I agree with you on how core emoji reactions are. … It’s clear I’m going to have to settle in some respect.

So, in thinking about this in more concrete terms (as opposed to vague dissatisfaction), I suspect what we really want is a blogging platform with robust authenticated reader interaction tools.

The issue with AP, and therefore most of these servers, is that (a) it’s expected to be public by default (the privacy point you mention), but almost more fundamentally (b) they’re aggregators. People either to a bunch of people and get a feed of a bunch of posts by different people (Mastodon/X); or they join a community and see a bunch of posts by different people (Lemmy/Reddit).

I think what we want is blogging software, with an endless stream of content posted by a single user, but with reactions and threaded conversations per post. I’ve been thinking how this could be achieved on various AP platforms, but while you can almost get there with groups/channels/communities, the sticking point is that they are all ultimately designed around any member being able to post top-level content. I haven’t seen any system yet that (easily) allows restricting posting by individual accounts.

I need to look at pump.io clients, because I think pump.io started as more of a blogging protocol. And the more I think about it, the more I believe a private blogo is a better foundational model.

Is federation or similar mandatory for you?

No. In fact, I suspect it may work against the privacy requirement. I expect that, even if one of the federated servers met all of the requirements, federation would have to be disabled to prevent leakage. Although, at least one server supports authenticated pull (one of the Misskey forks), I’m guessing it’s not likely that federation will be needed.

As in, do you want something that allows your users to interact with users that are not part of your family and not on your platform, eventually able to completely replace the mainstream social media?

For me, no. I want my SIL to be able to easily post pictures and videos of my toddler niece, and all the family members to be able to oooh and aaaah, and react with little heart and exploding brain emojis, and comment on how the fact that she climbed a jungle gym is a sign she’s sure to be an Olympic athlete. The parents absolutely do not want those videos showing up in TikTok.

Or is a completely closed platform ok, in terms of it’s only your family and friends, and people have to go elsewhere (e.g. back to facebook) to interact with others?

Ideally, it’d support ActivityPub. I’m not sure how; perhaps through the user creating channels and setting a federation flag, or marking it as public. I think the expectation that people will understand that inviting someone from another platform effectively makes all of that content public, might be bit much to assume. So I think having private and public channels, where public channels are federate-able would be fine. But I’d rather not have federation than have a system where people are prone to make privacy mistakes. Is there an option I’m missing?

I use Nextcloud, developed by a company,

Yeessss; I think that’s a little different, because NextCloud was forked off of the completely open source OwnCloud, which was well-established and license protected long before NextCloud came along. If NextCloud tried any shenanigans, they’d be eviscerated. HumHub is a bespoke solution, right? So they can’t be accused of stealing an OpenSource project’s s code.

I use Photoprism, which the base edition is FOSS but they have proprietary extras that you pay for (like HumHub).

Yeah, this is a good example. I use it, too, although I admit I’ve considered, and regularly revisit, alternatives purely because of this quasi-free nature. So much of PhotoPrism is built on free libraries; the project uses something like 120 OSS libraries. How much of their income do you think they contribute to those projects who’s work their taking advantage of?

I use Home Assistant, though I think they recently transitioned to a non-profit

I’ve been using it for two or three years myself; it’s always been OSS & free software, AFAIK.

they charge for a cloud connected component.

That’s a service. I have no issue with charging for a service, because it’s an ongoing cost to the hoster.

Actually, I don’t have any issue with anyone charging for their software, either; it’s just that I won’t use it, and I don’t trust quasi-free projects. That’s just from experience. Most end badly, either by being bought out and going totally commercial, or just slow enshittification for the non-paying customers.

I write software for myself, and give it away free because it costs me nothing to do so. And I’ve written software libraries that I know, for a fact, are being used as backbone code for a not insignificant chunk of the internet. I’ve never been paid by any commercial company taking advantage of my work, and have little sympathy for people charging for software that’s 90% other people’s freely given code. Which is most software today. You write the entire stack from scratch, including the compiler, like Excel once was? Hell yeah, you deserve to charge for it. Otherwise, you’re just profiting off other people’s work.

HumHub have been around 10 years, so they aren’t exactly new. Plus as it’s extendable, perhaps one day a gfycat or emoji reaction plugin will be added (or if you have the skills, maybe you could make one).

