A certain stage of development has ended - a prototype was created that allowed me to verify whether such a form makes sense in the #fediverse. Until now, it was a project that I developed in my free time. Now, thanks to the great people from Nlnet, I will be able to devote much more time to it. This time, we have already outlined a plan for the next few months officially: https://nlnet.nl/project/Kbin/
The progress of the work can be followed here: https://dev.karab.in - this is the version set up on the cheapest server, and it will remain so until all stages are completed, because one of the goals is to create a lightweight platform that will have very low requirements in its basic version, and therefore low maintenance costs for instances. With each passing day, more subpages and features will work.
Many of you are working on cool projects, it’s worth calling on the Open call for funding ;-) https://nlnet.nl/news/2023/20230201-call.html
Soon, the kbin.social instance will also officially launch, now work on the server is still underway.
Stage 1 Frontend - refreshed, modern and accessible layout
To save time, the /kbin prototype was created using tools such as Bootstrap. Due to frequent iterations, good interface development practices were often overlooked. The goal is to create a clean, modern, responsive and accessible layout based on feedback from the community, which will work on any device, also without the need to use JS.
Stage 2 Backend - upgrade
Updating the environment, PHP, Symfony, API-Platform, etc.
Stage 3 Search module and alpha release
Currently, the search engine is based on Elasticsearch, which significantly increases the minimum server requirements. The goal is to eliminate Elasticsearch and create a search module with the ability of contextual filters and prepare the first alpha release.
Stage 4 Backend - refactor existing services.
Update of frameworks and tools used in the project. Refactor existing services. Refinement of existing services in order to achieve efficiency. Writing documentation for other developers, admins and visitors. Preparing a repository for contributors.
Stage 5 Federation improvements
Optimization of communication using ActivityPub. Completion of integration, creation of documentation for fediverse developers.
Stage 6 Admin section and user UX improvements
The goal is to provide tools for Kbin instance admins and to improve instance community sections.
Stage 7 Prepare for stable release
The goal is to release a stable version of the platform, solve problems reported by users and, using appropriate tools, develop the highest scalability and efficiency.
Stage 8 Implementing Events (incl. ‘stretch goals’)
At this stage, kbin will also become an events aggregator.
Stage 9 ActivityPub federation of Events (incl. ‘stretch goals’)
The events module will communicate with other platforms via ActivityPub (e.g. Mobilizon)
Currently, I am at stage 1/2/3.
- Project site
- Repository && Issues
- Weblate translations
- Devlog in Polish
- Devlog in English (soon)
- Kbin on NLnet
Other instances:
Hmm, this sounds like Pidgin (or any other universal messenger) for ActivityPub.
The first paragraph is quite confusing. Could you explain why a content aggregator should be combined with microblogging?
This is difficult to describe in a few sentences, it’s just a preliminary sketch of one of the sections. I need to gather my thoughts and I think once I finish it, everything will be much clearer.
ernest, I like this project cause you’ve been so responsive and enthusiastic.
I don’t like microblogging. The only good application for it is for discovery without advanced search. I’d prefer the focus to be on well written articles, engaging podcasts, and video documentaries. What’s that called macroblogging? Monetization, haha? We gotta give people an incentive to produce thoughtful content. I’d recommend integrating with LBRY. That could be another NLnet project: ActivityPub to LBRY bridge.
The microblogging aspect could be automated with a summarizer, and autoposted.
This would be an awesome service for me, I’d pay $5/mo to have it.
Hi @ned,
I am currently working on a search engine. It will be more contextual, with the ability to choose the search area and filter search results. But I understand what you mean and I also understand why Lemmy maintainers made that design decision. However, I believe that cutting off such a large part of the fediverse is not the best.
I want /kbin to be simple and modular because I want to give people a choice in how it looks. Ultimately, it can be a page like it is now, or just a link/article aggregator, or bloggin platform, or an events browser, or streams browser. I want /kbin to be a window into the fediverse. The person who encounters the fediverse for the first time on /kbin will have the opportunity to explore the entire rich ecosystem, and over time may want to move on to more dedicated solutions, which is cool.
Combining a link aggregator and microblog is not my original idea. In addition to Reddit, I drew inspiration from two Polish social portals:
Strims - probably the closest to /kbin - collapsed several years ago due to the owner’s misguided decisions. One of them was to delete the microblog section against the will of the community. Decentralization is supposed to solve this problem.
Wykop - one of the most popular social portals in Poland with a huge user base. Unfortunately, this year a new version was released that is slowly killing the service. In addition, it is sponsored by political parties, which especially now, just before the elections, makes it unusable for me. Despite having an account there for 15 years and a lot of sentiment, I have recently almost stopped visiting it. Decentralization is supposed to solve this problem.
