old forums are back, but now they can talk to each other. This should have happened a decade ago!
kinda reminds me of the old internet when no one knew wtf was going on and everyone was just doing weird shit for fun
The freedom of expression is relieving and oddly something I forgot existed. There has been so much censorship and polticial correctness that it has ruined what made the old internet fun.
I would love to see Youtube be next in federation migration!
It has been quite emotional to see this community grow! I was a lurker here when Lemmy only had hundreds of users and to see such a vibrant and diverse set of instances form has been wonderful! I hope to see this platform returning some of the nostalgia from the Golden Age of the Internet. An internet for fun!
I agree.
BUT some degree of infighting means we're alive and engaged with the platform. I think it's healthy infighting.
Exactly. No human community exists without infighting. Infighting is not a good thing, but it is a good sign -- a sign of growth.
I keep telling my wife how awesome the Fediverse is. She doesn't share the same sentiment I do, but she also doesn't care about Reddit. I'll win her over one day.
we just need to find her brand of community and have you show her a few posts a day. Whats she into - succulents? scary stories? funny videos? CATS?
we can do this
It's only infighting because we're all members of a living community. Other wise it's just fighting
In-fighting? What did i miss? lmao
Ill kill you
let's commit war crimes
Fediverse is old-school internet! With some twists of course, but having new school social media in a decentralized way is great. The good & bad thing is there's a higher filter for getting on, so people here are nerdy and techy, but most 'normals' might not take the time.
The fact that everything is just "working" feels great!
Apps like Jerboa have made it so seemless to transition from deaddit.
Looking forward to the upcoming features that make the communities easier to join for the layperson.
Cheers!
I'm honestly really impressed by the fact that it is just working.
In les than a month Lemmy saw an exponential growth and from my point of view it was always very smooth. It was a bit slow from time to time but knowing that all of that is just running on a bunch of servers puts together by few passionate relying on donations or just their personal resources.
Where's the fighting?
I'm guessing they were referring to the defederation issues that came up.
No you shut up!
I’m enjoying the ride. Love it here!
Not sure where you’re hanging out that you’re seeing infighting.
Also, I’ve been living in the Internet you describe since 1990. All it takes is intentionally saying no to the corporate offerings; there have been self-hosted and crowd-hosted communities the entire time.
Every once in a while I miss Fidonet though.
A community dedicated to fediverse news and discussion.
Fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".
Getting started on Fediverse;