Huh. Never heard of them before a week or so ago. I wouldn’t completely discount them because of the semi-free model; I just am putting them down on the list.

I suffered from the wrong interpretation myself for a long time, and I think it’s worth a brief explanation as to why it is wrong. It’s clear why so many people misunderstand it, and I’m incapable of providing a concise, correct explanation to other people myself. But I like to see other people try, and hope one day to come across an elegant explanation that I can plagiarize.

“New”?

Thirded.

They occasionally upgrade services for free, and rarely raise prices. They support a variety of base Linux images, including Arch (which, when I first switched to them, was rare). The control board is functional, and they’ve got all the features needed to implement VPN subnets, DKIM, etc. without having to use the DNS provider’s tools (assuming you are using a different provider). There’s also a command-line tool for managing your VPSes with them. Reasonably priced, the usual array of options from cheap to expensive, easy to add resources, and so on. Servers in the US and Germany (and maybe others? I haven’t added a VPS in a while).

When I first started self-hosting, not all of this was standard. I can’t say I’ve looked at the market in a few years, so perhaps their offerings are standard now, but when I moved from another hosting provider, Contabo stood out. I have been quite happy; perhaps the best thing I can say about them is that I haven’t had to contact their technical support in the past couple of years.

P.S. the only cautionary thing I’ll say it’s that they’re a German company. While you can never trust any VPS provider from a data security POV, Germany is a 5-eyes country, and so sits in my “least trustworthy” list; as in, they’re least likely to put up any resistance if one of the surveillance states asks for access to your data, or to tell you about it before they do. For me, this doesn’t matter, and frankly I don’t have enough knowledge to choose a better option if I needed it. Since I don’t, and since I’m not using my servers for anything that’s currently considered subversive, it isn’t yet a worry for me. But FYI.

WHAT? SPEAK UP! I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE OBNOXIOUS NOISE OF YOUR STRAIGHT PIPES! STOP MUMBLING!

Thanks!

Agreed: some items are basic functionality that should reliably and easily work. Image & video uploading are among them. I’ll add some verbiage on the CryptoPad page about options which have been rejected simply because they don’t support the most basic features.

It’s funny: I’ve been similarly searching for a good chat platform, and there are two things which I personally don’t care much about, but which a couple of my family members are insistent about: typing notifications; and gifs - as in, a widget where you can search for short gifs from e.g. Gfycat and have them inserted. My wife absolutely requires the latter.

That being said, my position on emoji responses are almost a core feature for a social media platform IMO. They’re fast, easy, non-cluttering feedback, eliminating the need to type out some inane, two-word response. It’s infuriating (to me) that Lemmy doesn’t support them; it leads to such illuminating responses as “So much this!”, “Yes!”, but worst of all the lack subverts up/downvotes, which should be a tool for designating interest, not agreement. Not having emoji reactions muddies and dilutes any value voting has.

Pixelfed is an interesting suggestion. It always feels like it’s intended to be public. Were you thinking each user would have to configure default privacy settings?

You may be right. I think I read that post visibility was configurable; if I can narrow the field sufficiently I’ll start installing them and checking how they work. I do think federation would have to be disabled on any AP server.

I can see how to restrict to followers but haven’t yet found how to stop anyone being able to follow you.

Yeah, that would be a blocker.

I think for me, if a new user has to set up the privacy settings to stop them posting everything public, that’s probably not the right platform.

Agreed. The service must be at least configurable to be private-by-default.

BTW there is PixelDroid as a dedicated Pixelfed app, but it’s only on Fdroid.

I think I found an iOS app, too… but I looked at so many servers last night I may be misremembering.

The table isn’t rendering on my mobility client, so I’m going to delete it from the post; I’ll keep the CryptoPad document going as long as I can, but it’s open edit, and I’m hoping others will contribute to it.

Argh! I’ve posted a similar question; basically, I want a private alternative to Facebook, with wall-like functionality. The second minimum requirement is that there be an iOS app that makes posting easy – including initiating a picture or video capture. So:

• #1: private, b/c it’s family sharing toddler pictures
• Also #1: super user friendly, because (100% - 1 person) involved are non-technical
• Also #1: has to have a better user tool than an SPA. No web interface can ever be anywhere as good as a native app can be, and I will die on that hill.
• #2: emoji reactions, and threaded comments

I’m not interested in installing and evaluating a dozen different servers, so like you I’ve been hoping that people with similar goals would narrow down the field a bit. There’s no way I’d convince enough of the family to go along with evaluating all of the options anyway, and IME what works fine for me can often fall apart when other people come onboard.