I’ll take a closer look at LBRY because I’ve only heard a little bit about it so far. Personally, I’m a supporter of free and open knowledge on the internet for everyone. I’m also very cautious when it comes to cryptocurrencies. But I also don’t like to limit myself, I like to draw inspiration from everywhere :) However, I’m keeping an eye on various projects, and lately I’m interested in #Nostr, where there are some super interesting things going on. Previously, Kbin had the option to receive Cardano donations for content, without external intermediaries, but it turned out to be too complicated and confusing for people at that time (https://streamable.com/hdr4f0).
Nevertheless, I know someone who understands this area much better than I do, and we’ve discussed it before @fervi.
Running a project alone isn’t easy, and one of the things I would do differently is to send an email to Nlnet earlier. Maybe it’s really worth presenting this vision now.
I want to focus on developing the core, as it will be the foundation for building other things, but I would be happy to help with integrations.
I hope that I\ll only be alone for a while :) A large and important part of the Fediverse is based on PHP (Pixelfed, Friendica, WriteFreely, etc.). But you’re right, it doesn’t matter. If /kbin can help in any way or at least brighten the day of one person, I’m all in for it :) Currently, I want to keep an eye on the bigger picture and not get distracted from the main goal. This is additionally difficult for me because I’m not even a native speaker and I have to be very careful not to be misunderstood or inadvertently offend anyone in any way.
To be honest, it’s my little obsession hahah. It started back then (http://web.archive.org/web/20180203151128/https://makigi.pl/), but I didn’t have enough skills to develop such a big project. So I decided to quit my job and knock on the door of the first professional-looking IT company in the area. I asked for a free internship, I wanted to see how certain things are done and get answers to some of my questions. I met such cool people there that I stayed for a few years more than I planned ;p That led me here.
I’m an average developer, but believe me, I’m fricking stubborn.
Thank you for explaining a bit about Strims and Wykop! It is interesting background information. It feels like Digg’s technological descendants are merging back together, even as the platforms change over time!
I am glad I signed up for kbin! It’s my first entry into the Fediverse and I thank you for setting up a really nice way to explore the concept. I think your decisions to keep kbin light and easy to maintain has helped keep the website open and running, helping many other people as they take their first steps into the Fediverse too. Joining the Fediverse is a very exciting time!
I went to see Alexis Ohanian talk back when reddit was still small. He said they were doing it for fun, and meant it to be a small fun website. If memory serves, he called it tacky. I didn’t like reddit back then, but over the years a big chunk of answers that were supposed to be on stackoverflow would show up on reddit. Google on the other hand started messing with search results to serve more ads, so appending reddit at the end of a query helped in many cases.
Making a better aggregator / search engine for the fediverse would be interesting. But its utility for the current content of microblogging is negligible. I wouldn’t mind cutting out mastodon to be honest. It’s just a bunch [british word for cigarettes] and hentai watching nazis arguing about which group is more retarded. It’s entertaining, but it gets boring pretty much. You’re guaranteed to offend both of those sides, so it’s better to avoid the whole microblogging sphere. I guess Poland is a magical place where far right politicians go to anime conventions and pose for pictures with femboy attendants.
LBRY is more of a protocol like ActivityPub, but it’s also a cryptocurrency. You can click download and get the file (unlike YouTube). It can distribute content in a bittorrent fashion, and that’s a lot more scalable in the context of the fediverse. You need to ensure that the project gets properly funded, or it’s not gonna be used. I understand your caution about crypto, but that could be a viable source of funding for this. You can buy compute with crypto, so it should cover most of your expenses.
I’d recommend you working on it alone, on the core at least. You don’t need help if you’re good at using LLMs. They can write most of the code for you, and even tests. Software teams of humans are slow and fragile. Single dev projects are a lot faster. Obsession moves mountains :)
I don’t care much about open internet. I think it’s open enough already. And most people want moderation (censorship). There is too much stuff out there, and most people are offended by a big chunk of it. It seems like the same people who want moderation also don’t want the fediverse to searchable. Is that right?
I get your point of view :D But I still see it a bit differently. Maybe because from the beginning, I started consuming content from the fediverse my own way, without relying on any of the apps. And it was actually mainly Polish-language content, where it was a fresh and enjoyable experience. Even now, on the main instance, there are a lot of interesting discussions and content that I wouldn’t want to miss. I think building small, local communities is incredibly important. And in such a magical place, it’s good to have a little bit of independence ;)
It’s true that there is a lot of content on the publicly available internet, and among all the noise, it’s harder to catch the valuable content than ever before.
What you’re talking about, as you’ve noticed, is an idea for a separate project. But you’re absolutely right, there are also real-world problems and you need to have different options in reserve if you want to keep developing continuously. I’m taking note of all of this, but one thing I’ve learned is to bring things to the end and focus on the current goal right now.