I’d convinced myself that Friendica – venerable, proven, reasonably popular – would fit the bill, especially because the design doesn’t assume public-by-default, like Mastodon or Lemmy, and the potential damage of exposed content, either through my misconfiguring the server, or some upgrade assuming users want everything public by default, is high. I’d prefer a project where the developers assume private-by-default, and invite-first. Lemmy isn’t really right, because we’re following people, not communities; Mastodon has a better model, following users, but then its conversation threading is kind of shit for this purpose, and its reaction feature set is anemic. Circles was perfect, and beloved by the key parent involved, until it first made half of her posts invisible to her (and only to her and her husband), and then locked her out. This doesn’t surprise me much, as Circles is based on Matrix, which frankly has the worst cryptography management I’ve even encountered. But if you’re saying Friendica is that painful to post media on, then it won’t work.

I’m leery of Humhub because of the quasi-commercial nature, and its youth. I’ve had too many experiences with initially semi-commercial platforms shifting, either suddenly or slowly, to increasingly commercial positions – moving features from the “free” to the “paid” column. Vendor lock-in is a real issue with a dozen users.

So if Friendica is out, maybe Pixelfed? It seemed to me to be mostly indistinguishable from Mastodon, but if they have better comment threading, reactions, and I need to re-evaluate the AP clients to see if any would be user-friendly enough for the parents. I’ve used mostly Fedilab, and I’m not sure it’s ideal. For one thing, it doesn’t have support more than basic reactions: you can boost or favorite, but I am – and I think you are probably – looking for something with more variety, like emoji responses, right?

I’m watching the other reactions here, and my post on this topic is here. I may post a summary – there are comparison charts, but they all tend to focus on feature set and fall short on the overall use case. On my thread,

• Misskey was recommended as Facebook-like, and in particular, some of its forks have features the core project is missing. I always got the impression Misskey was a Mastodon-analog, which would make it not a good fit, so I’ve skipped over it. With Friendica out, I’m going to put Misskey back on the “possible” list.
• Diaspora has also been recommended and is near the top of my list.
• Smithereen was recommended, but the sparsity of the documentation – not even a list of features – put it down low on my list.
• Hubzilla has a lot of documentation; it focuses a lot on content management – assets, calendars, document sharing, etc. – which will be fine if “easily post content to a feed” and “follow a user and view a stream of their posts” is a first-class interaction model.
• Pixelfed is still an option. I just need to confirm/refute my “Mastodon, with pictures” perception. If my perception has been skewed by the fact that I’m interacting with Pixelfed through a (mainly) Mastodon app, then maybe it’ll work. However, there isn’t AFAICT a Pixelfed app, so if the only way to get to a more wall-like view is through a web interface, it’s not going to work.

@acockworkorange@mander.xyz is also looking for this feature set / use case. I kind of feel as if it’s more useful to think about this as a use case, because almost all of these projects can claim some or all of the requested features, and yet not satisfy what we’re looking for in terms of user experience. This would be a great opportunity for another tool: a wiki with a list of applications & features, but with a discussion section and focused on winnowing projects by consensus about suitability. Again, lots of software that have the necessary functionality and which could be wrangled to do this, but still fail to be a good tool for the objective.

Edit

Probably not the best place to do this, because I’m the only one who can edit this, but:

I deleted the table, as it wasn’t rendering on some mobile clients. The table was re-created in CryptoPad.

I’ll go find a collaborative, wiki-like document thing with discussions that isn’t G**gle.

Edit 2

The table is now here, as a CryptPad document. In an exercise of trust, it’s open to edits. If vandals wreak too much damage, I’ll restrict access, but that’ll require creating accounts and requesting access, and all that shiz.

This is an excellent point. They probably minimize batteries on the train, because Why use energy accelerating all that extra mass? Same with flywheels; it makes no sense to put a lot of energy storage on the train when it’s connected to the grid 100%.

On the other hand, one way the title would make sense is if the trains weren’t connected 100% to the grid, and do have batteries or flywheels charged by regenerative braking. And the places they’re newly powering are places where the train grid doesn’t reach. So, basically, they’re getting charged with potential energy in one location with enough energy to get them to the next connected grid location, then moving to an in-between place that isn’t connected to the grid and recharging with regenerative braking. Since they now have excess energy to get back to the grid, they release some of that energy to the local station, providing it power. They’re cargo trains, transporting electricity to places that aren’t on the train grid.

That would make this article make sense.

Yeah, I didn’t, and don’t, pay attention to celebrity gossip. In retrospect, when it was first news and it was being covered everywhere, yeah, it seems that it was pretty well known in industry.

I just watch the movies; I don’t care about the actor’s personal lives.

having a crew full of resentful balls of anxiety is not worth it to them.

I completely believe you. Still, at the time I was making the choice, I didn’t know this; I knew for sure that while I was in, my self-determination would be strictly limited, but I didn’t know details, and there was no. fucking. way. that I was going to risk being stationed on a sub.

a vague sense of exclusivity

I have a recollection about this being a thing: that there’s a certain caché among Navy folks about being sub crew. I once knew a retired nuclear sub captain, and while he was a day drinker, he was pretty proud of his service. He also fell asleep in meetings, but I guess he did his job well enough for this all to be overlooked. I visited his office once (in our office in another city), and one of his bottom desk drawers was full of just bottles of whiskey. I’ve never encountered anything like that, before or since. But I digress.

Interesting choice for a title, then.

Yes, our health care system sucks, but I’d it didn’t, we’d be dirty communists like the Canadians.

/s

I did say cycling/pedestrian accidents are less fatal. I just don’t believe that justifies irresponsible cycling. You can still easily be put into the hospital by a cyclist, and (in America) you’ll be paying your own bills. And bills or not, I don’t need or any any pain, suffering, broken bones, bruises, concussions, or any damage that’s caused by being hit by a cyclist.

Pets can be fatally injured by cyclists, and they often share the same space as pedestrians.

Just… don’t navigate any vehicle in public while inebriated.

That’s a good idea. I can’t say I’ve prayed much attention to the CBD content. Maybe I’ll give that a try, although being nauseous for four hours is almost not worth experimenting with.

I think Kevin Spacey may be one of the best (most skilled) actors of his generation, and among the best across several generations. A true peer of Dustin Hoffman.

I was shocked by the allegations, and crushed when it became evident (to me) that it wasn’t a smear campaign.

In a way it’s crazy that I can be so emotionally engaged with someone I’ve never met, likely never will, and who has no idea I exist. OTOH, it’s not surprising when people we respect, or even idolize, turn out to be not only merely human, but morally flawed in particularly inexcusable ways.

I still feel sad and betrayed by Spacey, and it’ll forever taint my ability to enjoy his incredible performances.

How did you get your invite?

More proof. It’s called the “Bullring”, but i always thought it looked like a sperm whale.

This is exactly Why I’m conflicted about doxxing.

Social pressure picks up where the legal system stops; it’s the thing that encourages good manners and politeness, because those can’t (and shouldn’t be) be regulated. Shaming is a powerful force, and can be a force for good.

Shaming can also be a force for ill, and the downsides of doxxing probably outweigh the upsides. But still… I think we’re missing a mechanism that would normally moderate bad social and ethical behaviors like this.

I wish, I wish… I wish I was a fish.

I wish there was an instrument other than the stock market whereby private individuals could combine their funds to perform hostile take-overs, and then manage them by pre-agreed conditions.

Like: we’re going to buy Twitter, build an AP interface on it, federate it, and operate it like a non-profit. We’re going to have a set of these S core values, with yearly votes on changes proportional to investment. No single investor can own more than T percent of shares Investors can sell their shares, or buy shares. Stock will never spilt. Management salaries, combined, can never exceed more than M% of non-management combined salaries, and run it as a Holocracy. Or, maybe, shares can only be sold to employees, who have to sell to other employees when they leave.

You know; try to design a good operating model that avoids the pitfalls of other companies, and can adapt when the model demonstrates perverse incentives. Put more thought into it than my ramblings above.

But ten billion dollars is a lot of money to put together, and the rules I’d like to see necessarily exclude the sort of profit-only driven capitalists who’d be able to contribute heavy loads, and would limit the amount that could contribute.

I may as well wish I were a fish.

It has worth. It doesn’t have value.